Way back before the holiday mayhem started, I received a promotional from Blizzard to play the Pandaria expansion for two weeks.  I wasn't feeling any real need to go back to WoW but I heard so many good things about the latest expansion that I took them up on their offer.  Amazingly, Blizzard managed to get back a little of the magic that surrounded the game during the heady Lich King days.

What Blizzard had managed to do was keep all the great things about the Cataclysm expansion and curtail its excesses (such as too many cutscenes, phasing and vehicle quests).  The smooth sailing questing lines that I enjoyed in Cataclysm, with no back and forth to the same areas, has been introduced to Pandaria as well.  I loved the new story lines and the mysterious Pandaren continent.  As crazy as it may seem, Blizzard managed to throw off its European Middle Ages Sword fantasy shtick and totally immerse itself in Chinese Middle Ages Sword fantasy shtick.  The new expansion feels like a different game.

The artwork is absolutely fantastic.  Despite the low fi graphics, Pandaria looks lush and colorful.  Great attention was paid to creating wide open spaces as players leave the initial forest area.  The vistas are gorgeous and created with care to mimic real Chinese scenery.  The game's equivalent of The Great Wall is a true achievement.  What is even more, the new score for the expansion is just as beautiful and matches the art.

The class tree lines have been pared down to very straight and simple techniques.  On my Paladin main, this was a relief.  I mostly played as a Retribution Paladin since I mainly just solo play.  During Cataclysm my Pally was hamstrung because her hits depended on the game's casino wheel to roll triple diamonds.  This meant she either wiped NPCs with just a look or she would be forced to keep hitting for minutes on end.  It was strange and frustrating.  Thankfully that is all gone.  The wheel of big hits has been tamed and now Pallys do reliable damage.  I spent a bit of time on my other main, a warlock and she is doing rather well too.  However the warlock is nowhere near the powerhouse it used to be and was once the scourge of PvP and PvE alike.

Cross server areas....  I'm holding back my opinion on this element.  This was Blizzard's way of trying not to close empty servers.  In fact I was a little dismayed and confused when I was visiting Silvermoon to see it filled with players with hyphenated designations/server names.  There are only certain areas where the cross servers work and those areas are mostly low population.  However I've noticed that it hasn't led to happy, happy family results.  It mostly leads to people from my server snarling at cross server visitors to go back to their own servers.  It doesn't help that the players sharing my server are from Moonguard (which has a terrible reputation as being the red light district of WOW).   We'll see where this goes eventually.

I have run two dungeons so far, Stormstout Brewery and Shado-Pan Monastery.  Both times I held my breath when I signed up for LFG.  WoW still has a terrible reputation for nastiness among its players.  I have to admit I rarely experienced this in any group, even during my heyday in the game.  However I am no longer the player I used to be nor even half as good.  So I was terrified of being cut out of a dungeon run.  My fears were unfounded and the two groups I was matched with were calm and cool.  Out of the two dungeons I found Stormstout the more enjoyable.  The fights were slapstick instead of the intense atmosphere in Shado-Pan.  I especially enjoyed rolling barrels into a monkey boss who liked to throw banana peels at players.

So far I have found a lot of enjoyment in this expansion, and I was glad to purchase a few extra months to see it develop.  Does that mean I will be going back to WOW.  I'm not sure.  I'm not the motivated player I was years ago and there are times when weeks go by in which I don't play any games.  A regular subscription isn't cost effective for me at this time.  But I can say that I will probably spend 3 to to 6 months in Pandaria.  Because right now, looking out at the game scenery while standing on the Great Wall is just too enchanting.

Dionysian Bacchanalia

History is a study of circles.  We all know this and yet we travel in the same rut.  We ignore the well worn signs.

Life at the end of Weimar Berlin is now.  Just as Weimar Berlin was the same as any great culture on the verge of collapse from Greek to Roman to Ming to Mayan.  People sense the impending disorder, get nervous and mindless just like wildebeest do when sensing an approaching predator.

Leave your Troubles Outside!

So Life is Disappointing?  Forget it!

In here, life is beautiful!

The Girls are Beautiful!

Even the Orchestra is Beautiful!

At those tipping points, people find release in fantasy.  We create a spot for ourselves in that cave of wealth and death (written about by blogger Elaine Meinel Supkis).  In that cave we play with mirror societies.  Those mirror societies are decadent, they push social norms and explore new expression.  Of course, this all has to do with sexuality because the cave is sex at it's most basic and it is a death too.

In the past, these mirror societies were created by artists.  Audiences with similar desires, but with no talents, would vicariously live through the artists' work.  But at our moment in time, that has been destroyed. Our current art and performance offerings are not allowing us the release we need.  In fact, our current culture is fighting the very need for release.  But this impulse cannot be denied, it must find an outlet.

Virtual reality has allowed the previously untalented spectator to recreate the cabaret, to celebrate the Bacchanalia and push boundaries.  In VR, as the song says, life is beautiful even the girls are beautiful. In VR we explore sexuality and gender roles.  In VR, women can be men and men can be women.  What is beauty or sexy?  In the past, the artists had all the fun while we watched.  Now, in this temporary bubble of order and disorder, anyone can take part in the cabaret.

In most articles on VR, Second Life is most often pushed as the pinnacle of decadence.  But SL is not the only cabaret.  It exists even in World of Warcraft, where many have designated the Inn at Goldshire (on just about every server) as a free zone for Bacchus.

Of course, the developers have no idea what they created or why it makes people drunk.  I believe Prokofy Neva once pointed out on his blog, that the developers are largely conservative.  They are more attracted to tight-ass, fascistic movements such as Singularity.  They have no idea what to do with the "freaks" who settled in their utopia.  Far from playing masters or mistresses of ceremonies, they want to change everyone into their ideas of what VR should be, of what avatars should be or how we should play their games.

If only some enlightened developer would come along and willingly become an avatar of Dionysus.  To delineate for the revelers the sensible division between fantasy and reality.  To stop the nonsense that VR drunkards are currently telling everyone, that their drunken revelries are part of real life.

But I suppose we should be happy with what we have now.  It won't last...when the money runs out and the backlash takes back our new ground.  The merry-go-round goes on....

Don't Trust A Rogue

It is time for another WoW video complete with corny Blood Elves.  The ongoing joke is that no one likes this character class.  But I know everyone in the game probably has a Blood Elf in their alt closet.

The Free Week

Much has been made about the announcement a few months ago that World of Warcraft lost quite a number of subscriptions.  It was surprising to many especially since the last expansion was only just released last holiday season.  The mmorpg fanbase exploded into various chatter that exulted in Blizzard's fall from grace and worry that the game was beginning to fail.  The Blizzard forums were overwhelmed by posts calling the expansion a very real Cataclysm and begging Blizzard to start merging empty servers.  It seems the schadenfreude talking heads won the day because recently Blizzard turned it's introductory areas to unlimited free to play.  A policy that was seen before in the less than popular Warhammer Online a few years ago.  This move caused even more chatter with greedy demands that the whole game be turned free to play.

I'm included in those lost subscriptions that caused this major change.  I left the game last year due to burnout over the dungeon treadmill.  I returned during the weeks leading up to the new expansion and only stayed about two months after it released.  During that time I barely played the game at all.  I did take a look at the new Goblin and Worgen areas.  And in my post a few months back I was alternately impressed and a little dismayed by them.  But I lost the energy to keep playing to see the end game areas on my top level characters.

This past week I received an email from Blizzard offering a free week to celebrate the latest update patch.  I decided to go back to take a look.

This time I concentrated on leveling my high level character.  I took this character through Hyjal and into Deepholm.  The quest design in the end game areas match the polish shown in the new Goblin and Worgen areas.  Everything is streamlined, intuitive and packed with good story tidbits.  There is minimal to no grind at all.  A player will never have to keep returning to the same areas to collect just one more object or kill one more baddie.  I really enjoyed the pace that the quests set and I never felt as if I was stagnating on a treadmill to prolong the leveling usefulness.  However the problems in the Goblin/Worgen areas are also present in the end game areas which include too much phasing, vehicle quests and cut scenes.  All of which took control of my character away from me and again left me feeling I was sitting in a Disney World ride.  I was also a bit dismayed to discover that the whole playstyle of this character (Paladin) was changed.  In WOTLK, the character had good utility and steady damage.  Granted there were areas that could be toned down and some toned up but the class was in a good place.  But this was thrown out and the class now plays like a slot machine.  Every move I make, I cross my fingers and hope to pull triple diamonds in order to do any damage at all.  In every fight I'm not sure if the character will destroy an NPC without blinking, do balanced damage or just keep hitting the NPC with no damage at all.  I don't understand this need developers have to throw out class design every few months or years.  That isn't something I have patience for anymore in any game.

All in all despite the few niggling problems I have with the new areas, I can't say that Blizzard went totally wrong with the new expansion.  In fact many of it's elements are better than WOTLK and BC.  Therefore my explanations for the surprising subscription loss are due to the ongoing economic Depression and an over saturation in the MMORPG market.  There are only so many games for which people can pay regular subscriptions.  That leads to careful picking on which games to play.  It turns out that the people prone to play MMORPGs are already playing and the audience is probably at it's peak.  This group for the most part cut it's baby teeth in World of Warcraft, they are a bit bored with the familiar game and now are spreading out to see other games in the market.  Some would rather pay a subscription to the new Rift now than go back to the same old WoW.  Another major change in the market are the rise of the asian based Free to Plays and western games that follow the same F2P model.  The F2P games are a very real threat to the old subscription model games and as the Depression gets worse their rise will gain more momentum.  Many of the asian F2P games rival the subscription style games in graphics and play style.  Many of the F2P games now are former A listed subscription games.

But does this mean WoW is failing?  I don't think that is case.  It will be chugging along for many years to come.  But it's heyday is most likely past.

My VR Photostream

My Flickr photos in Pummelvision from Melponeme_k on Vimeo.


I discovered the link to Pummelvision on GoSpeed Racer's webpage.

Its an interesting stream of all my VR travels including a few flashes of my RL photos.  It is the RL that looks bizarre in this grouping.

So Lucky

Ah the WoW years.

This was a cute vid, probably staged but I don't mind.  The song was ridiculously silly.

Kung Fu Pandaren

I don't get the Pandaren joke in WoW.  But I did get the pet created for a charity drive.

This video was featured on WoW insider.

Please keep your hands and feet safely in the vehicle at all times!

So, around the end of November I received a free week offer from Blizzard.  This was right around the time when the Azeroth was going to be torn asunder.  I took them up on that offer.

During that time, I decided to work on my Warlock (essentially the first character I rolled in WoW) and got her up to level 80.  The recent patches before the Cataclysm quickened the pace of leveling in Northrend.  My warlock was high level before I could blink.  During that time, I found I enjoyed playing again.  This time I was more relaxed because I swore I wouldn't start the gear grind again.  I changed my Warlock's spec from demonology to affliction.  The dungeons I ran her through were relaxing with fellow puggers who weren't hard core.  Most likely because they were working on Alts as well.

I caught the tail end of the elemental invasion which caused more annoyance than entertainment.  Everyone received what gear they needed from these raid like mini-games, so no one bothered to fight the invaders anymore.  That caused the cities to be needlessly closed for about 15 to 30 minutes every few hours.  At least they created portals so low levels could get out of the area without being smashed.  However the event was nowhere near as satisfying as the zombie invasion of Lich King.

Then the Cataclysm hit.  To get the feel of the full changes I rolled new characters on Horde and Alliance.  I created an Undead Hunter and a Night Elf Mage.  I must admit that the new quests in the once older sections were much better.  The leveling more smooth and the difficulty levels a little more even.  I remembered the Undead areas used to go from a difficulty rating of 3 to 10 all in one jump.  It was wild.  The Night Elf area was much worse.  But the new expansion fixed all of that craziness.  The quests are still the same, but the harder ones now give an NPC companion to help out.   Classes that used to have to grind for their pets (Warlock and Hunter) now get basic companions from the start.  Which makes the play much easier.  I quickly ran through the new gnome start area which was sickeningly adorable.  But I enjoyed it.

The most impressive change was the city of Orgrimmar.  Which is no longer a place of tent bazaars but metal clad stone buildings and huge zeppelin towers.  The new factor of Orgrimmar became a point of contention on the forums between Horde and Alliance players.  Alliance players stating that Horde players practically received a whole new city while Stormwind looked the same.

When the official release of Cataclysm occurred (I just ordered the basic internet download), I rolled both Goblin and Worgen characters.  That is where my enjoyment became a bit dampened.  Don't get me wrong, the new zones and toons were very nicely done.  I saw elements in the game play that were taken from other games such as WAR and LOTRO in terms of progression techniques and a bit of art work.  But nothing that would scream out plagiarism.

However, the goblin area in particular just seemed to be one big lampoon of the current popular culture.  Which I don't think will age too nicely.  The Worgen area received a more loving touch with very Lovecraftian themes.  What I didn't like about the new areas (and also the 80-85 areas) was the extensive use of cut scenes.  These new cut scenes don't cause me to feel excitement for the storyline.  They took me out of it.  They froze my character for a minute or two and took control of my game play.  It made me feel as if was inside a Disney World ride and I was just watching the game from the safety of my buggy.

So will I return like the prodigal gaming daughter to the Blizzard fold? No, I don't think so.  I paid for three months of the new expansion.  But I don't see anything for me in Warcraft at the moment.  But I'm an old, washed up WoW has been/never been.  The game is really for MMORPGs newbies.  And if this is the first game of it's type that a new player could pick up, then they could be nothing but impressed.  Azeroth is accessible and enjoyable.  The graphics are cute (although a lot of hardcore gamers complain of their simplicity).  The leveling is simple and non-stressful.  There are some jokes in the game that I think are more than a bit offensive but I think most would overlook them. It is a matter of taste after all.

So yes, I would still recommend WoW as a game for most would be players.  There is still nothing else like it in terms of brand and gaming accessibility.

So it ends

I just realized today that I have no interest in Warcraft anymore and won't be returning for the new expansion.  Its surprising because I loved the game so much.

I just don't want to get on that treadmill again.

I'm also finally giving up the ghost in Warhammer Online as well.  I'm just not looking forward to the extra renown points to grind out in WAR, especially when I was so close to level 80.  The new finish line is so far away.

So it seems my tolerance for mmorpgs is about a year to two years.  I have a few more months of patience for Wizard 101 and LOTR.  So I'm not totally gameless.

Ah well, we all have to grow up at some point in our lives.  Right?

Race Play

In every game I play, I usually create loads of alts.  I've cross gendered by creating male characters.  But the more interesting experiences occur when I play as a character of another race.

Does racism exist in virtual worlds?  Well, all any player needs to do is consciously be aware of how many players appear as ethnic avatars.  In my experience not many at all to the point of non-existant.  Some games do not even give players a chance to even choose a darker skin color.  What they give as a sop to ethnicity is a kind of tan color.  Warcraft and Warhammer are games in the latter category.  Their argument could be that they are fantasy games.  Which is just bunch of crap.  There is absolutely no reason why an avatar can't be black in a fantasy game.

The child's game Wizard 101 has admirably included black avatars for their game base.  My character on the top of the page is just such an example.  Why did I create her?  Well, it was spur of the moment when I decided to roll another alt.  But also I wanted an avatar that represented another race.  Despite being offered, only very few of the players in Wizard 101 play as anything other than caucasian.  Her class in the game is a tank based school which means she is strong and primarily protects other players.  As soon as I got out of the orientation phase of the game, I ran into another player.  This player barked at my character, I suppose to convey the opinion that he/she thought my avatar was dog ugly.  Since Wizard 101 only offers about 10 different facial expressions (all of which look about the same), I could only deduce that this barking player found my avatar's skin color unattractive.  I suppose in the minds of some online bigots, mmorpgs are all white people or we should present ourselves as white.

In Second Life there is a different problem posed that causes me discomfort.  Because the game can be as photorealistic as possible, representing another race leads to the question of cultural authenticity.  Second Life is a visual feast and the players inside it are continually seeking beauty.  That beauty leads many to use avatars that can be any race as long as they are lovely to behold.  While being black in SL is  to stand out,  it won't cause troglodytes to bark at you.  At least, I've never experienced hostility from other players.  But that isn't to say that it doesn't exist in SL.  Racism is alive and well wherever human beings bring their personal failures.  Using a black avatar leads me to this disturbing concept...is representing myself as a black a kind of blackface?  Is it another form of racism?  In my quest for beauty (see the above photorealistic avatar) am I fetishizing other races?

To approach the problem another way I think of my own race...Native American.  How do I feel when my race is represented.  On the surface, it doesn't bother me.  But it certainly upsets me if I think about the context in which my race is represented.    If the person behind the avatar is using my race as a joke, as a stereotype or as a kind of role play slave then it certainly does upset me.  Sometimes there are well-meaning but delusional people who think they are emulating or re-enacting real events.  They reside in historical SL sims that copy the days of manifest destiny.  A time when my race had no civil rights, had no voice, were marginalized at every turn and murdered if it wouldn't raise any eyebrows.  Role playing this in a VR is not healthy.  It helps no one.  It does not lead to new insights.  It just perpetuates racism.  When I think of someone impersonating my race in that fashion, it is upsetting.  So is representing myself as black the same thing?

In many ways, yes, it is.  I make no claim to know the what it is like to grow up black in the US.  Although I have experienced many kinds of racism growing up due to being a native, I will never know the kind that black people experience in their lives.  I will never know the legacy of being the descendants of slavery.  I cannot even speak with authority on racism in virtuality since I've only seen glimpses.  When I think of this, I feel that it is not my place to use a black avatar.  But then I equally notice how very few or non-existant black avatars there are in these worlds.  They are marginalized and without voice.  There nonexistence impresses the subtle notion in gamers minds that an all/ or only white world is "normal".  And that anyone with shades of skin darker than pale are abnormal.  When I think of this, then I obstinately do wear Black avatars and all other non-white avatars to break that cycle.

Because VR is a learning place.  And what we are learning, or in fact re-indoctrinating ourselves with the notion, that dehumanization is normal.  It is right.  And when someone barks at a black avatar in a child's mmo, it is okay because players should not be anything other than white.

Revolution Pays

We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
Mike Morhaim CEO Blizzard Entertainment

This announcement is good news.  It shows that we, the people, still have power to influence.

The quick pullback on this odious policy indicates to me that the protest cancellations were large enough to make an impact.

But I think the true reason that broke this camel's back was that Blizzard faced a true "Let them eat Cake" disaster.

On a protest blog, a number of Blizzard employee information was culled by using their real names.  Not only that, the information for extended family was revealed as well.

The wife of one Blizzard Exec was documented to have complained on her Facebook about her lack of money to pay for a personal trainer for more than 4 days.

Considering that we are in the thick of a depression, that World of Warcraft is financed by people in dire straits (most likely the one luxury still open to them like the movies were in the 30's), this kind of entitled behavior did not look good.  There was just no way to combat that kind of bad press.

However, the ideas behind this policy are still enthralling the tech elites.  And its just a test shot in a coming war over our rights online.  We will have more battles to face in the future.

You will share your name!

Blizzard Activision has just announced that their forums will be linked to their REAL ID system.

Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

Up until now, the REAL ID system was plugged by the Warcraft crowd as a useful tool to keep track of real friends/family while in game.  But now that this system it shows that the tracking system is all pervasive and the perfect opportunity.  The perfect opportunity to live in the future that businessmen such as Mr. Jesse Schell, and others in the tech world, would like us to bend over and take with a smile.

In true California Business Plan fashion the company direction is dressed in faux concerns, such as preventing trolls.  Which is a bunch of pure bullshit.

Obviously the opt-in push for this program was not as successful as Blizzard Activision planned it would be.  At least certainly not enough people signed up for it in order to make it feasible as a marketing cash crop.  So the company needed another way to push Real Id, and that was the forum angle.  Most say that the forums represent a small portion of the Warcraft player base.  But truthfully I don't believe that, not if the company thought it was a large enough linchpin to get the Real Id program started.  As players have repeatedly pointed out on Blizzard forums, all customer service policy questions ultimately lead to the forums.  So any kind of customer service problem will lead to a player having to opt in to Real Id if they want help.

Revealing the names of the players also leads to larger problems of stalking.  This policy opens up problems for female gamers, children/teens gamers and LGBT gamers.  The gaming community at large, is not a welcoming place for minorities.  The last thing the majority racist, homophobic and sexist player base needs is a way to track down the players they don't like.  As for trolls on the forums, I have a hard time figuring out what a troll actually is and what people will unanimously agree is a troll.  Is it a person who posts thoughtfully but doesn't agree with the majority opinion?  Is it a person who debates vigorously on game policies that they like or don't like?  Or is it that ridiculous person who just throws out nonsensical but aggressive gibberish towards one and all?  What I see mostly on forums is people with legitimate concerns being labeled trolls and their speech is curtailed.  The gibberish people are allowed to post at will with no consequences.  There are better ways to deal with the gibberish and they don't include pimping out the real names of the player base.

As of now Blizzard Activision is silent on this new policy.  Which indicates to me that its full steam ahead.  On their own forums and around the blogosphere there are reports that enough people are quitting over this new policy to cause a slow down on their account servers.

But they aren't blinking.  And they won't blink or cry uncle.  Because everyone must realize that we are in a struggle.  Jaron Lanier pointed out that the tech world, as it is now, has debased our culture so much that the only value that can be gleaned from anything is from advertising dollars.  The commercial is sacrosanct in the tech world.  They have barricaded themselves into a corner with the "info wants to be free" meme that the only money they can receive for their services is in advertising.  To get to that cash cow, they will happily sell out the regular people.

Blizzard Activision has a deal with Facebook.  Obviously they think that the masses of Facebook Farmville addicts (most of whom are not mmorpg gamers) are an untapped resource that will gladly move to Warcraft.  That they are enough of a sure bet that these Farmville fans will replace the people leaving due to Real Id controversy.  Since the Farmville people have already revealed their personal information on Facebook, they will have no problem with revealing it for Warcraft.

They are putting this to the test right now.  Because the world that Mr. Schell celebrated is the world the tech companies want.  A world with no personal barriers, in which advertisers can pick over your carcass to send you targeted advertising that will reward you with funny money from the latest game.  Its a no cost world out there for the tech elites.  But we can expect to pay, pay more and pay again.

These are not photographs

The screenshots taken above are not photographs.  They are screenshots of proprietary material, each and every one.  If I were to put these forth as an example of artistic effort, I would be laughed out of any art institution open today.  What these are...are souvenirs of different mmo worlds.  Again, the artwork does not belong to me.  Unlike taking photos in public places in RL, these mmo worlds are not public.  They all require some fee to access their content.

Somewhere in the process of mmo creation, Second Life has put forth the idea that people who take screenshots are artists.  I suppose it can be possible.  But for that to be true, they should be the creators of anything contained in the screenshot plus the screenshot itself.  Otherwise taking an mmo screenshot is the equivalent of taking a screenshot of a film.  No matter how much you crop it, edit it and put fancy effects on it via photoshop, the screenshot will never belong to you.

I too once thought that Second Life was different.  But it isn't.  It merely pushes forth it's underlying ethos of creative commons, info wants to be free meme.  Which means it subtly denudes creators of their copyright rights.  Recently, as I wrote before, Second Life has changed their TOS to decree practically all of SL to be a public zone.  Which means everyone has the "right" to go around and take screenshots. It cuts off creators from the right to control whether or not they want screenshots to be taken.  Its also worse since some landscape designers use creations from others and can not give permission for the items they only use not create.

What LL is attempting to do is blur the lines, to use it's customers as proxies to scrape data (much in the way CC zealots like to push forth music downloads), to take value from the creators.  In the process transferring the value from the creator to the screenshot taker.  Why is it so hard to understand the difference between say Renderosity (that sells material with some commercial rights attached), to the totally proprietary material in Second Life?  All the screenshots above are the same.  I don't own them.

Many SL users have had this smoke blown up their asses for so long, that they feel they have rights to sell their screenshots or claim artistic titles.  NO, no, no, no.  These are not photographs.  These are not the same as going into the RL street and taking photos with a theme in mind, with technique or inspiration.  This is more like RPing a photographer.  Which is why this article from New World Notes is so wrong headed.

If you have any talent or interest in photography, go out and take photos.  Those photos will be yours.  Those photos will have room to grow and open up to artistic efforts.  Screenshots are a dead end.  They are merely just a past time.  If computer art is your thing, then learn to create computer images that you own totally.

Just don't be a party to the big data scrape that ethics free Silicon Valley loves to support and make easy money on.

City Siege

I started playing Warhammer back in August when the client was given a Mac hack in the form of a Cider app.  WoW exhaustion was already setting in with me, so WAR was a refreshing change.  Even with some of it's wonky lag problems.  I wrote a small, positive review on my regular blog.  This little blurb is another look at the game since I have reached end game material.

End game is problematic in Warhammer Online.  But it is by no means different in it's problems than any other massive online game.  They all suffer from the same problems, mainly player exhaustion and material repetition.  Warcraft has the same problem but their sheen of popularity masks it, plus they have pushed the leveling curve to a ridiculous extreme.

Truthfully FPS games are, by their very nature, perfect for human consumption. They are short, they have character accomplishments, they have story arcs and then (most importantly) they end.  Deep down inside our psyches, we have the 3 act play structure ingrained inside each of us.  We want a beginning, middle and end.  What happens in mmorpgs, is that there is no "end" end.  Once the accomplishments and talents are over, the players are stuck in some kind of limbo.  Game devs then face the Sisyphean task of throwing new features into the void to satisfy restless VR denizens.  There can only be so many levels before it becomes ridiculous.  I mean, who wants to start a new character in these games when the leveling curve is set at 80 and above?  Not only that, to feed the need for accomplishment without leveling, game developers branch out into armor set perks.  Which then gimps lower accomplished players against these player "gods" kitted out in fancy armor.  Cynically what it comes down to is that there is no solution to these end game problems in mmorpgs.  Unless there is a mass psychological change in the human race or some genius game creator develops a new kind of game.  Some would say that Second Life was just that attempt.  And what do you know, most game players hate it.  So it goes.

But back Warhammer Online's end game.

WAR's game developers had big visions for massive PvP objectives.  That dream was cut short in a shaky platform and population problems.  In WoW there are enough PvE quests to hide the inevitable for a short time.  But the PvE element is a bit lacking in WAR.  Everything is geared to the goal of city sieges.  The player numbers (better than they were when I began playing) just don't support this set up.  Sometimes the opposing sides are evenly matched and it leads to some fun play time.  But more often there are gross imbalances in player population on either side.  Not to mention the problems of gear disparities between low levels and people at the pinnacle of the game. I've taken my little lowbie Sorceress into end game city sieges and it wasn't a barrel of fun.  I can get a few little pot shots in, which are mostly mitigated by higher levels, before being sent back to the start line.

WAR has also gimped the solo play PvE in end game.  Their Land of the Dead PvE area is only open to each side if they win in PvP areas.  And since the PvP is ever changing that means access to this area can be rather short.  Which means not much can be accomplished.  Not to mention the fact that most of the quests are of the Public Quest variety.  A player needs to be in a well established guild in order to play this area at a moment's notice.

Most of these problems are inherent in the structure of the games themselves.  Its just frustrating that WAR is not only working against that factor but also unpopularity as well.  It promised a lot to a certain type of gamer who loves PvP.  And it couldn't live up to these expectations.  Could any game?  So the former player base has seized on these problems and trumpet the games demise on any forum on the net. Recently WAR had the bad luck of a bug in it's subscription department.  It lead to players being overcharged to a ridiculous degree in subscription fees.  The publicity this garnered was not good, and it could lead to people hesitating to register with the game at all.  On my end, I haven't noticed a population drop.  Free to Play people are still mindlessly running around the newbie Nordland zone and there are more people hanging around levels Tier 2 to 3.  End zone is akin to a small town.  Its filled with familiar names and faces with everyone knowing everyone else's business.

Warhammer has released information that will change some aspects of the end game city sieges.  They have lowered their expectations of massive mob fights and settled for 24 man focused fights.  This could help balance if players cooperate which they may not.  I just took part in a defensive city siege for Inevitable City, and just 5 players from the opposition took part.  Most of the defense players just stood around waiting for the other side to come to the playground but they never did.  So we just capped and recapped empty objectives for the next hour.  Perhaps the changes toward a smaller population will help.

As I stated before, this game has added good elements to the genre.  I hope they can refine what is in the game.

I Play W.O.W - Jace Hall

I still love WoW despite some of it's failings and that isn't a lie.  This video was posted on some mmo fansites and I think it's hilarious.  Great stuff.

Does this mean I'm going back to Azeroth again?  Nah, not in the immediate future.

Retiring

When I created this blog to separate my regular posts and game posts, I thought there would be loads of events to discuss beside SL.  But as it turned out, I decided to retire my WoW account and soon, my Warhammer account.

I still enjoy WoW and always will.  But I had a few insights in the past few months that couldn't be ignored.  The first was regarding game changes to classes and to professions.  And I watched with horror as many player suggestions/protests were ignored and not even addressed by game developers.  This happened regularly with game changes whether they had an effect on my characters or not.  Another aspect that gave me pause was that game developers across the board (WoW and not) let slip their real opinions about the people who pay them money for their games.  They think we are stupid, easy marks to be fleeced for subscription fees.  They equate their games with addiction and seek to discover new ways to keep the addiction running or hook new people into addiction.  The attitudes that these games foster have a very real "Lord of the Flies" feel.  In which mob justice mayhem ruled among players which upset and disgusted me.  Last and not least, my helm experience.  You see that helm on my main?  It took me numerous dungeon runs to get that digital piece of crap.  The first few runs were fun then it quickly turned into a something akin to slavery.  I realized that this helm experience would be repeated with every new piece I would want.  And it wouldn't end with basics but just get worse with each new quest.  All of this was floating around in my mind, when I finally decided to leave.

But all of this was apparent ever since I began to play these games.  Why the break now?  I don't know.  It just took time before I said enough was enough.

I have good memories of WoW.  I liked the quest stories and the cartoon artwork.  Occasionally I would meet another relaxed player who wasn't strung out.  They were good people with which to share the game.  I loved the story buildup to the release of the "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion.  The pets, little non combat companions, were fun and whimsical.  I loved collecting them.  All of this, I liked but it isn't enough to keep me paying a monthly fee.

Technically my subscription ends this Wednesday but I decided to turn today into my last.  Mainly because I feared that I would have a loss of willpower and fall back into the game treadmill.  So what did I do for my last hour of gameplay?  Not much.  It turned out, that with the exception of high level raiding, I did it all.  There wasn't anything new or uncommon for me to complete.  So I made a few frostweave bags for a friend, did some old dailies and one dungeon.

The Forge of Souls dungeon is still a relatively new dungeon from the latest game patch.  I wasn't that familiar with it since I only played it twice.  But there was an armor piece I wanted so I thought I would give it a go one last time.  However I goofed with the LFG system.  What I needed was on the regular run but instead I picked Heroic (hard level).  Everyone in my group was so over geared in play armor that I didn't even notice that the level was set to Heroic.  So I was mighty surprised to the see the achievement badge pop up on the screen after the run.  Afterwards, I thought that I would try for a regular run in the same instance.  But then decided that the mistake and the surprise achievement was a good way to end the game.

So the end was a high note and I was on top.

I don't dance

I've been rethinking my involvement with VRs recently and what I expect to receive from my time inside of them.

And my conclusion is...a whole lot of nothing.  But that is and can be okay.  As long as I know that I'm paying to play.  David Mamet stated about Las Vegas that it only advertises paying to play not playing to win.  He equated it with the Acting school model where this same type of scenario was muddled.  In which aspiring actors were paying schools to feel as if they were winning.  When really they should just be out there...acting where ever they could.   They same type of muddle is inherent in the VRs as well, in that people think they are paying to win not to just play.

The swindle with VRs is that they are giving the illusion that players are gaining accomplishment.  Because due to the way our brains are wired, we can not distinguish the real from the unreal in VR.  I think of avatars as phantom limbs.  Or perhaps that is wrong.  A few years back, I took some lessons in fencing.  What amazed me during training was that it changed the perception of my body boundaries.  I could actually feel my personal space expanding to accommodate the fencing sword, to feel as if I were growing and projecting into a larger sense of self.  The sword became a literal extension of my arm.  Avatars are like the sword that becomes a part of a fencer's body.  But whereas swords are always considered tools, avatars are not.  Our brains look into that upside down VR world and think that they are mirror images.  We think we are seeing ourselves.

Therefore what our illusionary selves accomplish becomes an accomplishment for the real.  It makes us quite willing to jump on the hamster wheel just to feel that few seconds worth of joy through our voodoo dolls.  In the process, we are infantilized.  Its apparent in the very way developers treat their customers (who are keeping them in luxurious lives they are accustomed to), they patronize us.  VR customers are spoken to the way adults speak to toddlers suffering from the terrible twos.  Autonomy is not wanted inside our small children or in game world customers.

So what am I doing if I know its nothing?  Well I'm having fun.  Sometimes too much, which burns me out.  Then I throw tantrums, delete characters and defriend passing acquaintances.  This happened a few times.  And this is what started me thinking.  Even with some fun, why stay?  That was when I decided to wean myself from most of the games I play.  The first and biggest was Warcraft.  I deleted my low level alts and only kept my regulars.  My main has a vanity guild which will be taken care of by a friend while I'm away.  In the back of my mind, I believe that I will go back for the next expansion...Cataclysm.  But that is over 8 to 9 months away and who knows what I'll be doing then.  There is the possibility that my leaving could be permanent.

The next game to go will be Warhammer Online.  I've given myself a few more months with that game then that too will be cancelled.

However, Second Life will be considerably harder to curtail.  Mainly because I do so little inside it except to nest.  The main joy I get out of SL is to own my nicely sized fantasy land plot that I decorate for each season.  I don't really socialize in SL, because I've never really trusted anyone enough in the game.  You see, I never believed that SL was the same as RL.  Its always been a game to me.  And that is a sacrilegious thought to most SL hard core.  But I need boundaries between the real and the fairy tale, it protects me from hazardous addiction.

You see, I don't dance in SL when all is said and done.  I think virtual dancing is ridiculous.  And I've refused to do it which most other players don't understand.  I have the required animations but I don't use them.  Because I love dancing in RL and I'd rather be dancing in RL.  Just the same as I think photo taking in RL gives me more pleasure than celebrating SL screenshots.  My RL photos are mine.  My SL screenshots are jetsam and flotsam which more militant SL players would use to sue me for copyright infringement.

If one can't dance in SL, then they aren't true residents.  And I've discovered that I'm not.  I'm too critical and that gets in my way in-world.  So, I suppose, I should tier down my land to make a smaller monthly payment.  Then go out there and do what makes me happy outside a computer box, to learn that there is more than just paying to play.  When there could be just play.

This blog?  Oh it will continue to exist.  And I will update it with accounts of my travels.  It just won't be as starry eyed as most SL blogs. ;)

The Other Family

On the recent Frontline special "Digital Nation", there was a focus on the possible dangers and also the wonders of technology.  Many in SL were disappointed because they felt the episode focused too much on the dangers.  But I thought the show was very balanced and it's ultimate conclusion was an ancient code that we all know and rarely practice "All Things in Moderation".

Because I'm an inhabitant of VRs (SL, Warcraft, Warhammer, inactive in Eve Online) I found the information about a guild in Warcraft and IBM training employees in SL the most enjoyable.  What stunned the hosts of the show (Rushkoff and Dretzin), was that VR customers were seeking connection perhaps even more than entertainment.  Yes, these places are game worlds but many players have joined in with an eye to turn the places into a public forum, a commons.  Which I think is a bit bittersweet as a goal.  Since all the VRs are ruled with restrictive EULAs that put the kabosh on free speech when it isn't to the fancy of the ruling company elite.  EULAs are a problem that must be dealt with soon if our societal ideals of free discussion without prejudice are to survive the new tech.

While Rushkoff and Dretzin held off on making any evaluations on people trying to build communities in game worlds, it was partly addressed in the section regarding internet game addiction.  In that people who seek out these worlds are, for the most part, people who are not happy with their present status quo. That there is lack in their lives.  So in essence VR residents run off to Warcraft, SL etc to build a social network and support system.  One that is lacking in real space.  Some are successful in this search and some are overtaken by addiction.

This takes me back to idea about the cave of dreams.  Elaine Supkis, at her intriguing blog Culture of Life, describes this cave as the entrance to the deepest parts of our brain.  It is the very subconscious, the font to which we all return to each night in our dreams.  Within this cave holds riches, wishes, luck, love and hate.  The fairy tales always hold warnings about the cave.  The cave is a wonderous place but there is always a fairy tale warning that we cannot take any riches from the cave, we can not eat the delicious food of the cave or love the gods/goddesses living in the cave.  Because to do so is to become entangled in unbalanced desires and to bring down ruin.  In essence to take means to suffer the fate of Midas.  The only people who survive the cave are pure of heart and free from desires.

A new Fairy Tale that holds a warning about VR is the film "Coraline".   Its a classic tale of the cave.  A young girl who is unhappy with her life, who has lost her old home and social network, discovers the cave entrance to another world.  And in that world she discovers "the other mother", "the other father", and "the other friends".  In that world, these others are all perfect, happy and live to make her feel better about herself.  This question of other family reminds me of SL people who do indeed have  "other families" inside the game.  It strikes me as incredibly unbalanced.  Yet it gives them sustenance.  But at what cost?  These are people who don't know the nitty gritty of each other's lives.  They are not experiencing the same set backs or joys.  We are all in SL as others and with the goal in mind to be accepting...supportive.  We are all there to share in the fantasy and that is dangerous.  It tricks us into thinking we are living a life when really we are just crawling down a cob webbed corridor to something dark that lies in the deepest reaches of our brains.

Here is a link to the online stream version of Digital Nation.