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Adorableness and Agitation

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Mixed Weekend

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This weekend was a bit of a mixed bag.  One the positive side we decided to go visit the adorable kitten that is being taken care of by my Mother in Law.  The little guy still seems to greatly favor me, and wandering around my beard…  but this is a photo of him asleep behind my wife’s neck.  To be truthful just a bit before this photo he was asleep behind my neck but she wanted kitten snuggles and swiped him.  Unsurprisingly he settled right down and went back to sleep, having just finished a big meal a little beforehand.  The kitten is almost heartbreakingly sweet, but is otherwise doing amazingly well.  I also thought that maybe while I was in a new area and around a lake I would find all new sets of Pokemon, but for the most part on that front it was a complete bust.  I found a handful of Pidgeys but that was honestly just about it.  Which honestly I guess I am not terribly surprised given the cry on the Reddit about the need for better distribution of critters in deeply rural areas.  Being around said kitten honestly was a bit of a mixed blessing, because on one level he is so adorable.  On the other level it is a little bittersweet knowing that he will more than likely never come home to stay with us.  The kitten is more more less already spoken for, and then there is the problem with his gender.  After having a tom cat that had massive issues with spraying…  we don’t ever want to live through that again.  So for the last several years we have largely sworn off male cats.  I just have no clue how to make sure a kitten never turns into a sprayer, because nothing we did to try and rehabilitate Mac ever seemed to make a difference.

As far as Pokemon Go is concerned, we recorded pretty much an entire podcast this weekend devoted to the game.  However for whatever reason I didn’t really play much of it this weekend.  During the podcast I burned an incense only to find out that I have a really hard time paying attention to that and podcasting at the same time.  While I ended up getting a Psyduck after chasing it around my neighborhood for ages…  I know for certain  that I missed out on a handful of critters given that while the incense will draw them close, it doesn’t actually make them stay around for terribly long.  I know for certain I missed out on a second Goldeen this way, and probably several others because I kept getting lost in talking and forgetting entirely that I had a timer ticking down.  Friday night I did a little parking lot hopping, driving to different parking lots and walking around looking for anything interesting.  Doing this I managed to catch a Snorlax, which apparently is super rare and I get why given how rough it was to actually capture.  It started doing this thing that seemed like it was blowing the Pokeball to the side making everything curve out of the way.  I wound up feeding it a berry, and getting some curve ball action going on to counteract it finally seeing that magical third twitch of the ball meaning I had successfully captured it.

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The bulk of the weekend though, and yesterday especially I was just frustrated and filled with rage.  I would love to be able to make sense of it but really there was no real reason for it.  I just woke up Sunday morning with a horrible headache and everything seemed to anger me.  I tried to isolate myself as much as possible because the moment I was actually around someone, like my poor wife I was snapping at them.  The headache was intense, but not so much as to cause that sort of reaction.  I struggled with finding something to really settle down and enjoy, that is until late Sunday afternoon I settled on finally watching through the tail end of the episodes of The Magicians.  The uncomfortable sensation of wanting to play something, but nothing quite fitting the bill was maddening.  I swear over the course of the day I booted up literally every game installed on my laptop only to log right back out a few minutes later frustrated.  Probably the best thing I could have done was taken a nap… but given my less than friendly relationship with sleep that would have only lead to more problems.  Basically for most of Sunday I was in essence a fussy baby, with my pacifier finally being mindlessly watching a television show.  After I found something that actually seemed to keep my interest, I was then apparently able to log in and play something… and I finished the night by wrapping up my crystal grind for the new Relic weapon in Final Fantasy XIV.  Now I am apparently in need of running a series of dungeons to “harden” the weapon or some such.  Which makes me wonder if I can now do Snowcloak unsynced and solo it.

Walking Simulator

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Gotta Catch Em All

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If I had any topic to talk about today, it was immediately erased from my mind as soon as I got my grubby hands on Pokemon Go.  I was in fact one of those bastards that went through the relatively simple process of installing it to bypass the region lockouts.  First off I want to address something that is frustrating me, is that for some reason people seem to think defeating region lockouts is “hacking”.  Region lockouts are dumb, and at least on Android devices, any time you download anything you are already downloading the APK as that is how anything installs.  The beauty of the android platform is there isn’t just one app store, in fact on my device I currently have Google Play, Amazon Underground, and APK Pure all installed and living happily together.  These are especially handy when confronted with a device that for whatever reason is trying to block the actual Google Play store and instead keep redirecting you to their carrier run store.  Anyways with that out of the way, I downloaded the APK and had it sitting on my device while I ran out to lunch yesterday.  On my way out of the building I caught my first Pokemon which was one of the original three starters….  Go Team Squirtle!  Then before I had even left my building I also happened to encounter a Staryu…  things were getting off to a great start.

Screenshot_2016-07-06-16-23-51I had errands to run so I drove out to one of the nearby hubs of shopping that houses a ton of big box stores.  I needed to pick up some cat
food and cat litter from Target, and also wanted to pop by Rackroom shoes to see if I could find any sandals that I did not hate this season.  When I pulled into the parking lot of Target I opened up the app and noticed several Pokemon nearby where I parked.  When you are anywhere, you see critters within the vicinity of you… and when you get close enough to one you can attempt to capture it.  Sadly I have no screenshots of the capture process because it goes quickly.  Essentially it is playing Skeeball, and for those who don’t have that cultural frame of reference… you are flicking the Pokeball with your finger and trying to hit essentially a target that represents the sweet spot for capturing each specific Pokemon.  If you tap on the Pokemon you will see a set of rings with a green spot being the best possible place to land your hit in order to capture.  You have a limited number of attempts before the Pokemon runs away and cannot be seen on your map.  Of note all of this stuff tries to place your Pokemon in your surroundings using Augmented Reality via your phones camera.  I however didn’t really want to see the real world and would far rather have a cartoony Pokemon world to be wandering around in and capturing critters.

Screenshot_2016-07-06-12-33-01So there I was wandering around a Target parking lot, I am sure looking like an idiot… but you know what I didn’t care.  I was having fun and capturing all sorts of cool Pokemon.  By the time I left that parking lot I had managed to gather up a whole bunch of new critters
including a really nice Eevee.  Now each Pokemon you catch has a CP level…  which doesn’t mean much to me as of yet because well I just started playing this yesterday.  However from what I have been able to tell the higher the number the better, and this factors into what sort of stat package that they have.  So my Eevee in question came out of the box as it were with 104 which is significantly higher than any other Pokemon I have seen yet.  Ironically the hardest capture yet was my Magikarp, namely because it kept flipping around aimlessly anytime I tried to toss the Pokeball.  Not only do you have to try and land the sweet spot, but most Pokemon will move around on you while trying to do this.  Similarly I utterly failed at capturing a Butterfree because apparently it is a little stronger willed than others.  I captured it three times… and all three times it broke out of the ball… eventually flying away never to be seen again.

The reason why I titled this post Walking Simulator, is because that is a genre name that folks have tacked onto games that are about walking around and exploring virtual worlds… but without any combat to speak of.  Pokemon Go however is quite literally a game about walking.  The world has all of these objectives out there in the form of PokeStops and Gyms that seem to appear based on the previous Ingress player portal locations according to Thalen who had apparently played that game way more than I ever did.  So for me I have one right around the corner from my house in the form of a statue.  So last night I convinced my wife to go for a walk… under the guise of exercise but she knew that really I just wanted to go out and capture Pokemon.  Now we get into the larger problem of Pokemon Go right now… the servers and uptime.  For most of the day yesterday things were crashing in spectacular ways, likely because Niantic was simply not ready for the crush of folks who like me decided to bypass the silly region lockouts.  This immediately started a ban rumor floating around that anyone who downloaded the APK was going to get banned from the application.  Yet in all of the threads I never saw anyone reporting anything other than normal intermittent service issues.

Screenshot_2016-07-06-13-56-40Pokemon Go is a deeply connected application.  Not only do you need to stay in fairly constant communication with the Niantic servers over what I am guessing is some sort of a Web Service call… you also have to have unfettered connectivity to GPS satellites in order to keep your positioning true.  This means two things…  namely that gameplay can be unpredictable, and that your battery will weep in misery at the drain.  When I went out to lunch I had about 85% on my battery… and after about an hour of running errands and capturing Pokemon I was sitting around 52% if I remember correctly.  Ingress players are notorious for carrying a bunch of portable battery packs just to make sure that their gameplay is uninterrupted and truthfully that is probably going to be the standard operating procedure with Pokemon Go as well.  So in the middle of my walk last night I encountered a Fearow in the grocery store parking lot.  When I went to try and capture it however I threw the ball… and the screen locked up with the ubiquitous spinning Pokeball icon in the left corner of the screen working madly on trying to reacquire a signal.  I finally had to shut down the application, and reboot my phone… to restore any semblance of connectivity… and even then when I got to the PokeStop outside of my Neighborhood I couldn’t actually retrieve anything from it.  While the game has launched officially now… it is very much not without issues.

However what exists is extremely awesome.  For me Pokemon was always a game about capturing interesting critters, and the combat and story always took a backseat.  When I caught all of the available Pokemon in an area I stopped caring about it and simply wanted to move on to the next area so I could see fresh critters.  For me… this game is likely going to be crack, but also going to be an excellent excuse to get out of the house and walk around my neighborhood.  Where I work downtown there are a couple dozen different PokeStops within easy walking distance so more than likely I am going to start venturing out at lunch to go find them.  What is disturbing is the level of saturation this app has already gotten.  There are four or five different gyms located in downtown Tulsa, and by noon yesterday when I went out to run errands… each and every single one of them was already claimed by a player.  Now these might be beta players or “Beaters” as the community has taken to calling them, but it might also be folks like me who grabbed the APK and just started playing.  There are so many aspects of the game I can’t really talk about yet… because I have not experienced them.  There is apparently a whole team mechanic that will happen at some point, but as I am sub level 5 that is not something I have encountered yet.  I do plan on going Team Blue, and I believe that is where the rest of my friends are leaning as well.  In any case… if you have ever loved Pokemon I suggest at least checking it out.  I have this feeling that it will be something I obsess with for a few weeks… and then never touch again…  much like the other Pokemon games I have played.  However it does at least make walking and running errands a far more interesting experience.

Uncoordinated Ramble

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Yesterday I made what seems to have been a fairly controversial post, but also one that seems to be misconstrued to be more than it really was.  The key complaint of the post was the method in which Blizzard occasionally conveys information to the fans through a dose of condescension.  That isn’t good for the brand and isn’t good for the game as a whole.  The rest of the points that I used as examples…  well they were just me pointing out ways I felt the person delivering the message was doing so in a less than friendly manner.  Yesterday I had a bunch of valuable conversation with different folks on both the main point and the sub points, and also some not so valuable discussion.  I feel like any discussion line that follows something along the lines of “you don’t have to play the game” isn’t really valuable.  Sure there are folks who just want to throw stones, burn the crops and salt the earth after they have left.  I am not one of those people… I genuinely care about this game because it is like an old friend.  However it is a friend that keeps going through really strange phases that are maybe not so good for their health.  Ultimately I am just the sort of person who has to say something eventually, and when I do… I can more or less move on knowing that I said my peace.

Every year at work when it comes time for the performance review… there is always a question that boils down to following orders.  My boss always feels the need to make a point about how I will “eventually” follow orders, but that I have to explain my point of view first.  There have been a number of times throughout my career where I have had to implement bad solutions that I knew would eventually bite us in the ass six months to a year later.  I don’t do this cheerfully, and not without first explaining all of the reasons why this is a bad idea.  However if after making my case… it is still decided that we have to do whatever this thing is… I do so to the best of my ability knowing that I made my point known.  When I leave the work world I am this same person… I have to speak my peace in order to move on.  So when I see a game making decisions that I don’t agree with…  well I stand up and say something and do so in my own private vehicle for communicating that.  This is my blog ultimately, and if you are coming here you are going to keep getting me talking about whatever happens to be important on my mind.  I enjoy your visit, and I appreciate feedback… but at the end of the day this is my blog filled with my opinions and that isn’t really something you can judge “right” or “wrong”.

Ultimately the truth is I am not deluded enough to believe for even a second that anything I say here is going to change anything outside of the confines of the limited things I have control of.  I can make my point, and inscribe it on the pages of this virtual tome.  However that doesn’t mean my point is actually going to influence anyone as a result.  You have to understand most mornings when I sit down to start writing…  I largely forget that I actually have readers.  That is not to say that I don’t value each and every reader… it is just that I end up sitting here talking to myself.  Often times the points I make, are a way of me dealing with the thoughts and feelings that I am having at the time.  It is a way of me processing the complex melange of reactions that I have boiling up inside of me, and there is something about putting it down onto paper that seems to bring forth the truest version of whatever it was that I was thinking.  Ultimately we can disagree on whatever it is that I am talking about, and that is going to be okay.  We don’t have to agree to exist within the same space, and often times it is better if we don’t.  The internet and its ease of creating echo chambers is actually a really horrible thing, and so long as a view point isn’t one that I consider toxic…  I welcome it into my mind to swirl around with the thoughts that are already there.  My thoughts on any matter are a constantly evolving and shifting mess.

When it comes to World of Warcraft, I do question if I am compatible with the view the developers have for this game.  There was an interesting side note yesterday in a conversation with Nyn about social consequences of game changes.  I brought on a sequence of ramifications related to not having various aspects of the game be “bind on account” or at least collected at an account level.  Namely talking about the number of times I have wanted to play this or that alt, but my friends really needed me to be playing my main.  When that happens you are left with a choice… do you do the socially beneficial thing and play the character that is needed to help out your friends, or do you be selfish and spend your night working on the character you really want to be progressing.  The more things that are pushed to an account basis, the more these problems just go away.  If I can be running around on my main and collecting stuff that benefits my army of alts…  then that reinforces me playing the character that is needed at any given moment.  I think in the grand scheme of things this would also go a long way towards getting tanks and healers queuing for content… because they know that ultimately there is some benefit that can trickle down to my other classes.  To which she raised the point… that these aren’t really game mechanic problems but instead social problems.

I guess my stance is that the two are irrevocably connected.  Every game change has social ramifications, and every social change effects the way players view game mechanics.  Largely I judge World of Warcraft against the actions that other companies are taking in other MMOs.  Some of them do a phenomenal job of social engineering the player base to make shifts in behavior that ultimately benefit the health of the game.  A prime example is the way that Final Fantasy XIV keeps coming up with reasons that end game characters, want to be running lower level content by making end game rewards hinge upon the collection of items from lower level content.  This reinforces the cycle of constantly having a fresh supply of high level and geared players queuing for content, and the introduction of a first time bonus mechanic makes it so that high level players actually get excited knowing that their rewards from running the content are going to be multiplied by the presence of a new player.  This is absolutely bribery, but it is bribery that works extremely well… and shows a high level of understanding for the psychology of players.  So ultimately I think the more things that can be pushed back to the account level, the more willing players will be to bring what is needed instead of what they want to keep moving forward.

This also spawned a discussion about the design philosophy of “bring the player not the class” which in truth… doesn’t really work that well.  Sure it works great in cases of Paladins and Druids… that can field a dps, tank and healer but ultimately breaks down when it comes to pretty much any other class.  Now I will agree that any tank is swappable for any other tank, and for the most part healers are also equally interchangeable.  However when it comes to DPS, it doesn’t feel quite so much the case with so many fights punishing players for bringing too much ranged dps or too much melee dps.  If anything I think more things bound at the account level helps to get closer to the “bring the player” aspect of that equation because it rewards alting in a manner that isn’t really the case yet.    Alts are the thing that keep players engaged with the game during those slow spots where progression has either topped out, or is going much slower than expected.  Bolstering the reasons for players to roll that army of alts is I think a huge part of keeping players active and subscribed to the game.  There are still some sore spots with things that have gone to account based, like the upcoming transmog changes not really working 100% cross character…  but it was a step in the right direction.  Similarly account wide mounts, pets and achievements were extremely awesome and have increased the value of each of those things for me at least.  However it feels like we just haven’t gone far enough yet.  There are so many things like currencies and factions…  that just don’t seem to make sense at a character by character basis when it would be significantly more rewarding to have those things on any character you happen to be playing.  Anyways….  this ramble has gone on long enough and gotten way out of control.  Additionally I am out of time this morning and needing to head to work.  Thanks for reading if you actually made it to this point.

MMOs and Steam Sale

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The Sale is Here

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It is that time once again, for the Steam summer sale… one of two major sales that seem to happen each year on the Steam platform.  Over the years however it has changed significantly.  The first one I actually participated in was just a bunch of bundles, that allowed you to get the entire game library of a specific company for insane discounts.  I remembered I picked up the entire THQ library at the time including something silly like 40 games for $30 dollars.  As the years have gone by the sale has morphed multiple times, often times incorporating mini-games into it, and even saw the introduction of the trading card product.  The other thing that has changed… is that the discounts are nowhere near as insane as they once were, but instead the same basic price throughout the entire week.  So instead of catching a four hour window of a game being 75% off, it might simply be 50% the entire duration of the sale.  I guess this is both positive and negative, in that those flash sales inspired a ton of impulse buying…  but also a ton of frustration in that if you didn’t happen to be watching the site at 3 am you maybe missed that one game you really wanted to pick up.  Instead now it is just a good time to pick up those games that you had on your wish list, but for one reason or another never got around to picking up.  Last night for example I picked up The Witness and Firewatch, because both are games we have kicked around as possible AggroChat game club titles in the future.  Neither were really things I was in a rush to pick up, but I might as well catch a bit of a break in doing so.

How About MMOs?

Over the last several years a good number of MMORPGs have filtered their way onto the Steam library as a method of expanding their base, so while you won’t find Star Wars the Old Republic, or any of the Blizzard products because they are locked behind their own digital distribution systems…  you will find a good number of other games.  I thought I would poke my head around this morning and see what kind of deals are out there for those who heavily favor MMOs like myself.  The result is a pretty mixed bag, and to be honest I just clicked on some of the games that interest me.  There are likely deals out there for titles that I have never even heard of because Steam has been the great equalizer in expanding this genre.  Additionally the term MMO has become utterly meaningless… which means you have everything from a MOBA, an Area Shooter, a Creative Building Game, and traditionally MMORPGs all sharing the same generic banner these days.

Final Fantasy XIV

I figured I would start this off with what I consider to be one of the better deals.  Final Fantasy XIV is a huge game, and right now you are able to pick it up for half off the already fairly low starting price these days.  You can pick up the base game for $9.99 and the Heavensward expansion for $19.99.  The collectors edition version of the game is also available but you are only going to get a %20 break there.

Elder Scrolls Online

A similarly good deal is ESO which offers both the base game and the Imperial Edition at 50% off currently.  The thing that I did find surprising however is that none of the DLC is actually sold through steam, which means you will have to watch the Crown Store if you want a break on those.  The way to skirt all of the DLC issues is to of course subscribe, and still with only the base game you have a bunch of play time there.  You can pick up the vanilla version for $19.99, but I would highly suggest just going ahead and grabbing the $29.99 Imperial Edition because it has enough perks to make it worth the little bit extra.

Warframe

Warframe is of course a free to play title, and you can grab it from Steam at any point you like and start playing.  However at some point you are going to want to spend some money, and in our brief experience playing the game… the Steam bundles seem to be a phenomenal deal.  There always seemed to be some little perk that pushed them ahead of what you could get for the same amount of money from the in game cash shop.  During the summer sale all of these bundles are 50% off making them even better deals.  Generally speaking you get some in game currency, a bunch of really nice weapon and armor mods… and then some boosts which I never actually used.  Well worth checking out if you play Warframe.

The Secret World

The Secret World has morphed payment models over the years and is now a “Buy to Play” title, which the base game being extremely cheap, and every few months them releasing a new “Issue” that includes new content.  I ended up getting in on the ground floor of this game and purchased a lifetime subscription account, and as a result there is honestly no reason for me to ever buy anything else.  That has been a double edged sword for Funcom, because it got them quite a few big purchases in the beginning… but a good number of the most devoted players these days are also Lifetimers so not really adding much cash flow to the product.  All of this said… this game goes on sale rather frequently and each time I make a big production of spreading the word because it is a really amazing game.  It has some of the best storytelling I have experiences in any MMO full stop.  Right now you can pick up the base game for roughly $10 and the Ultimate edition that includes a ton of the Issue based DLC content for $20.  If you do not own this game stop what you are doing and buy it now… that is all.

 

Wildstar

Wildstar has been down its own rocky road lately, and it is pretty new to the steam platform.  As a result there are a lot of the offerings that are not participating in the summer sale.  However if you missed out on the madness that was purchasing cheap retail boxes of the game to turn them in for subscription time and bonus goodies…  then I highly suggest you check out the Cute and Cuddly pack.  This includes both the Glitterkitty Hoverboard and the Snarflyx mount… and several other things.  The discount is only 20% but right now Wildstar needs your love so if you are at all interested check the bundle out.

Eve Online

I have tried to play EVE and it just doesn’t click with me.  It is the best asteroid mining simulator ever created, but I can never seem to break myself out of doing just that.  It is one of those games that is extremely interesting to read about, but just not that interest for me to actually play.  Once upon a time I was supposed to write a four part article series on this game, but I failed miserably to get past part two.  All of that said… if you are an EVE player there are some extremely interesting deals during the Steam summer game.  The base game is 75% off and the premium edition %50 off…  but in addition since this game requires an active subscription steam apparently sells those too.  It is hard to tell if those subs are actually on sale, or if they are just showing you the traditional “buy 12 months” discount.  In any case it is not a bad time to buy into the game if you have always wanted to give it a shot.

Rift

Rift is another one of those games that has seen wild mood swings in the payment model department, however as it currently stands the game is entirely free… with a few caveats.  Each time they add new content as in zones and dungeons and systems… those are completely free and you can go from level 1 to the currently cap of 65 without spending a dime on the game.  They do however offer you a plethora of methods for giving them money for little incidental things.  Where the DLC packs come in is that you enter the game with a base set of souls, and over time they have released a new set with Storm Legion, Nightmare Tides, the recent Ascended Pack and entirely new class with the Planetouched Wilds.  These are not included in the base game and have to be added on piecemeal, and this is largely the sort of thing that is being offered on Steam.  There is also the grand daddy of all DLC packs the Rift Ultimate edition that packages up and includes everything you can get from the other packs.  During the Summer Sale these are all 25% off, so its a good time to catch up on whatever souls you might be missing like the new Ascended Pack which is currently $26.24.

YMMV

There are also a bunch of games that are not participating at all, like the Perfect World titles Neverwinter Nights and Star Trek online for example.  While Rift and Trove are participating, ArcheAge does not appear to be.  Basically this morning I wrote this post because at least for me personally… I rarely think of using the Steam sale as a way of catching up on my MMO content that I might have neglected.  For those who only have the base game of Final Fantasy XIV for example… right now is a damned fine time to pick up Heavensward even if you have not gotten to that point in the story.  Similarly like I said above if you were going to pick up various souls packs from Rift, you might as well do them now at a cost break.  The Steam tagging system is often times a pretty horrible thing, but you might check out the Massively Multiplayer tag because it shows most of the deals that I was talking about above and much more.  MMOs are kinda the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to gaming, and all of them you will be playing for months and potentially years ahead.  It is well worth checking out during the madness that is the Steam sale.