Questing in RIFT: Not As Bad As You’ve Heard

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a. MMORPG

March 22, 2011

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RIFT’s questing sucks.

I’ve heard this said over and over again. Every time it’s by someone who has played MMOs for the last 3+ years and has completed no less than 50,000 of them. Let’s please keep our objectivity here, because, I’ve got to tell you, RIFT is no worse than any other game out there. It is Kill Ten Rats, Collect Ten Foozles, Zap 10 Badwots with the Magical Badwot Zapper, but you know what? It does it with style. It’s flashy. It’s fast paced. It’s dangerous. Those are three things quests should be. Quests don’t overstay their welcome (most of the time). For the most part, you hit a hub, do some quests, do some follow-up quests, and move on. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a good Epic Story thrown in there.

Sounds familiar, probably.

See, this is what I don’t get. We can rail against RIFT for having “crap quests” and yet cheer it on for being “familiar.” This and a few other double standards somewhat amaze me. Quests are what we’ve seen before. Yes. They are. Does that make the game less fun? Does it make LotRO, or Age of Conan, or Aion less fun? Let’s just do ourselves a solid, right now: Everything pre-Cataclysm sucks. Cataclysm was the tipping point, it seems, because from that point onward big chunks of the MMO blogosphere got done with the questing system.

And that’s really what it is: players are just done with the questing system. To say that RIFT’s quests are so bad completely lacks context. RIFT’s quests would have fit in very well last year. For what they are, they’re fun. They’re not breaking the mold with soul-like innovations, no, but they are standard MMO fare. The people saying questing sucks so bad are the same people who have already played this system in LotRO, and Age of Conan, and Aion. They’re also the same people most excited about SW:TOR, and Guild Wars 2, and Dynamic Content.  They have sampled the sweetest fruits and most varied fruits and found RIFT lacking. Let’s be clear here: RIFT is no worse than those other games and in some ways is better. The ways it’s better are the little details where Trion’s flair comes out. And yeah, I agree, I wish there was more of that.To say that there is some grand difference, that RIFT is “unfun” is a damnation that would better read “I’m SO tired of the questing system.”

Yet, to simply say “this, the biggest part of the game, the one you’ll be stuck in for the next 49 levels, is unfun,” is tantamount to saying “don’t bother.” That’s what bothers me. RIFT is one of the best PvE MMOs to come out since 2004 WoW. It doesn’t break the mold in the most practical areas. It’s a lot more subversive than that. After you get used to the class-freedom, the constantly changing environments, and perpetual sense of danger, how do you go back to the static worlds of yesterday? How does WoW not look like the sleepy-eyed giant with the safe and secure playground? That’s it, right there. That’s why players should bother and take notice, because, make no mistake, whether you say RIFT is dynamic or not, it changes things. It’s the first shot in the war against staticism (yeah, I made that up). Fans of the genre need to perk up and listen, because this is the first real movement towards next generation’s MMOs.

I’m not saying RIFT’s questing is perfect. It is a weak point in the game. It’s grindy, like all questing systems, repetitive, and, most importantly, un-innovative.  Where they’ve subtly but meaningfully evolved other aspects of RIFT, their questing system remains firmly in The Burning Crusade era of MMOs. It’s easy to see why people would be let down. But what it does, it does well. Quests are interesting and varied; quest text is worth reading for this reason alone. Spell effects are intricate, colorful, and flashy. Quest hubs are designed for the 2011 player: objectives are clearly marked and close together. There’s very little “take this package to Timbuktu via horse and buggy.” That makes quests quick and easy to complete.

What we need to address is the root of Character Power Progression — or CPP as Nils puts it. Whether experience comes from scripted quests, scripted rifts, or scripted events, it all comes down to the same thing: kill the guy, get the stuff, complete the quest. Every way we know it can get old. That’s human nature and one of the top few areas that MMOs are growing stagnant in.

The industry NEEDS innovation, but let’s not lay all the blame at Trion’s feet. They simply had the misfortune of releasing in a time when most of us were ready to move on from 10 Foozles and Badwot Zapping.

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Dragon Age II: First Impressions

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b. Console

March 16, 2011

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If you were a fan of the first Dragon Age, word has surely dropped from the apple tree that it’s sequel, creatively titled DAII, has hit store shelves to much split opinion. Some people really dislike it and I can see why. For my part, I’ve enjoyed it. In it, I’ve found a beautiful game that expands the more you put into it. I’ve found combat that is strategic where you want it to be, action where you need it to be, and satisfying with the blood-spattered character only found in the Dragon Age franchise.

See, the thing about Dragon Age 2 is that it’s not Dragon Age 1. Usually sequels follow the same mold as their predecessor. Not here. DA:O was massive. DA2 is a handful of locations. DA:O was strategic. DA2 is about action. DA:O gives you lots of freedom. DA2 hands you a character, a personality, and doesn’t let you gear out companions beyond rings and amulets – and very few are named beyond “ring” and “amulet.” DA:O has a strong plot thread leading you through the experience. DA2 doesn’t become clear until the end (or so I’m told). These are huge departures. And can leave you wondering, “what happened?”

Consoles are what happened. Unlike Origins, console design seems to take prominence over many of perks PC players grew used to in 2009. Instead, what we have is a visceral RPG experience that keeps the dice rolls and adds class-combos for even greater destruction. The experience both on both PC and console seems uniquely fitted to a console audience – and that’s not a bad thing. What we’re seeing here is a gap being bridged. There is enough to love here for both groups of gamers.

Early on, it’s easy to wonder what your goal is. The game starts slow, almost painfully so, once you’re out of the introduction. Once you make it to Kirkwall, what is the point? Act I opens with you trying to secure a spot on an expedition to the Deep Roads. The expedition leader is a curmudgeon, however, and makes you buy your spot. And so your questing begins, scraping together meager pieces of coin to afford the journey. Patience is your friend, however, as you soon discover the mysterious amulet you were to deliver actually holds a powerful secret. Before long, you’re knee deep in slavers, bandits, undead, and giant spiders. (Arachnophobes? Might want to take a pass on this one.)

These first quests really help you get to know your companions and I found myself playing with a tankless party just because I liked the characters more. That’s a testament to the great writing Dragon Age 2 has to offer. Choosing to have Hawke be fully voiced may remove some of your imagined autonomy from the first game, but it does allow you know him, and through his interactions, everyone a little bit better.

The story this go ‘round is actually pretty contentious among gamers. At ten hours in, I’m not nearly qualified to talk on it, but the word on the street is that Dragon Age 2 suffers “second novel syndrome,” where the second book in a trilogy is often lackluster compared to the first and final entries. While we don’t know what Dragon Age 3 might offer, we know enough to expect it. From what I’ve done and read from others, it helps to take the long outlook, where you view the game not as a single continuous epic adventure, but more as the sum of many parts leading to Hawke’s eventual becoming of the Champion of Kirkwall. These are the makings of a hero and not necessarily a hero’s quest.

There are some down points, however. I’m about ten hours in and I’m already noticing some repeat maps. On one hand, this is annoying but I’m not overly bothered by it yet. The combat is satisfying enough to make up for it and only grows progressively more so each time you level up. Time will tell whether this becomes a major issue.

I’m also a bit bothered by the fact that gear is much more limited. Why is Hawke the only one who can change clothes? All of the armor has a “Garret Hawke” restriction on it, making it so the only useful items your party can use are weapons, amulets, and rings. While there are some neat and powerful items they can equip, especially so now that mages are some of the flashiest combatants on the field, what with their fiery-electrical boomsticks and whatnot, the lack of creativity in naming (literally, lots of stuff is just “ring” or “amulet”) and the star-based rating system really undermines the immersion the game seeks to generate.

Overall though, I’m very happy with the game. Perhaps one of its biggest accomplishments is that it made me want to play Dragon Age: Origins again. I never finished it the first time, and there are just enough little hints to make me want to go back without making me feel lost. I can’t wait to level up some more and see how my character evolves. And how about those Deep Roads? I hear it’s dark down there.

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Only in RIFT

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a. MMORPG

March 9, 2011

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This post is also featured on Rift Watchers. Since it will fit in both places, and there’s not necessarily a ton of overlap in readers, I think it’s worth sharing both places. I may keep doing this so neither place gets neglected.

My journey in RIFT has been going excellently. I don’t think I’ve felt this comfortable in a new MMO since I played WoW for the first time. I’ve been leveling up a Cleric of the Cabalist variety (Druid and Purifier off-specs) and recently hit level 26. That officially makes it the most invested I’ve been in an MMO since LotRO where my main is level 46… after two years. I haven’t checked my /played but I feel confident saying that it’s at least 30 hours and probably more. The game has a lot going for it but something really cool happened the other night that I had to share, and it’s something that could only happen in RIFT.

I was questing in Stonefield, talking to guildies in vent, when all of the sudden our resident 50 exploded, “Guardian invasion in Granite Falls! Come quick! Guardian invasion right now!” I’m nothing if not a sucker for un-planned adventure, so off I ran, a lowly level 21. When I crested the nearby hill, I was met with a sea of red. At least 30 Guardians had stormed the bridge and were taking over the town. As I sat on the atop, ready to run down, a full on invasion spawned shaking my screen and destroying the ground as an earth rift opened over my head. I checked my map and nearly a dozen footholds had spawned. Not just rifts but real footholds with rifts interspersed.

When the Guardians swarmed the zone, the game recognized the huge influx of players and reacted with a major event – on a scale bigger than I’d ever seen in Freemarch or, well, anywhere to date. In an instant, the zone had gone from a mostly tranquil questing area to an incredibly dangerous, solo-at-your-own-risk,  death trap. What’s worse, the other people in the zone were having trouble getting to us because of all the new footholds and roaming patrols. Still, what were we going to do? The ten or so of us went forward and defended our town.

What’s more, we did a pretty good job of it, too. PvP in RIFT is actually fairly balanced, group-on-group, so our strategy was to take out their healers. Teams are made or lost based on how good their healing team is, so we focus fired them. Their plan was to zerg us back into the footholds while they took out our wardstones and nabbed their objective (invading forces get a quest to take these out).  Their plan backfired. Attacking the wardstones instantly aggroed the NPCs in the area and through careless use of AoEs, pulled the rift invaders too. We carefully avoided hitting the rift creatures and used their forces to bolster our own. Before long, they were on the run and we easily took out the stragglers.

Imagine every single one of these locations has a foothold and more, then add rifts in between.

It was epic. It honestly felt like we had our backs to a wall as we got pushed towards the rifts. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do except fight. Then to use those same rifts against them was incredibly cool. We felt triumphant.

After that, the members of Immortal Council got together and cleaned out the footholds in the area so players could quest again. All told, we got lots of favor, lots of planarite, and a crapton of experience.

This is the kind of thing that I love about RIFT. The unexpected can really happen. While cynical players might nab on rifts for “not really being dynamic,” no one can argue that it’s reactive. The guardians invaded and the game saw it as an opportunity for takeover. It challenged us and lead to one of the most exciting times in an MMO many of us have had in ages. And it wasn’t questing, raiding, or organized in the least. What it was, was a lot of fun.

If you’re looking for a cool guild to run with, consider joining us on Sunrest RP-PVP. It’s a great server community and the guild is a ton of fun to play with. We’re still doing open applications until more of us hit level cap and have members from every demographic. See you in-game!

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On the Freedom of Roles – and Why People Don’t Use It

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a. MMORPG

March 7, 2011

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As we move further and further from launch day, we’re really starting to see how things are shaking out with the community. This is happening in a lot of ways, but probably the biggest is with the soul system. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are a lot of clerics about. Not many people want to tank (but lots want to heal). And rogues are pretty much your defacto standard PvP class. It’s all quite interesting really, because this is only the first of many cycles sure to come. Rogues dominate in PvP because players know that they’re powerful. When people figure out that clerics or mages can dominate in the same way, they’ll be the flavor of the month. Or instead of calling, it will be a new soul, or new soul combo. Welcome theorycrafters, we’re happy to have you.

On this weekend’s episode of Rift Watchers (coming Wednesday), we talked a little bit about all this and the fear people still have about stepping outside of their comfort zone. RIFT gives you the buffet and players still stick to the one or two dishes they had at that other restaurant. I don’t begrudge them, or you, this. You can, and should, play what is the most fun to you. With that being said, I’d like to talk about that transference of fear.

Players have always shied away from tanking and healing. I’ve heard it said that tanking is a job, healing is a hobby, and DPS is a game. That’s probably pretty close to the mark for how people see it. Tanking and healing put the run squarely in your hands. You have responsibility, and if the group fails, it’s an honest concern that you may be called out. DPS don’t have that to worry about. It’s pew, pew, pew, see the big numbers fly. And that’s okay. It’s fun, and probably the easiest bit of fun to tap into. More importantly, the fun you can have as a DPS is pretty obvious. When you start a game, you want to be a powerful wizard. DPS lets your flex that power and burn through mobs with little else to worry about. What gets ignored in the shining light of all that pew-pew is just how much fun the other two roles can be, too.

As a tank, you don’t demonstrate your leetness with big numbers, you control the run. If you die, everybody dies. You are the proverbial protector of the weak and enemies are right to quake when you come near – because they’ll probably be dying soon. If you want to go fast, you go fast. Slow, take it down. You set the pace. Here’s the best part, threat is easy to get and easy to hold in RIFT. Unlike many other games, Trion didn’t want tanking to be a job, they wanted it to be an option. It is fun and has the lowest barrier to entry than in any game I’ve tried – and I tank in all of them. The challenge is unique and more rewarding than any DPS player could possibly imagine. You’re the single most powerful person in that group, big numbers or not, because you are the leader.

Healing, on the other hand, relies on numbers. As you throw out heals, you want a constant stream to flow by, the bigger the numbers, the better. Many people think this is hard, too, but in RIFT mana is rarely an issue if your class is played right. In this way, it’s probably more important to spec your character with care than any other role. Even still, like the tank, you are second in command. You’re tied to your paladin like white on rice. If they want to go fast, they’d better check with you first. If you group wants to aggro a whole room of mobs, they’d better pray you’re alright with that. You are powerful because without you everyone is rendered weak. Healing is fun and rewarding because your skill is reinforced with every single pull.

But see, here’s the clincher: Most people will never realize that because they’re afraid of things that will probably never happen. Let me explain how RIFT is different from other games you may have played:

  • You can practice, without pressure. In other games, the only way to learn how to tank/heal was to hop in an instance and hope it worked out. RIFT gives you, well, rifts. This is a no-pressure environment where not doing your best is OK. Honestly, most people will be happy to see someone doing something other than DPS, so you may even get gratitude. No one will berate your, yell at you, or tell you you suck. This is your testing ground and – here’s the best part – you’ll be put to the test more than you will in your first dungeon. The gauntlet style nature of rifts will be more trying on new tanks and healers than either of the newbie dungeons. This gives you the perfect place to prepare and have a ton of fun doing it.
  • People want to keep you. When you play a lesser taken role, you’re fulfilling a need on the server the game is not prepared to fix. There is no LFD tool to quickly replace you. That means, if you leave the group, the chances are that run is done. It is in everyone’s best interest to keep you and help you, rather than yell at you and drop you. As someone who’s tanked for PUGs for 3+ years, even in WoW, let me just say that a-hole groups are one of the biggest myths you’ll ever hear in MMO gaming. I’ve tanked for hundreds and hundreds of players by now and I can count the number of times someone has called me out on one hand. Honestly. What you’ll encounter are people who are just plain jerks, and they’ll out themselves as that soon enough. It’s universally apparent the issue isn’t with you. Don’t worry.
  • Easy to get into, hard to master. One of the things I love about RIFT is that playing in groups, even for DPS, is easy to get into but hard to perfect. Tanking and healing in themselves are not hard. They are, however, challenging and will keep you on your toes. The best part is, tanking and healing will give you a brand new challenge unlike anything you’ve done in the game to date. If you’re bored with what you’re doing, there’s no better way to spice up your life than to take on a new role.

I write this post because playing the game has made it very obvious that many players are carrying in the same old fears that have plagued them through the other games of their past. There is no reason not to try tanking or healing, and it disappoints me to know so many people may never experience the unique joys they provide.

Here’s a challenge: no matter what kind of player you are, take an evening and switch out your soles. Step outside of your comfort zone and try something new – even if you’re a PvPer. Nay, ESPECIALLY if you’re a PvPer because, as the warfront aficionados will tell you, battlegrounds are won or lost based on healing. If you do this, let me know how it goes. Post here or send a comment in to the show. I’d be willing to bet some of you might just love it.

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Where I’m at With RIFT; Cataclysm Coming to a Close; My PSP is Useful Again?!

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a. MMORPG, b. Console

February 28, 2011

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... in freshly dyed armor.

Talk about radio silence! Sorry about that, guys. It’s been a busy week and time has been sucked away from me at every turn. Thankfully, it’s been mostly gaming doing that, since the schools were closed for mid-winter break in New York. I’ve used that vacation as it was intended, to relax and veg out in front of my computer.

So, RIFT. It launched. Just about everyone has commented on the queues, so I won’t go there. What I will comment on is this: this has been, bar none, the smoothest launch of any major MMO I’ve seen post-WoW. Lag has been non-existent on my server and performance has been top notch. As I was playing, I didn’t even consider the lack of lag until a good two hours in. I had to stop myself and note just how much further RIFT really feels than being in headstart. This is, no hype included, the new pinnacle for where an MMO should be at launch.

Okay, I will comment on queues. I wasn’t going to, but I will, and just to say this: please stop complaining about them. I’ve heard people deride Trion about it multiple times and it’s all a bit silly. Honestly, I’ve played every major release in the last four years and every… single… one of them had queues. It’s a fact of launch. You should be worried if there AREN’T queues. Now, that being said, I sat in one for four hours yesterday. That’s not cool and is almost certainly a result of the big miss-step of not releasing server names until two days before. It reminds me of the expression, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” If you’re not logging in earlier than you actually want to play at this point… As long as you’re able to, that is.

Moving on…

I made a Cleric to capitalize on their all-aroundiness. Open Beta really showed me how much fun healing can be, so I wanted a strong option there, while also being able to tank. I wound up going Purifier/Druid/Cabalist with Cabalist being my main spec. Purifier is mainly for some light off-healing and instances and rifts. Cabalist is turning out to be a blast, however, since they have some great nukes with inherent AoE. In dungeons, I start off nuking with my druid bombs and then switch off to cabal when the tank has threat. Right now, I’m level 17 and falling behind the rest of my guild. I’m pretty much used to that, though, so I don’t mind.

Speaking of my guild, Immortal Council has been flourishing. My co-host, Jeremy, on Rift Watchers is the leader and we’ve had an enormous response — over 100 applicants within 2 days of head start! Everyone is forming groups, talking in vent, and really putting in the extra effort to make this guild a fun place to hang out.  What’s more, and this is noteworthy, the amount of complaining is almost non-existent. In just about every new MMO I’ve played, new players go through the honeymoon-normal-annoyed-unsubbed pattern pretty quick. Everyone’ s been hitting it pretty hard (we have many players over level 30 and into the 40s already) and no one is hitting that wall we’ve found in other games. It’s really pretty enthusing.

Aside: I’m being pulled lots of different ways for the first time ever. There are two other guilds I plan on rolling with — Ferrel’s and Keen’s — but I’m hoping everyone understands I have an obligation to make the RW guild my priority. After all, it wouldn’t be very nice for me to help invite everyone over and then leave them! 😉

Last night I got into Iron Tombs for the first time. How neat! I loved how atmospheric the place was. For being a first dungeon, it was no cakewalk either! I mean, we did well since the group was made of veteran MMO players. Still, fights were more than than tank-and-spank and even the in-betweens could be a little tough (ghosts and orbs, I’m looking at you!). It was a blast, though, and one of the most fun-and-fresh dungeon runs I’ve had in a long time.

Okay, more than just RIFT for this post. NEXT up…

Cataclysm. I think I’m pretty much done. Not because of RIFT, per se, but more because I’ve found myself at a point where I’m only logging in to raid. I’m hesitant to call it quits, however, because the Happy Fun Guyz are really an excellent group to play with. I’d honestly miss a lot of the people there (shout outs to Evalisa, Blarg, Alphaah, and Kotton). Still, I’ve been putting some serious thought into how much fun I’m having if I can’t bring myself to log in. The reward stream has slowed to a trickle and with it my motivation has dried up. Stay tuned for updates.

Lastly, my PSP. I’m using it again! Well, I’ve always used it for late night RSS reading (I don’t have a smartphone yet), but I’m actually using it for games again! Someone finally came up with a way to run emulators and ROMs without hacking the console and putting on custom firmware. I am finding it so satisfying to play some of my old favorite SNES and GBA games again. I put a good two hours into Metroid: Fusion today and it’s like stepping into the past. Those games were so good and really captured something modern games don’t have. I can’t link to any of the stuff here on how to do it, but if you’d like to know how to get ROMs running on your PSP without any modifications, shoot me an email.

Anyways, that’s been this past week. Oh, and Assassin’s Creed 2. Gotta love that.

I’ll have more to talk about this week now that vacation is done. That radio silence really is a downer.

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Blizzard Stikes Back Against Rift

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a. MMORPG

February 24, 2011

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Announced this morning…

Patch 4.1 on PTR – Zul’aman and Zul’gurub are back!

Seriously, how long will it be before people realize Blizzard is doing more harm than good? At what point do they admit they control the industry and stop trying to stall the competition before it even gets started?

I like WoW (I’m currently active and even raiding — for the first time ever) but they’re the single biggest stifling factor in the MMO industry these days. They’ve set a new precedent for subscribers, meaning investors are now afraid to put money down on lesser-earning projects. They crib ideas and “make them their own.” Most importantly, they actively try to keep other games from gaining any kind of foothold.

Now before anyone points out that they’re a business and need to support themselves, etc., I get that. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be updating or being competitive. What I mean is that they should be innovative in their own right. Like their questing. They’ve pushed the envelope and set new standards on the solo-quest game. Why not flex their creative muscles a little more, bring in a new system to blow all of our minds? Let’s see them push the envelope in their own right instead of *constantly* adopting the creativity of others. It really wouldn’t be so bad if “adoption” wasn’t the most identifying factor of each new WoW expansion.

Or, on the other point, how about they be competitive without being so undermining? Blizzard is totally about Call and Answer marketing and they don’t need to be. The ZA and ZG announcement is cool. They didn’t need to announce it this week for that to be the case. Wait a week. Wait two. Or, hell, they could have announced it weeks (months?) ago when they first decided on it as a for sure part of 4.1. The carrot would continue to dangle until it dropped either way. Constantly “answering” the competition just makes them seem petty. They don’t need every square inch of the MMO base to continue to be the gaming world’s cash cow.

Maybe they’re just a little concerned at the quick burnout following Cataclysm. Probably not, though, because this kind of thing has become their mantra: Don’t let others succeed because then they won’t be the extremely slow pace-setters they’ve been for the last 5 years. All eyes on Blizzard who in 2014 will finally announce Titan’s 2016 release date to continue the reign.

PS: I might sound a little bitter but, believe me, this isn’t all about Blizzard. This is about the corporate mentality of dominating the little guy. It’s crap when Walmart does it and it’s crap when Blizzard does it too.

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SAR Returns: Love in a Time of Text; Why We Shouldn’t Freak About a Rift LFD

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d. Everything Else

February 18, 2011

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So, there was this holiday this week and some of you might have noticed. Just saying. Maybe you did. I didn’t. Not until way after the fact when I got to work writing (and re-writing) this week’s Some Assembly Required. It’s called “Love in a Time of Text” and is a This American Life approach to the story of a MUD-born romance. Give it a try. You might like it.

Clicky.

I also wrote this thing about how an LFD system is coming to Rift. It’s kind of a retrospective on why WoW adopted it and why Rift needs it. One man’s lonely, quickly-grouped thoughts. Again, clickity-click dear readers.

In case you thought I was getting lazy on you.

Also, because I’ve been high on this all week, I’m extremely happy with how well received our Rift Watchers podcast has been. We’ve been a featured podcast in the video games section for about a week and even got up to #17 in the top 100 gaming podcasts! Not tooting our horn or anything, but it’s a nice feeling to know that you’re putting something out that’s resonating with people. Thank you to everyone for the support.

And because I like Darren, I’ll steal his outro.

C out.

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Marketing Win

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a. MMORPG

February 16, 2011

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We may not be in Azeroth anymore, but we’ll certainly come back to take you with us!

I love it when companies take advantage of flexible loyalties like this. It’s all kinds of sneaky and clever and funny. Kind of makes you wonder how Blizzard feels now that they’re linking back to WoWhead on the armory…

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Rift: Breaking the Trend… of Big Boobs? [RW]

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a. MMORPG

February 11, 2011

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The following is a cross-post of something I wrote for Rift Watchers today. I know not all of you read over there and I thought you’d find this interesting, so here we are 🙂 From now on, I’ll tag  cross posts with [RW].

Note: You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to come up with a name for this post that wouldn’t get us banned from work. You might even say we didn’t want to get … busted. *rimshot* Hehe, sorry. I couldn’t help myself 🙂

Okay, this one made me laugh, and at the suggestion of a listener, I’m going to write about it. What’s the one common theme amongst every big MMO? If you said levels, you’d be wrong. Nope, today I’m talking about boobs. Big, gigantic boobs. Every MMO sees fit to sexualize women as much as they can. So while the rest of us are yelling about how objectifying that is to women, and WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!, one lone warrior stands up to ask: “where are the bewbs?”

This is nothing new for MMOs. Heck, video games in general have adopted the concept of real women wear c-cups. TERA is probably the worst offender of all with their upskirt running animations. Look to Warcraft, even and you’re sure to find it there too. There’s a reason you can strip all your clothes off, folks. Some artist slaved away for hours to makes those abs ripple “just so.”

But let’s not get sidetracked, boobs are the real issue here. Boobs. Big, scantily clad boobs: on all our boxes, in all our games, free to the world proclaiming “here orc, look at this and take a swing.” I was playing WoW yesterday and my wife happened to stop during a loading screen. “Wow!” she said. “That elf’s got big boobs!” And she was right. The elf did have big boobs. This has been a running theme in our house. My wife, a total non-gamer, first noticed one of these XL busts almost a year ago in a game of Grand Theft Auto. Now she makes a point of pointing them out. Not in a giddy tee-hee way, mind you. More of a “oh, isn’t this just designed for boys” way. And she’s right. Again.

Without a doubt, girls in games are solely driven by what guys want to see – or what designers think we want to see. It harkens back to the days when gaming was little better than a basement game of Dungeons and Dragons. The old stereotype of gaming as a boys-only club was going strong. I can only guess that the working theory was: get them breathy, get them back.

I guess?

I’ll confess though, I’ve never looked to games for my thrill. Not once. Back in high school I knew a few guys who would talk about how “hot” the little pixelated Vanna White was on one of our old-school computers. Or how Princess Peach was a babe. But they grew out of it and quickly grew to realize that real girls — you know, the living, breathing kind – were a much more productive outlet for those energies. Compie Vanna White doesn’t kiss back and certainly won’t hold your hand in the hallway. She does know how to spell, though.

So when I saw the thread linked above, complaining at the lack of chest size in Rift, I had to stop for a second and think. Really? I didn’t even notice. Most people didn’t notice, I bet (though the dozens of pages in the topic may seem otherwise). But I guess it’s true? If you spend enough time oogling pixelated chests (“look, it actually breathes!”), maybe you can tell a difference. As someone who plays male characters, I wouldn’t know (they breathe too).

The thing is, who really cares? I mean, who really wants their MMO to be sexy? I can’t help but imagine some 15 year old, up at 2AM in the glow of their monitor, typing up their missive about the wrong being done to boobs everywhere. Then the reality hits me that it’s probably not a 15 year old. More than likely it’s a 20-something guy who spends too much time playing games. A guy who likes to analyze things, read into them, and compare one game to another in every way he can. Breast size must fall into that category.

But, honestly. Honestly. Does it matter?

Then again, I did get a good chuckle out of it. So really, Trion. Where are the bewbs, man?

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Fox News is Trustworthy

Categories:

b. Console, d. Everything Else

February 10, 2011

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I have to applaud Fox News on this one. They really dug in and gave a “fair and balanced” view without leaving anything out. See guys, I told you that you were wrong about that whole selective quoting thing.

In an article titled Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World? I had a revelation with this quote from Carol Lieberman:

“The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games,” she said.

THIS is why SW:TOR will fail. Too many of Bioware’s players turning into rapists. You can’t sustain a sub when you’re serving 20-to-life, folks. Nevermind all those mass murderers questing will make. Damn you, full-voicing! The urges are too much!

Seriously: I don’t pretend to defend the gratuitous testosterone fueled mayhem Bulletstorm provides, but give me a break. It’s a mature rated game. Read that, M–rated. That means it’s not intended for kids. So when Fox claims that 9 year olds will somehow be harmed by it, I wonder if they ever blamed Cinemax for releasing the DVD box set of Red Shoe Diaries. What’s that? It’s the parent’s job to see their kids don’t watch porn? How about Dell for opening doors to the seedy underbelly of the Internet?

That’s right, I almost forgot. Video games make for good headlines with their old-white-guy demographic. Fair and balanced. Does anyone even believe that any more?

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