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The Fallacy of Alpha

January 17, 2015 by Belghast

Dehydrated in the Rain

Last night I was finally able to get in and play some H1Z1 and I have to say… I am fairly impressed with what I have seen. While the game world is not as pretty as the current generation of FPS games… there is a real world charm to it. Everything feels bleak and gloomy befitting a world rampaged by the living dead. I have been playing on the Willamette server which is of course a full on carebear server. It is in fact the very last PVE server in the list, and I am not really sure what my logic was in doing that… I likely would have been better off picking something in the middle as it seemed like a lot of other people thought the same thing as me. When I spawned into the game I was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. In all seriousness I spawned into a forest and walked to the nearest clearing… and could see the texture distortion of the “end of the world”. On the positive however this belt on the far side of the forest was populated with nothing but blackberries… something that would come in handy later on.

The problem I have with the game so far is it feels like the deck is stacked too much against you. There is a point in Minecraft where you can reach equilibrium, and are able to gather enough resources to allow you to explore with greater freedom. In H1Z1 I felt like I was always moments away from death, really limiting how much I was able to go out and explore. Which in itself is a catch 22… if you are not exploring, you are not finding resources, and therefore dying more quickly. One of the most humorous things about the game is the dehydration gauge… which continued to happily tick down as I was standing in the freaking rain. I did figure out how to capture rain water with a bottle… but the end result was “dirty water” which seemed a little counter intuitive. In the real world if you are able to catch fresh rain water, that is about as pure as you can possibly get since our cycle of precipitation is a massive filtration system.

Zombies Mean Business

Early on I found a branch, so that ended up being the first weapon I went out exploring with. It was horrible but did more damage than my fists so in theory… a much better choice. When I first encountered a zombie I was wandering back through the woods to try and find my way to civilization. I was able to knock it down in a single blow of the branch, but it just laid there… and I should have followed the “double tap” rule. Instead it got right back up and proceeded to chomping on me. I was able to kill it after a few more swings of the branch, but I found it far harder to avoid the attacks than say the zombies in 7 days to die. In that game you can do this whole bob and weave motion and pretty much avoid taking any damage. In H1Z1 if you tangle with a zombie… no matter how good the melee weapon you have… you are going to take some damage. Later on I found a Machete and a Combat Knife… the best of which seemed to be the Machete because it was able to knock things down. The Combat Knife technically did a lot more damage but it forced me to get closer to the zombies to stab them to death.

The biggest problem I had with zombies is the fact that they did not seem to drop shit. Again I am used to 7 days to die, when zombies are a smorgasbord of interesting object for you to repurpose. The zombies I killed… and ultimately I killed a lot of them… only seemed to drop cloth scraps. After some time I made my way to a city that was already swarming with other players. At this point I was on the verge of starvation… only having found blackberries to eat, which do not offer much reprieve. After a point I started feeling like a zombie myself, desperately looking for my next meal and finding nothing. I am not sure if resources really are that scarce… or if the place had just been picked over by the other scavengers. In any case the game play felt very dark and hopeless… which I think is probably what Sony is going for. There are a lot of issues with the world, but they seem to have a firm base to build upon.

The Fallacy of Alpha

Everything about the world is in a state of flux at this point, because the game is in its Alpha state. The problem is this word does not mean what it used to mean. Alpha used to be this phase of the game limited to only friends of the company, when they worked out the game breaking bugs in private before letting progressively more players into the game turning it into beta. We live in this strange world of “pay to alpha”, which to me means “not alpha at all”. The Alpha phase was the one that was done internally that we have been watching for the last six months. This phase that we are in now.. is simply a “broken release”. I have various maxims that I live by, some of which are simple like “anything that gets in the way of me playing with my friends is bad” that no one can really argue with. Others like “If you are taking money for your product, it is release” are probably the cause of some debate. To me H1Z1 is a released game because they are actively taking player money for it.

The problem with the Alpha and Beta system is it acts merely as a shield for the developer to deflect criticism. They can fall back on the bulwark of “its only alpha” to explain why things aren’t working the way players want them to work. It gives them time to dodge and weave before the official reviews start showing up, since the Metacritic score has become this all important metric that is ultimately meaningless… but I can rant about my hatred of metacritic another day. However if you are taking money for a product I feel like you are completely culpable for criticism. I will always give SOE credit for the fact that both for Landmark and H1Z1 they have offered refunds for players who were angry about the product. That said I feel it is still completely valid for me to complain about the things I feel are broken in an alpha product, and as such while some of them are absolutely hilarious… I feel like every single one of the almost 2700 negative reviews on steam are also valid. Game developers have decided that opening up the alpha process gives them a trickle of money, and early exposure to build hype. However they also have to realize that every action is being watched, they are on camera now and if they screw up… even if it IS supposedly alpha… it now matters.

H1Z1 Early Access

January 16, 2015 by Belghast

Bel Folks Stuff #4 – An Evening with Petter

This month the Bel Folks Stuff podcast focuses on the amazing Petter Mårtensson. Petter has been an extremely busy man, and has had a ton of side projects over the years. In his normal fashion he even offered to guest on Aggrochat if we could ever work out the time zone issues. Our listeners could know him from any number of places. For several years he worked for the european gaming magazine GameReactor both as a writer and as an on-air anchor. Similarly while dormant for several years, he is the man behind the Don’t Fear the Mutant blog. On the podcasting front he has been extremely active in the CSICON network serving as a host on several different shows including Claims the Normal, Three MMOSketeers, Enochian Frequency and most recently Who’s Who.

In addition to all of this he was involved in creating the A Tale of Internet Spaceships documentary talking about the culture behind EVE online. Now he is also writing a monthly Final Fantasy XIV column for MMOGames. Like I said… he is an extremely busy man and I am thankful he took the time to sit down with me and have a length conversation… mostly about non-gaming stuff. I think the most interesting thing about the conversation was the delve into Futurism and the things we would love to see. We also geeked out a bit about Doctor Who, which apparently is something that happens on every podcast now that he hosts the Who’s Who show. Definitely was an interesting conversation, and I hope you all enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Listen to the Show

H1Z1 Early Access

Yesterday Sony Online Entertainment launched the H1Z1 early access. This was originally supposed to go live on Steam around noon, but various delays pushed it back into the late afternoon. When I got home from work it was available and I figured $20 but satiate my curiosity was a fair price. However the game apparently is very much “not quite ready for primetime”. The above screen is what greeted me when finally after my World of Warcraft raid I fired the game back up. Early in the evening I was not able to get into the server select screen at all so I guess in a way it is progress? I am sure this is another case of “underestimated demand” and I seriously cannot blame them. Throwing a game up on Steam early access as your initial forray into alpha… is pretty damned daring. Right now the game has roughly 2000 reviews, roughly half of those are positive and half are negative, so if only a small fraction of the population comments… that means they sold a ton of early access copies.

I love the concept of a zombie survival game… the problem is I don’t want to have to deal with the world pvp aspect of games like Rust and Dayz. So when this game was announced I had zero interest, until it was confirmed that there would be PVE only server environments at launch. Hell I didn’t even mind that the original icon in the server browser list was a teddy bear. I am a carebear, and I am okay with this notion. While it is immature to taunt the player base that has proved to make up the overwhelming majority of MMO players… I can deal with it. I am sure H1Z1 is going to be a mess for the near future, but hopefully at some point it will be playable and interesting and allow me to play a base building game in a walking dead style world. If it gives me that… then I am largely going to be happy with it and will consider it $20 well spent.

Mar’gok Attempts

Early in the week on Tuesday we had a really phenomenal night or raiding, meaning we cleared 6/7 on normal and 2/7 on heroic. This freed up last night to work entirely on Imperator Mar’gok. While we got a bit of a late start due to key players running a bit behind, we accomplished just that, an entire night of attempts. Mar’gok is one of those fights with a lot of moving parts, and it is simply going to take a lot of repetition before we have our “click moment” when everything falls into place. We however did make good strides in that direction. Essentially there is one transition that is wrecking us… that we need to figure out how to do more smoothly. Once we have that transition down I think we will down the boss. All of that said we did manage to start getting him down into the 40% range each time, which tells me we are likely on the cusp of victory.

It feels really good to be doing current content in World of Warcraft. During my time back in Pandaria I attempted to raid with a group that was in theory several content patches behind. There is just something demoralizing about doing that, and especially since we never seemed to make any real forward momentum that would lead me to believe that at any time we were likely to get to current content. When LFR served as my primary source of upgrades… I had to ask myself why was I even bothering with the constant nights of wiping. This expansion however has been a completely different experience. I really want to kill Mar’gok but I have the utmost confidence that we will, and likely before the Blackrock Foundry raid opens. I am just bummed that I won’t be around Thursday night next week… because more than likely after reviewing the logs we will make some tweaks and finish this raid.

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Pax Virgin

January 15, 2015 by Belghast

Finger Wiggler Bel

When I came back to the game during the tail end of Cataclysm, my account had been dormant for long enough to be eligible for that “welcome back” program that blizzard was running. One of the perks was to get a free level 80 character on the server that your friend recruited you back into the game on. Since I was recruited back by a friend in my own guild… I decided to spend the free 80 token on a character I thought I would never actually enjoy so I created a Worgen Priest. Over the course of Pandaria I managed to level it to 85, entirely so that I could park it at the silk fields for daily tailoring cooldowns. All of this time Belglorian has lived in this awkward place where he was essentially a glorified bag maker. One of the tasks I have been trying to do is to make sure I had every tradeskill represented in the Garrison system. Belglorian was the character that needed the most effort to get to 90ish and as such he was the last one to make it.

Over the course of the weekend I got him to 90, but as of last night he is now 92 pushing him higher than several of my other Draenor alts. I am not sure how or why… but I have actually been enjoying Shadowpriesting. This is like the least likely class for me to ever be playing, but I find myself having fun. Granted I hate the fact that I have no health and can take no damage, but the rhythms of the actual attacks are pretty enjoyable to me. At this point I have every class over level 90 apart from Warlock and Monk. More than likely those classes are going to be the next thing I try and push to Draenor levels. This expansion more than anything has been an odd case of me enjoying mechanics that I have not in years. I am playing Belghast my warrior as my main again, and Lodin my hunter is quickly becoming my chief alt. The other day when I was playing my Warlock I was really enjoying that as well, so who knows what I ultimately end up leveling.

Pax Virgin

By this time next week I will be in transit to my very first gaming convention. I have this mix of excitement and extreme anxiety about the concept of going to a big convention like this. Granted growing up I went to a few of the local sci-fi or gaming conventions… but never anything of this scale. For my readers and listeners that are savvy convention experts, what tips do you have for me? Right now I am starting to plan what all I am going to bring. As per my friend Ashgar, I plan on having my 3DS set to street pass so I can play the “collect the countries game”. Other than that I picked up a pretty badass messenger bag that I plan on carrying around the necessaries in. I’ve already been warned that food is going to be insane there so I plan on packing a few Cliff bars to tide me over until I can get “actual” food, similarly planning on having a water bottle handy that I can refill from a water fountain.

The biggest thing I have yet to sort out is what exactly I want to do. The schedule is a rather nebulous thing, but there are a handful of panels I know I will already be attending. Most of the events I am really interested in are happening on Saturday, so I am hoping Friday I can hit the floor before the big crush of people appear on Saturday since that day is completely sold out. While I am not a huge fan of Guild Wars 2, I am interested in attending their panel because the speculation is they are going to announce and talk about the expansion. There is even more speculation about what Riot might be announcing on the main stage later that afternoon as well. From what I understand Riot almost always shows up at Pax, but rarely has a main stage presence so it might be interesting. The other big thing that I have to see is the panel with Linda “Brasse” Carlson. Its got Brasse, Lum the Mad and Sanya Weathers in the same room… so it has to be epic right?

More important than any of this… I want to meet awesome people. I’ve put a few queries out to my twitter feed but had minimal results. I am hoping to meet up with various folks from my online connections. If you are going to Pax let me know, and what days you are going to be there. I want to at least do a drive by meet and greet if nothing else. My plan is going to be simple… I intend to post a picture of what I am wearing each day so that if folks see me, even if I don’t know them they can feel comfortable saying “Hi Bel!”. This conference is going to push me far out of my comfort zone. I am generally a deep introvert when it comes to face to face interaction. I psyche myself up that something is going to be awesome… and then right before the time to do whatever it is… I start feeling like it is the worst possible idea in the world. I am sure I am going to go through this cycle on Wednesday and Thursday next week but I am hoping I can power through it and be amped for Pax South.

Square Outage

One of the major frustrations over the last few days has been a series of rolling problems with Squaresoft and their servers. The symptoms seem to be at least partially localized around the server cluster that Cactuar, our server, happens to be in. As a result none of us have been able to log in and play. This has lead one friend to renew World of Warcraft, and live in complete and total denial that they actually have done that. For me it has been a nuisance since I actually have wanted to play. With the big 2.5 patch dropping next week it has me pumped about my member of the Lalafel Master race. Also there have been a bunch of new folks filter into our guild, and I want to hang out with them. I really hope they can get things sorted out soon because it is getting super frustrating. Right now I am not sure if this is another DDoS or something more systemic. In any case especially for my friends sake I hope it clears up before the weekend.

Before the Fall

January 14, 2015 by Belghast

A Good Night

While tensions were at times a little high, and a handful of people were on edge… I have to say last night in Highmaul was as close to a perfect night as we have seen. Everyone just did the things they needed to do and we started knocking down one boss after another. All told last night we cleared 6/7 normal mode bosses and 2/7 heroic bosses with some end of the night tries on heroic butcher. We still need to work on the specifics of that fight but I feel like we made more progress last night than we have in previous attempts on him. I also managed to have a decent night loot wise finally picking up some piece with Bonus Armor on them. Brackenspore dropped a significantly upgraded neckpiece, Tectus a significantly upgraded ring, and through the course of the night I picked up a trash drop cloak. So while I only actually gained a single ilevel gear wise… I gained significantly better itemization across the board.

The other thing that felt better last night was my dps as a whole. A few raids ago I switched to using Weak Auras, and it has honestly taken some getting used to in order to rely on them rather than watching my hotbar. Last night felt like I reached a point where I was mostly watching the auras and their timers. As such I did a much better job of making sure I kept Shield Charge up without overlapping it into the territory of a previous one. Additionally after some reading I started prioritizing Revenge over Shield Slam if both were up at the same time. The end result was a significant boost in damage output. On most fights last week I was doing between 18k and 19k depending on the circumstances. This week I was doing more in the range of 20k to 22k with cleave heavy fights of course giving me a damage boost. Essentially this gives me hope for the viability of Gladiator dps in the long run, since with some “proper” gear I am competitive.

Before the Fall

The other cool thing that happened yesterday was that in the morning Square Enix dropped the trailer for the “Before the Fall” patch in Final Fantasy XIV. In truth it looks like the patch is going to be a combination of three parts 2.5, 2.51 and 2.55 with various features coming in phases. The trailer was another one of their infamous ten minute long tours of all the content being placed in the game. First off in 2.5 we are getting three new dungeons including Hard Mode Wanderers Palace… where form the looks of it we might just be helping out the Tonberries. We are also getting a Hard Mode version of Amdapor Keep which looks like it is going to have more than a few rough spots. Finally we are getting a completely new location called he Keeper of the Lake as we fight what appears to be a ruined Magitek facility with some sort of god sleeping in it. The big bad boss at the end looks something like Leviathan, but crawling through my Final Fantasy ancestral memory I am really not sure who it might be. The only “snake” boss that is not Leviathan popping into my head is Midgar Zolom but I doubt that is it.

[Edit] upon posting this I just saw a post talking about who this boss is likely. Supposedly “The Keeper of the Lake” refers to the remains of Midgardsormr aka the god of the Dravinians from what I understand. So with the upcoming expansion set in Ishgard, and focusing on the war between that nation and the Dravinians, then it totally makes sense that we the players will unwittingly wake Midgardsormr.

Probably the portion of the video I am most looking forward to is the opening of the World of Darkness raid. For those not familiar with Final Fantasy XIV raiding, there are essentially two basic paths. You have the serious raiding core that is the “Coil of Bahamut” instances which are strict 8 man battles, and then you have the casual raids that are the “Crystal Tower” instances. I have it under the authority of Ashgar that all of these fights so far have been based on events, places and bosses found in Final Fantasy 3. As a result he hinted at the “World of Darkness” raid some time before they actually announced it. Right now Labyrinth of the Ancients, and Syrcus Tower are fun… but with World of Darkness we see a greatly improved ilevel available for casual 24 man raiding. The only hard part will be getting used to only being able to snag a single item per week. The other big bonus is that more than likely these will drop the items needed to “un-weather” the level 120 gear and turn it into level 130 gear. The hope is that they do in fact let us loot a single upgrade item and a single actual item per run like has been hinted at.

Enkidu Arrives

It is impossible to talk about this next section without at least dropping some spoilers about the Hildebrand quest storyline. If you have not done it and care about being surprised when people show up… you maybe shouldn’t read forward. Granted the Hildebrand quest storyline as a whole will only really make sense to folks who have played a lot of different Final Fantasy games. One of the characters you meet fairly early on in the Hildebrand storyline is Gilgamesh who is a fairly storied comedic character in the Final Fantasy universe. Generally speaking he is accompanied by his imp friend Enkidu. My personal first encounter with Gilgamesh was in the game Final Fantasy V but I am uncertain if that was his actual first appearance. In that game he plays the role of a major bad guy, but at the same time… comedic relief often times as inept as he is deadly. Enkidu often feels like the “straight man” in their act, the one that keeps Gilgamesh in line.

As you encounter Gilgamesh in Final Fantasy XIV he is alone which is explained when he first introduces himself to the character. But where are my manners? I have yet to properly introduce myself. I am Gilgamesh, and that is my companion, Enkidu! …Well, not really. It has been many moons since last I saw him, so to ease the burden of loneliness, I tamed a rooster and painted it green. So at this point we know Enkidu does exist in the universe, we just have yet to meet him. Now we zoom forward to this patch, sure enough when they are doing the Hildebrand quest line they show a character that looks very much in every way like the traditional image of Enkidu. So this likely means that we are going to see Gilgamesh in the storyline again, but more important than that… that hopefully we have yet another awesome boss battle to look forward to. While I have actually only done the Ultros fight once… it was extremely fun and serves for a nice diversion from our progression through Binding Coil.