Tales of the Aggronaut

Selling Nostalgia

April 14, 2017 by Belghast

This morning I am just now waking up as I am off for good Friday. Which in truth I always thought was odd given how much Baptists outnumber Catholics in my area, but whatever the case I will take it. I like days off, other than the fact that they sort of cause me to lose momentum. As a result I have been staring at the screen for awhile now after waking up and eating a couple of croissants. and now seem to have absolutely no ammunition for a proper blog post. As a result you are instead getting a bit of a reprise of something I already said on the interwebs. Yesterday at some point during the day I went on a bit of a tear on twitter of posting a chain of posts about nostalgia and gaming projects. Every so often I decide to react to something… and like the confused madman that I am I rarely if ever provide proper reference for the ramblings that are about to ensue. Yesterday was no different, and ultimately what started the machine running was the fact that I keep seeing announcements relating to the various City of Heroes nostalgia projects that are all hoping to capture the magic of that game.

The general problem I have with this concept is… that City of Heroes was a specific moment in time for me and involved not only the game… but the general lack of other options available at the time. In the early MMO era there was a period of each game release absolutely eclipsing what the previous one was offering me. Prior to the launch of City of Heroes, the MMOs that I had played for serious amounts of time were Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Horizon: Empire of Istaria in that order. From each game I gathered up some friends and carried them forward into the next title, and this was absolutely the case for City of Heroes seeing me splitting time between playing with a circle of local friends, my first Everquest guild, my second Everquest guild… and a group that would ultimately end up being the core of folks I carried forward into World of Warcraft. It was a weird time in gaming and it was made vibrant by the fact that everything was fresh and new. That said the moment any of us got our hands on World of Warcraft, it pretty much was the death of City of Heroes… and instead of continuing to play we largely spent a bunch of time planning out what our ultimate adventures in Azeroth would look like.

The City of Heroes nostalgia games however are instead a dogmatic recreation of this thirteen year old game brought into the 16:9 resolution world with higher fidelity. Sure that is an interesting prospect, but something you might download a screw with on a boring Sunday afternoon like an Everquest emulator… but probably not something you are likely to play for long periods of time. The core problem with City of Heroes is that there were simply not that many people actually playing it when the game was shuttered. Sure it bothered me greatly to know that this virtual world that I once loved was now gone, and it still frustrates me. However I was not actually playing it… nor was anyone that I knew… and that was the issue. It was a game we all remembered fondly… but chose to keep remembering fondly by not playing it and subjecting it to the criticism of knowing the games that came after it. This is not entirely a critique of City of Heroes, because there are plenty of other trips down memory lane in the works that intend to bring back Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot. City of Heroes was an important game for me… but also one I had moved past.

“I remember this thing fondly” is an extremely dangerous demographic, because our memories are ultimately fallible. It is entirely possible for us to inflate the idea of something to the point where it no longer represents anything vaguely close to the actual experience. A prime example of this is that I loved Bravestar the cartoon… and a number of years ago I tracked down a copy of the series run. About three episodes into watching it, I stopped because it simply did not stand the test of time… and seemingly I remembered the show… but also infused that memory with how much I actually enjoyed playing with the toys. Similarly I remember loving Airwolf… and then subjected myself to watching the show from Netflix and it was something that just no longer worked for me. I think City of Heroes is going to ultimately be the same for a lot of people, that they remember the game fondly because in truth they are actually remembering a moment in time and the people that were involved with it. I’ve changed an awful lot since April of 2004, and I have this feeling that most of the folks that really clamor for a return to that game have changed as well.

The truth is I would love to see a modern City of Heroes, but when I say that I don’t mean it literally. What I want is a modern super hero MMO that captures the spirit of City of Heroes, but more importantly is relevant and something that all of my friends are similarly excited to be playing. The last part is the hardest in the equation. Online games are never actually the same, because they are this combination of elements that the game studio has control over, and elements that it doesn’t in the form of the community of folks playing it. Sure you can revisit a book or a movie and even though you have changed… the source material ultimately has not. That is not the case with an online experience, because the community effects your perception of the game in ways that we don’t even fully understand. I might phase my statement “I really miss X game” but what I am actually saying is I miss the moment in time when I had a group of friends actively playing that game. These little vignettes of time are just something you can’t really get back. I have experienced this so many times with World of Warcraft as folks rush into a brand new expansion… only to peter out once again because it ultimately feels like ground we have tread too many times to maintain the level of excitement for long.

Nostalgia is a seriously addictive drug, and I admit that I succumb to it rather often. As gamers we are all I think chasing the original high we felt when we played this game or did this activity. Then ultimately lying to ourselves when we claim that the game is just as good as we remembered it. Comfort gaming will always be comfortable because we can slip into it without the experience asking that much from us. However in doing so we are largely feeding off past memories far more than we are actually making new ones. I remember those first few years in World of Warcraft with crystal clarity, but with each expansion and each succession of a brand new group of people to meet and remember… they get significantly more hazy. Coming back to a game… makes you remember not just the highlight reel of good moments, but the crashing reality of all of the frustrations you felt about the game and that likely ultimately lead you to quit in the first place. All of this is why I feel like relying entirely on nostalgia to carry a project forward is a deeply dangerous proposal. Nostalgia is a great hook to get people through the door, but the project itself has to immediately stand on its own two feel and start building deep and interesting memories to keep people there for long. I wish the crop of nostalgia induced projects the best of luck, but at the same time I am deeply skeptical that they are going to live up to our memories.

Donuts and Calculations

April 13, 2017 by Belghast

I decided last night that the primary reason for me trying to complete all of the side quest content… is that it enables me to spend more time screwing around in the Nomad. At this point I am nearing 80 hours into the game, and thanks to Dusty Monk I know how to determine my completion score which is sitting at 63%. I’m level 52 as of last night and have completed the primary colonization arc of I believe all of the inhabitable worlds. There is a huge part of me that is somehow extremely bummed that we could not somehow turn habitat 7 around and at least put some form of a mining outpost. Similarly I am bummed that the game would not allow me to take over and inhabit the asteroid mining base out there with something other than some flavor text stating that the Nexus would begin mining there. However in all of this… doing stupid things in the Nomad has probably been the highlight. Why go around a mountain when you can use your rocket boost to climb it.

The biggest problem with Mass Effect Andromeda is the fact that it has latched on hard enough to make me go through the “just one more objective” problem. I am having hell each night pulling myself away to get some much needed sleep, and that means as a result most every night this week I have been finally hitting bed around 11:30 to midnight-ish which isn’t horrible until you account that I get up for work at 5:30. Thankfully today is my official unofficial Friday since we are off tomorrow, and that means I can in theory catch up on sleep over the three day weekend. I also hope that I can wrap this game up so I can move to one of the other games waiting on me to play it. More than likely I will be returning to Horizon Zero Dawn, because functionally I am on a timer with needing to play whatever it is that I want to play before the launch of Stormblood. So far on that list are Horizon Zero Dawn, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Wrapping up Final Fantasy XV, and Nier Automata. There are of course other games that should probably be on that list, but I am trying to stay at least a little focused right now.

Last night I experienced the best possible line in the game, hands down. Sure the game is full of some zingers, but one of the key problems I have had while playing it is reconciling Tann. I love Kumail Nanjiani as an actor…. but I have come to loath Director Tann with all of my being. I mean no one could have lived up to my love of Mordin Solus, and I am kinda happy that they did not even try. While Kallo Jath is cool enough, the character just doesn’t interact enough with him to make a really meaningful impression. As far as Salarian’s go the one that has left the biggest mark on me this game is Jarun Tann. He is exactly the wrong sort of person that I would want in charge of the Initiative, and I feel fairly frustrated that really there is nothing I can do about it. Granted I am still quite a ways from finishing the game, and largely paused any main quest development until I completed all of the side missions that I wanted. As a result I still have yet to find the Salarian Ark, and maybe that sequence allows me to do some wish fulfillment and expose Tann to be the pompous ass he is. However in the mean time… the game does at least allow me to say one liners like this one. Mass Effect Andromeda… is the Mass Effect the internet needed.

Mechanics Defeated

April 12, 2017 by Belghast

Last night did not ultimately end up like I thought it would, for many reasons. Firstly this weekend we had a death in the family… but man is it harder to explain than that. When you grow up in a small town, families that are connected to each other through a marriage end up mingling an awful lot. Because of kids birthday parties and school events, you are constantly encountering this whole other family that is not actually related to you. So when I say a death in the family, it was not actually my or my wife’s family, but instead the father of a brother in law in wife’s side. So when it happened we made a trip up to Friday night to attempt to offer support, and do our normal thing of bringing paper goods since during a death in the family a household goes through way more of everything. The funeral itself is today, and because of the weird familial restrictions of bereavement leave policy I don’t get a day off. Last night was the viewing, which is sort of like a wake but not actually a wake… and I did not think we were going to go. However when I got off from work my wife indicated that we probably should at least make a showing. I thought this largely meant that I would be gone from our normal Tuesday night FFXIV shenanigans. It was roughly an hour drive either direction, and then by the time we went to the event and ate dinner I fully expected to be about an hour late for fun time.

However we opted to pick up some food and eat it while travelling… I would explain what we got but it probably would not make sense to anyone who did not grow up in a tiny town. I also apparently drove like a bat out of hell, because I made it home and was only about fifteen minutes late… with folks still trying to pull the group together. With me it meant we had seven people available to do stuff… and in some quirk of bravado we decided to pug that 8th layer and keep working on “Mechanics: The Fight” or Thordan Ex. We got a Dragoon that said they had run the fight on a healer before… and we proceeded to start attempting to make progress. A few seconds into the fight and the Dragoon was already dead. During that first attempt I think they were rezzed four different times… and more than likely through the entire sequence of the attempts averaged around three deaths per outing. As if summoned by our tears… Kodra showed up and we rejoiced and disbanded our party finder group to bring him in. The hilarious part about this is that we all started talking about how much we had gotten used to having a good Dragoon. Then a few seconds into the first attempt… Kodra died in EXACTLY the same manner as our pug dragoon.

We rebounding from this and started making proper attempts. The night was mildly stressful because we once again had a slightly different line up than normal. Muspel was filling one of the slots, and his only level 60 and geared character is his warrior. That mean’t Ashgar was not tanking along side me and instead running DPS on his monk. This is not normally a big deal other than the fact that every attempt I have been in the offtank role, and last night was my first night actually tanking the main boss. It took some adjustment, namely during the dragons eye phase to know that I had to actually step through the boss to make sure I was clear of the effect. Similarly there was a dance of times I needed to stack up… and then hurriedly run the hell out before he cast a frontal cleave. I am pretty sure I killed someone at least once during one of these interchanges, or when having to run across the Arena to place to boss so that the dragon eye and boss were in the same orientation. However on what would have been our last attempt due to the timer, we brought all of these elements together and managed to get our very first Thordan Ex kill. Now to move on to the Warring Triad Extremes, but hopefully we can keep popping Thordan each week so we don’t actually forget the dance.

Doom Therapy

April 11, 2017 by Belghast

Yesterday was a bit of a frustrating day. For some reason lately there has been this common theme for me at work. That is getting pulled into projects that I have never touched before, and don’t even know the history of… as a sort of troubleshooter in chief. I apparently have this ability to break through the layers of urban legends and get at the heart of problems. Largely this all centers on my ability to ask “why are you doing it that way?”… regardless of who happens to be in the room. I am not mean spirited about it, but in truth what I am trying to do is separate out what is needed and adds value to the process and what is just extra steps that were put in for no apparent reason. I mean I have worked in environments where I did not have access to the appropriate permissions, and in those environments you sort of make things work however you can. A prime example is a process that I a digging into right now that involves going for seven hops between what is essentially an FTP drop directory and the actual directory the software loads data from. I’m trying to peel back the layers of tradition and determine does each of these steps actually do something other than just adding more steps where a file can possibly get corrupted. Also in this case the file crosses the operating system boundary at least four times which in itself is sort of problematic.

There are days when I have had my fill of madness and simply need to watch the world burn. Instead of ACTUALLY watching the world burn… I have a more healthy outlet in the form of video games. The genre of choice during these days is some form of a shooter, and last night on a whim I decided to boot up the modern incarnation of Doom. Now I have not spent nearly as much time in this game as it deserves, largely because it ran less than amazing on my previous system. I mean it was workable but for a game that demands such fast paced action… my old AMD FX-6300 process wasn’t really doing the job. Now that I have this spiffy x99 i7 system it runs extremely smooth in both normal and vulcan modes. In theory I should probably put this game on the SSD because it has quite possibly one of the slowest boot sequences that I have seen from any game. Whatever the case it absolutely filled my need especially when it comes to “glory kills”, which allows you to rip the heads/arms/various other body parts off of demons when they are low health. When you are deeply frustrated… it helps a little bit to inflict massive amounts of digital carnage.

After about an hour of “Doom Therapy” I was more than ready to strap back into the environmental suit and go exploring in Mass Effect Andromeda. Last night I arrived at “Not-Tatooine” the obligatory desert world in the Andromeda galaxy. I think there is some unwritten rule that if you have an ice wasteland planet… you must then have a desert wasteland planet to balance things out. The positive is that “Not-Tatooine” is way easier to traverse than “Not-Hoth” due to the lack of giant ice crevices that go on forever. There are however giant sinkholes that seem to go on forever, but these seem easier to see than the crevices were. One of the things that you have to know about me is… that essentially roads and paths in videos games don’t exist and I will try my damnedest to figure out how to wall hack my way into a place rather than trying to sort out which direction the game is intending me to approach. This absolutely wrecks a lot of scripting that intends on players to arrive from a specific vector… and sometimes causes some hilarious moments of me unintentionally “sneaking” up behind guards. As a result when you apply this instinct to Andromeda it means that I spend a not insignificant amount of time forcing my nomad to climb sheer rock faces by abusing boosts.

The sad moment of last night unfortunately was when I decided that I should probably abandon my N7 tier 5 gear for something tier 6… and as a result I wound up putting on a full set of initiative spearhead armor. It has some perfectly reasonable if generic stats… but the key problem is that it just doesn’t look as cool. I have yet to find a set of “new” gear that really looks cool… and have been relying on the Quarian themed armor that I got with the collectors edition and the various N7 armor sets that I have been able to scrounge up. Apparently the Initiative only got to take the ugly armors with them to Andromeda… because all of the cool armor was needed to fight the Collectors and or the Reapers. I have a massive influx of research points because quite honestly… none of the Helius cluster gear looks very cool. I’ve never touched any of the Kett weaponry largely because they are ugly as sin, and while the Angaran weapons look a little better…. they are nowhere near as cool as the good old standbys from the Milky Way. The look and feel of a weapon to me are as important as the function. In theory what I should do is hang out next to one of the forward supply points and keep swapping weapons until I have tried out everything in my inventory before returning to my practice of mass deconstructing everything. The inventory upgrades have given me some breathing room to be able to hold onto some extra items.