Tales of the Aggronaut

OpenGame ID

March 2, 2016 by Belghast

The Problem

Now that I have consumed my morning coffee from my trusty skull mug… I am going to try really really hard to focus on a topic that I had kicking around my head. It all started with a rather simple announcement yesterday that the Microsoft store had Gears of War: Ultimate Edition available for Windows 10 computers. We will talk about the bullshit of making games Windows 10 exclusive some other day… but the discussion for this morning is game accounts. Right now I feel like I am deluged with account systems that serve no value to my life, and only serve to make shit more complicated when I just want to play a game…. and even worse when I want to try and play with friends. For a period of time my life was all nice and Zen, and pretty much everything I purchased went through the Steam interface. Sure Steam does some shifty shit, but it provided me a nice clean interface to play my games… and also a decent account system to keep track of which friends were playing which games. When a game integrated with said steam account system, and used steam servers for multiplayer… shit just worked and worked beautifully. Then Electronic Arts got pissy and spawned the Origin store, forcing me to deal with yet another store front with a significantly worse in every possible way interface. The worst bit about this whole thing is just how annoying the account system and trying to get everyone that I might want to play with “re-friended”.

Over the years I have picked up a number of these extraneous accounts that all do different stuff, and I need all of them for some reason or another. Just to rattle off a few of the multi game accounts: Steam, Origin, GOG, PSN, Xbox Live, Nintendo ID, Google Play, Amazon, Apple Store, Battle.net, Direct2Drive, NCSoft, Funcom, and now I am having to care about UPlay in my life as well. Then there is a whole other tier of things that are game social media like… Anook, Player.me, Raptr, Xfire, Discord and a couple of dozen other accounts that I am forgetting about right now. Then to even further confuse things you have Twitch, Hitbox, Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, GPlus, and all of the other social trappings that folks want to interact over. Trying to maintain some semblance of the same group of friends among ALL of those platforms is complete and total bullshit. Sure some of them throw you a bone, by allowing you to either import friends or link accounts… but the end result is just pure madness. So this got me thinking… about all of the things that work well and all of the things that fail miserably. The challenge is that no two companies want to play together nicely… and everyone seems to revel in their proprietary crap. I think the problem is that they simply don’t want to have to comply to essentially their competitors designs, which makes everyone trying to re-invent the wheel and doing a piss poor job of it.

The Idea

In my perfect scenario there would be a single account that is portable and disconnected from any one manufacturer, that could be integrated with all of the existing services and act as a glue to allow players to share their connections between all of the platforms. The idea is that there would be an open standard, that was designed for social gaming. My idea is to start with something similar to LDAP, where you have an authentication core that then also has a metabase with different security bits that allow writing of data to different segments of a user account. This would allow PSN Trophies for example to exist in the same structure as XBox Live Achievements… but otherwise stay separate. The idea would be to divide up the social aspect of gaming from the structural requirements of running a game network, so that the friends list lives on its own… and all of the technical bits get buried in the segment of the account that folks don’t really need to look at anyway. Having a single game account would also go a bit towards solving some of the issues with anonymous access to gaming, and having disposable interactions. I don’t like the concept of real names being thrown around in the ether, and I think that is absolutely the WRONG idea to go about fixing that problem. However I do think that Belghast#1752 for example my Battletag is just as unique as knowing my real name… and so long as this is a piece of data that I cannot shed without a lot of effort it means you can track my actions across multiple platforms. If you see that a given “OpenGame” account has been flagged by Microsoft and PSN for abuse… then maybe it is time for Battle.net and Twitch and Steam to investigate their actions as well?

The problem with my idea is that it sounds great on paper… but the challenge is… who exactly would run such a system and who would administer it? If it is just an open standard and the individual companies are responsible for running their own servers… then where is the buy in and where is the cost savings. If it is a third party company… where is the monetization to make it work? I don’t have all the answers, but this is just the course of a “wouldn’t it be cool if” sequence that I had yesterday throughout the day. I would love to see someone fix this problem, and I would love to see things work in a way that is pro-consumer and not necessarily pro-company. We’ve reached a point where you can pretty much play any game on any console you like… and most of those also end up coming to the PC. I just wish we could get a point where you could also end up playing with PSN friends on your PC, and Xbox friends on your PS4. Considering we have examples like Street Fighter 4 and FFXIV that allow PSN and PC players to play freely together…. I have to assume that the roadblock is Microsoft, and even with an “OpenGame” system they would probably still remain a problem. This mornings post will not help in any meaningful fashion.. but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there. I welcome anyone with the right entrepreneurial spirit to come along and steal this idea… because I would rather have it be a thing than have credit for doing it. I’ve had a mantra for awhile now: “Anything that gets in the way of playing with my friends is bad” and this sort of “OpenGame” system would go a long way to fixing some of that. Here is some ideas for what a system like this would have to have.

Fixed ID that stays with a user between game systems and networks.
Not Real Name based… too much bad shit can come of this.
Systems in place to change that ID in case of dangerous shit like stalking and such… but enough friction to keep it from happening often.
Ability for each game system/network to update only their segment of the total account.
Friends lists are free floating and work regardless of what system you happen to be in… so cross pollination between games.
Thorough Privacy Settings… so you can say “this user can play with me in this game, but not in this one”.
Ability to go 100% stealth mode… because sometimes you’ve had enough interaction and need quiet time.
Linkages to social and other media platforms to allow folks to interact freely (but should also follow above privacy rules).
Cross Game/Platform/Whatever chat (again privacy aware).
In server based games, would be awesome to have suggestions as to which server most of your friends are on.
Ability for services to log account actions against the OpenGame ID.
Sign-Up process difficult enough to make it challenging for folks to keep spawning new IDs.

Wilderqueen

March 1, 2016 by Belghast

Contemplating Forge

Last night was another night that was all over the place. Firstly I decided to reinstall Forge.gg and give it another chance. I have so many mixed emotions about this service, I like the concept that I can grab short clips at the end of my gaming session. I dislike the fact that I can ONLY grab short clips, which are generally too short to show a boss fight for example. I like the always on nature, and that it can just run in the background without me feeling like I need to be entertaining. However I ran into some issues last night where apparently even though I had push to talk set… it was still actively picking up my microphone the entire time as you can see in the above clip. So you get a snippet of a conversation between my wife and I about something I don’t even remember. I like the idea of streaming but I don’t always want to be actively interacting, and forge is this great middle ground. Ultimately I wound up muting my microphone at a system level just to make sure that it was not picking up. I am hoping this is just a bug in the current client, and I will crawl the site to see if I can find out why this was happening.

The other gotcha it seems is that it did not pick up and start recording Elder Scrolls Online. I spent the first part of the evening doing garrison dailies and doing at least one Tanaan objective in World of Warcraft and it recorded all of that perfectly. However as soon as I swapped into ESO, it never came up with the forge icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen letting me know it is recording. I will say that the really really nice thing about the client is sometime in between my last attempt at using the service and this one… it seems to work nicer with Fraps because there is no way I am giving up that just to use the service. I am too used to having a common and centralized screenshot tool for all of the games I play. It is an absolute necessity that I have a fresh source of new screenshots for this blog, and I hate having to try and find the screenshot directory for each individual game. So instead I tend to unbind the screenshot key if it is allowed and just use Fraps for everything. It was awesome last night that I was able to use fraps just fine while still recording on forge…. at least when it came to World of Warcraft. I am going to be a sad panda if that ends up being the issue with it recording Elder Scrolls Online.

Return to Greenshade

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The bulk of my time last night was spent wandering around Greenshade in the Elder Scrolls Online. Generally speaking I tend to play this game by wandering aimlessly from objective to objective, but last night I actually seemed to move through the zone with a purpose. That purpose being ingratiating myself to the Court of the Wilderking, a forest spirit that controls the Valenwood and that the local Bosmer worship as a God King. As part of trying to quell the rebellion and steal forces away from the Veiled Heritance, my mission was simple… get the support of the Wilderking to get the support of the local forces…. thus ending the rebellion. I of course did a bunch of other stuff along the way, and I am not entirely complete with the main story sequence… but I am having a blast. I got sidetracked in helping a friend level in World of Warcraft, and then again by the Love is in the Air event…. and finally I am settling back into Elder Scrolls Online for a bit. Granted currently I will probably continue to hop games like mad because there is just so damned much stuff that I want to be playing. In Elder Scrolls I have yet to see any of the Imperial City content, or Orsinium… and they are just about to release the Thieves Guild as well. So much catching up to do… but at the same time I feel like I have all the time in the world to do it because I am not playing the game at a serious end game focused level.

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The other big happening of the night is that I finally dinged Veteran Rank 4, allowing me access to the next tier of crafted gear. I was doing awesome…. until I screwed up and rushed to get my shield made and forgot to go to the set crafting area. Originally I was planning on having 5 piece Alessia’s Bulwark, and 4 piece Ashen Grip… except I am now sitting at 3 pieces in that set because I got sidetracked and ended up making a non-set shield. Unfortunately I am completely out of the right kind of wood so I will need to do some more adventuring before I can finish things out. For the time being I have opted to abandon my costume and go with the actual armor look because I dig the Imperial armor look. I will probably always favor the Dunmer sword type, though recently I did enjoy using an axe for a bit. The game looks amazing on the laptop, and I am so damned happy with how well everything is performing to be honest. It does get a little hot but then again what gaming laptop doesn’t. My previous one had a SLI graphics card configuration so had insanely hot air venting out of both sides of the laptop. At least this setup isn’t continuously baking my mouse hand. I just need to sort out why exactly Forge was not recording the game.

The Division

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Also looming on the near horizon is the launch of The Division. At this point it is absolutely certain that I will be playing it on the PC, at least at first. When the price comes down a little I will probably also pick it up for the PS4 so that I have access to it for any of the friends that happen to be playing there. For the last few days since the end of the beta I have trying to sort out how best to organize folks for the upcoming launch. The game itself does not really have guilds or clans or any structure like that…. at least that I saw in the two betas I have been part of. So as a result this is going to make getting stuff going a little more difficult than in other games. However my friend Sigtric, the man who coined the hashtag #BelEffect is firing up a Discord group and attempting to get it to be the official/unofficial chat server for the game. If you are going to be playing I highly suggest you pop by and join the “Gone Rogue” community. There is a shared general chat and breakout channels for PC, PS4, and Xbox One to make organizing things a little easier. I honestly wish I had something like this for Destiny. Discord is one of those things that is growing on me, and while I still find Slack easier to use… there is a point in the near future where I could see abandoning traditional voice servers and moving to Discord entirely.

Deep Roads

February 29, 2016 by Belghast

It’s Over

At this point I don’t know for certain if my character is weeping tears of frustration or joy. Which ever the case I am just really happy that as of today and by the time I get home from work… the Love is in the Air event will be finished. I felt so damned conflicted this year when it came to this event, largely because I don’t even know why I was participating. I really really do not enjoy World of Warcraft holiday events, because they somehow manage to make something that should feel fun an exciting… into an obligation. Then on top of that… I don’t even like the Love Rocket mount. However because it is the rarest mount in the game, and I do not already have one… I feel somehow obligated to try for it every year. I wish I could understand why I do it… and to the extent of pushing aside other games that I would enjoy more just so I can haplessly farm for a chase mount. Sure it only takes a few minutes to do an attempt at the mount… but I felt obligated to run six different level 100 characters through it. Which by the time you check your garrison and shipyard on each, and queue for a dungeon… you are talking about roughly an hour of your night gone… chasing a mount I didn’t even really care that much about.

We talked at length about this phenomena over the weekend on the podcast, and largely why this works… and why it also frustrates us. Tam suggested that it was because it feels like the game is not respecting our time… and that is absolutely part of it. I think for me personally a good deal of my frustration is that this madness is actually working. This game knows my triggers so well, and it feels as though I have no control in the process. There is a certain measure of excitement in the chase, and were this something I could normally farm on my own… it would fall into the same category as my attempts to get rare mounts from raid bosses. However the fact that it is only available for a limited time… triggers the “fear of missing out” that if we don’t become mindless drones we might miss that one opportunity to get something cool. Even when in this case the something cool is not something we actually wanted in the first place. It is just frustrating to see a company working so effectively against my nature and getting me to follow along in their scheme each year in trying for “the thing”. Now granted I know without a doubt that come Halloween I will once again be chasing like mad in trying to get the Headless Horseman mount. At least I can rest comfortable in the knowledge that it “could be worse”. I mean it could be something as heinous as the Rift cash box chase mounts 🙂

Dwarf in the Deep Roads

I don’t have a whole lot to say here, because I didn’t get terribly far into it… however I did manage to start a quest chain leading me into the Deep Roads. The Deep Roads are my happy place in the Dragon Age universe because if it were really possible…. I would absolutely live completely underground. If you venture into any of my Minecraft settlements, you will see a pretty simple structure above ground… that leads to a massive snaking catacombs underneath. I just feel safe underground, and I have loved being down in every cave I have been able to. I still think having a structure that was mostly buried in a mountain would be my ultimate situation. I wonder if some of my reaction of safety to being underground… comes from the fact that I live in a state where the wind comes sweeping down the plains…. and takes out an entire city every now and then. In any case… we also got into a lengthy discussion about the Deep Roads on the podcast…. and I was shocked to find out that pretty much everyone other than me… unanimously hated them. They just seem like a badass concept… here are these roads and warrens deep underground that you have to fight the Dark Spawn which natively live down there. That pretty much sounds amazing… constantly having a fresh flow of Dark Spawn to fight. Then again…. I might not be normal when it comes to combat in video games. The Deep Roads are like the most metal part of Dragon Age, and I am hoping together to get time to venture forth again down there.

Man With the Hand

February 28, 2016 by Belghast

The Struggle

For over a year now I have desperately tried to get into Dragon Age Inquisition. The game starts really slow and throws your character in the middle of a conflict that I did not really care for. Be warned that there are going to be a few minor early game spoilers here, but I am going to try really hard not to say anything super spoilery. During Dragon Age II, you are constantly getting vignettes of Varric being in essence tortured and questioned by a figure that is identified as “The Inquisitor”. In Dragon Age Inquisition (and the anime if you had chance to watch it) you are introduced to Cassandra Penteghast…. the same Inquisitor who you learned to kinda hate during Dragon Age II. The thing is… in truth I actually rather like Cassandra, but the initial set up of the game places me squarely on the side of some epic side-eye when interacting with her. Not to mention that my character is apparently being blamed for some catastrophe as a result. Then with a huge amount of narrative whiplash I go from being the pariah and prisoner…. to quite literally the chosen one of Andraste. At no point did I want ANY of this… in past games I have only feigned interest in Andraste to get Leliana to like me. I am generally fairly anti-religion in games… and in this case especially since my preferred method of playing Dragon Age games is to play a Dwarf that believes we all spontaneously came from the stone and will return back there again someday.

Then on top of that… we basically find out that there is a war breaking out between the Mages and the Templar, and I am not terribly fond of either side. The entire game seemed to focus on my least favorite aspects of the Dragon Age world… and somehow got rid of the parts that I loved. I absolutely love the concept of the Grey Wardens. I was all about drinking demon blood and fighting dark spawn, and I would have been completely happy if we just had more games where I fought lots of bad things to save kingdoms. With Dragon Age II…. it took a big detour, but even then I got to fight self righteous asshole red lyrium Templar…. and was mostly okay with it. The thing that carried me through that game were the characters that I got interested in…. but the problem thus far with Dragon Age Inquisition…. were the fact that I simply was not really feeling the characters at all. I like Cassandra just fine, and Dorian and Solas were both growing on me. Varric felt like a caricature of Varric from Dragon Age II…. which bothered me from the start. Leliana changed for the worst, and was not the character that I came to adore…. lost all of the soft spots and became this battle hardened zealot. Blackwall is cool enough but I already had Cassandra to tank so quite literally had zero use for him. The only character I completely and wholeheartedly loved…. was Sera, but that didn’t really feel like enough. Mostly the grouping did not feel like “my team” in the same way as the other Bioware outings did, and more so felt like a bunch of characters that I just happened to get thrown in the same room with.

The Turning Point

DragonAgeInquisition 2016-02-27 19-29-50-85 — A Better Horizon

As I said at the beginning of my post… this has been a struggle for over a year now. I will sit down… play for a few hours…. not get drawn into the game and then log out once more. With the new laptop I have been in the process of trying to play games that I for one reason or another struggled with. At the top of that list was Dragon Age Inquisition, and last night I finally realized that I was sitting at a pretty major turning point in the story. I had been putting off the assault on the breech, thinking that it might lead me down a path that would ultimately lock me into the “end game” in a same way as attacking the collector ship does in Mass Effect 2. Sure I was only 20-30 hours into the game, but Dragon Age II was really short… so far all I knew the base game here was short as well if you simply steamrolled your way through the story. Last night Dragon Age pulled a “Link to the Past” on me… and bam all of the sudden I saw everything that everyone was talking about this game. Essentially I now view everything that I did up to this point as largely “the tutorial level” and now it feels like the real game is finally beginning. I have to tell you I am really excited to be “into” this game.

The game manages to pull together a sequence of events that not only cements your motivation and why you care about the events of the world…. but also serves to cement your team. I went from feeling this was just a group of people that I was stuck with…. to being a group of MY people. I am also completely bought into the Inquisition as an organization, because after last night I realized that I am the person shaping the fate of this organization. I can make the Inquisition be this brutal force similar to its namesake…. or I can make it into an organization that cares about people and tries to save them in the process. Bioware I am sold…. and I am ready to get started playing this game. What is frustrating about all of this is… Dragon Age: Origins had an AMAZING introduction… or at least it did if you played a Dwarf. By the time I completed that opening sequence I was completely sold on the setting and the characters and ready to go out into the world and carve my niche. Dragon Age II had a much rougher start, but even though it felt more forced and pushed down a single hallway… I eventually reached a point where it felt I was changing the world. Inquisition though… feels like the worst of those two options…. where you have only the most vestigial of control over your own character as you are forced down a path. Thankfully it seems that the skies are clearing…. and I am ready to step forth into the new world.