Since I took the free week from Blizzard, I thought I  would return to WAR for a bit and see what changes this game has undergone.  Mythic offers 2 free weeks to returnees in an effort to re-hook interest.

When I had left the game, the patch that was supposed to change everything did.  The change it wrought was a hemorrhage of remaining players.  The new gear led to the creation of god like player characters that could practically fight warbands single handed.  The BO timers, NPC guards and zone points were taken away.  Which meant people wandered around a bit aimlessly then finally coalescing at a keep.  Even then only war machines could take down a door, since they were now resistant to range and melee damage.  That led to people just standing around the keep door.  I left the game.

Since then Mythic has taken considerable power away from the end game PvP armor sets, warpforged and doomflayer.  That has eased up on lower RR players a bit.  However checking my damage against other players, I still see opposing players immune to ALL of my attacks.  This is wrong.  There should never, ever, ever, never, ever be full immunity to attacks in a PVP game.

The campaign is still in a shambles with aimless wandering.  Even more distressingly, the standard of private warbands and private groups is now the only standard.  Open warbands are left out of the loop.  Since the Realm 4 chat channel is only open to guild leaders, no one can send messages out on it to report on activity.  During my heyday in the game the chat channels were filled with chatter and skirmish updates.  Open warbands were always in creation.  Even I was able to lead a few warbands.  Those days it seems, are over.  And for what reason?  Because a few control freaks were pissed off that there were renown leachers sitting at BOs, keeps or at the entrance of the RvR lake.  Was that problem annoying?  Yes.  Did it need addressing?  Maybe, but more likely not.  Because now that there are no clear cut goals, no points to rally, no group synergy, the game is now truly fading.

Warhammer Online has become a private club kind of atmosphere.  Which means you must join a guild, a very big guild and a popular one at that.  Because that is the only way you will see action.  Otherwise, a player will just have to wander, hook up with various wandering groups that will allow tagalongs and expect no heals.  And all of this because a few screechers couldn't stand renown slackers.  You know what, I would rather have the old campaign, warts and all rather than this silent, asocial atmosphere.

The game is now down to 2 American servers.  That should tell the game developers, that yes, you do need fricking renown leechers.  Those leechers are paying for this damn game.  That should tell the game developers to stop listening to the top level players and bloggers.  These people are too close to the fire to give a well rounded view of the actual game.  And considering the last few recent updates, I can only seeing it get worse before it gets better.  The players in the developer talking circle are still screeching about renown leechers.  But are unable to connect the empty RvR lakes, no campaign rally points, and ridiculous immunity advantages to the fact that they are encouraging the developers to make the game as unfriendly to new players as possible.  The fact that the server Badlands went from overpopulated to now needing to be merged to the last server Gorfang, should tell these "elite" players that they don't know how to give good advice to this game's developers.

The latest boogaboo among the elites is the PvE areas.  Which they say are wasted.  And yes I agree they are wasted.  But I doubt any of them have played the PvE areas like I have.  And I say, the PvE quests were wonderful.  The story arcs in the quests were fantastic.  The only thing that needed addressing in these areas were that they needed to be integrated into the campaign more, to have them give a nice amount of renown but not as much as the RvR lakes.  They also needed to be examined for bugs and NPC damage tuning.  That was all.  If the PvE area had been useful, I doubt the game would have bled players so profusely.  Now it looks as if all that hard work for the quests will be thrown out the window.  So that it can all be RvR area.  Will that get back more players? Not a bit.

To the developers of this game, I would say go back in time and objectively look at the previous campaign ideas.  During which iteration encouraged more player activity, which did not and which led to players fleeing.  Seriously consider the advice elite players have given.  Did any of them lead to more player retention?  Honestly?

Time is of the essence now for this game and I hope they can pull it back from the edge.

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.

Warhammer Woe

I'm not a PvP fan.  Let me be clear about this fact.  I don't PvP in any game except for Warhammer Online.  For whatever reason, WAR made player versus player gaming feasible for me.  I did try this form of play in Warcraft.  But that game's emphasis on it's arena system was a clear move to inhibit casual players.  Warhammer Online with it's fantastic warband system was perfect for hardcore and casual gamers alike.

And I do emphasize "Was".

Because with the latest patch update, the factor that made casual playing easier is gone.  Instead of finding more ways to open up the RvR system, the developers locked it down further.  They took away the influence aspect toward zone lockdowns.  I didn't mind when the PvE requirements or Scenario requirements were jettisoned.  However those changes made the game dependent on large groups to hold objectives and gain skirmish points.  Clearly, on unbalanced servers, this made it harder for the smaller faction to win anything.  The long awaited 1.4 patch was an effort to rebalance the problems.  But it has only accelerated the zerg factor.

Another problem that cropped up, previously only seen during city sieges, was closed, alliance guild only warbands.  Because the changes require a more pointed offense toward claiming keeps and keep sieges most players will now only undertake this with their guild and affiliated guilds.  The few times I've logged on since the patch change, I check the war update option, go to the highest populated area then check for open warbands.  There are none.  Believe me they are in existence and clearly trying to gain objectives, but they are private.  These warbands use private channels and rarely update stray groups and players as to what they are doing in game.  Many use the argument that you can gain more experience through ganking.  That can be true, but it really only works if you are on the underdog faction.  As a destruction player that is a rare occurrence on my server.

So now with less ways to gain renown experience (no rr points for objectives or keep sieges now), practically no way to join a warband (unless a casual one opens up), gaining those extra levels to 100 is a grind.  My Sorceress was at RR66 and I was looking forward to end cap.  But now with 34 slow levels ahead of me, I'm throwing in the towel.  I cry uncle.  Already I'm seeing an even more ridiculous imbalance between players who are closer to 100 end cap and new players to Tier 4.  There is just no way on this green earth a player below RR60 can make a dent in this game.  The old arguments of skill bridging that big of a gap in levels just doesn't work anymore.

Warhammer Online is now no longer casual friendly.  The new patch dearly needed a new tier to separate the post RR80 players from the lower levels.  But I don't think this will ever happen.  The game is on a skeleton crew development wise as it is.  And I don't see EA infusing more cash into this game.  Its a shame really.

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?

Fumigating the Laundry

So the Warhammer Online community, really the game community in general, is abuzz over a tell all blog post from an alleged employee from Mythic Bioware EA.

I'm not going to link it because that information is out there already.  Just check the back posts of Massively.com.  And I'm disappointed at Massively publishing this bit with practically no research at all.  The blog post doesn't reveal anything new about WAR or it's backstory.  It throws out unverifiable gossip about key players in the company.  But there is nothing concrete about what is happening now.  There is no information about things in development now such as the new "RvR Packs".  The blog gives no information about what WAR fans are really worried about, is the game set for closure in the next year or two?  Does the game have enough subs to justify at least a maintenance mode life?  The ranter did throw in some blows toward the still in development SW:TOR game.  Which frankly was just a bizarre addition to a post that was about WAR.

Of course the game community is loving the controversy and it's starting yet another cycle of anti-WAR sentiment.

Now my opinion of the WAR game.  I enjoy it.  I enjoy playing it a lot.  Lately I've been taking a break from it.  But I'm never bored when I am in world.  Does that mean I think everything is wine and roses with it?  NO, heck no.  I've experienced the bugs and some class imbalance issues that make others rage for hours on end.  I've seen the unfinished RvE content that many gamers would really like to see developed alongside the RvR.  Yes, I've been playing online games long enough to know that many developers have amorality problems and superiority complexes.  They also have a jones for questionable beliefs such as singularity, scrum and objectivism.  Social Darwinism is a beloved ethic among these folks.

The problems the ranter barely touched upon in his post are an all encompassing problem in contemporary capitalism today.  Not only in the gaming industry.

These problems are a direct result of game development community's devout belief in free trade and Ayn Randism.

If the game developer community hadn't been so eager to throw away their worker's rights to the winds during the go-go days of 90's/early 00's, then there would be no need for half-baked blogs like this one.  If they had decided to unionize and group together for equal rights against company management there would be no Bobby Koticks etc.  There would never have been an exodus of their jobs to India, China etc.

Well the horses are out of the barn on that one.  So the lowly developers have to scratch and bite one another  over chump change.  They didn't unionize so all they are left with are blogs to rant.  Will it get anything done?  No.  It just amuses the circus and makes the people in charge laugh.

Instead of ranting, this self named "Louse" should be getting up on a desk and holding up a Union sign.  The game industry needs more Norma Rae not Ayn Rand.

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.

Scenes from Warhammer

I'm still in WAR and trying to work my main to RR80.  Which is hard for me because my interest waxes and wanes.  I'm always in awe of people who have multiple high level characters.

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 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. ;)