Tales of the Aggronaut

MMOs Worth Playing: The Secret World

October 15, 2015October 9, 2015 by Belghast

The Games Pusher

I need a new mmo in my life

— Z (@zerena_hoofs) October 7, 2015

One of my friends coined the term “Games Pusher” to represent the force I have when it comes to getting people to try a game. She said she called me a drug dealer in the nicest possible way, but the term has stuck in my head. It is true, I get super excited about games and enjoy trying to introduce people to ones they are not currently playing. The thing is… originally I thought this was just me vying to get more people to join me in the game I am currently playing. However I feel like there are dozens of MMOs that are really good and that people should play all of them at least for a bit. So we zoom to earlier this week when a friend of mine… one @zerena_hoofs made the innocuous comment that “I need a new mmo in my life”. At which point I ended up flooding her with suggestions. I jokingly said that I could keep it up for hours… and in truth I really could. While I generally suck at sticking with “columns” I always have the desire to spawn them. This time the idea is to do a short run of posts each Friday talking about the awesome things relating to one MMO that is “worth playing”. Since it is October, I thought I would start things off with the most Halloweeny of all MMOs… The Secret World.

The Plot

The game is set essentially in an alternate reality version of our own world, and with that comes a lot of pop culture references. When your character is awoken to your own latent abilities by a mysterious bee flying into your mouth while you are sleeping, you are recruited by one of three different secret organizations. It seems while the world “slept” there has been a secret cold war going on between three ancient powers: The Knights Templar, The Illuminati and a mysterious and relatively unknown organization called Dragon. Each organization has its own agendas… for the Templar based in London it tends to be to keep the order. For the Illuminati based in New York it is all about hoarding knowledge and making a profit. For Dragon based on Seoul it is about sowing the seeds of chaos throughout the world. This secret back and forth between these clandestine entities would have remained like this for continued centuries were it not for the fact that something is changing. A darkness is bubbling up from the bowels of the earth in the form of “The Filth” which is this black ichor that infects anyone who touches it with a sort of deliberate madness. Now each organization is trying to get to the bottom of what is going on, while at the same time protecting their own assets and vying for supremacy over the other orders.

The game relies upon urban legends and myths to weave a tapestry of strange happenings throughout the world. One moment you are investigating a small town in New England overrun by Lovecraftian horrors and zombies, and the next you might be uncovering a lost city in the Egyptian desert forgotten to time and filled with its own unknown dangers. All the while you are trying to sort out what is happening to the world and what you and your chosen order can do to fix it. What makes all of this work is the fact that this game has some of the best writing I have seen in any game, MMO or not. The quests are interesting and actually require some pretty damned devious puzzle to solve. There was one quest in Egypt that I remember vividly that actually provided data that you had to decode that was included in a number of real world encoding mechanisms. Only after decrypting all of them could you get the clue needed to solve the riddle. To make life easier on you, the game provides an in game browser and Funcom operates a number of “fake” websites for people and corporations in game that contain clues that are needed to solve certain quests.

The Mechanics

The game claims to not have levels or classes but in truth… neither of these are absolutely correct. What the game offers is a free form character creation system, but that freedom is actually fairly dangerous. You can in theory build a character that is so screwed up that you cannot actually function in the game. The game provides a few specific templates for each of the professions and earning all of the abilities for this template gets you a nifty costume. These also serve as relatively functional builds for you to work towards, that will hopefully prevent the problems of absolute freedom. The challenge here is the fact that there is no “respec” or skills reset system. Doing things in the world gains you ability points and skill points, each with their own uses. Ability points are spent learning new abilities in several different weapon based trees, and Skill points are used to level your ability to equip higher tiers of gear. In its most basic form a “build” is a combination of up to seven active abilities on your hotbar, and up to seven passive abilities that hopefully interact with the actives you chose. Later in the game they introduced new weapons that also take up space, but those won’t unlock until you have completed a quest.

The game itself feels almost like a card building game like Magic the Gathering or the Guild Wars 1 skill system… where you are trying to build a “deck” of abilities that interact in interesting ways together. For example you might have a passive that does something really interesting when you push an enemy into a “hindered” state, and then you would want to use that with abilities on your hotbar that trigger that hindered state. What makes this extremely interesting is the fact that you can swap your abilities at any time out in the world, and when we were running dungeons we often found ourselves swapping around what specifically we were using to better synergize with what other players were bringing to the table. The biggest problem is that the game takes a lot of careful research to play well. One of our challenges was the fact that we each had a specific idea of what we wanted our character to be… and some of those options simply were not viable when you got to the hardest content. I have not played the game in some time, but one of the challenges was that there were certain required abilities and not every weapon tree could provide those.

The Style

One of the best aspects of the game for me personally, were the awesome cosmetic gear options. I am a huge fan of transmogging or whatever a given game calls it, and if my character looks awesome I feel awesome about playing it. One of the coolest things that The Secret World has going for it, is that essentially all visible gear is cosmetic by nature, and you can swap between looks freely while you are out in the field. All items you pick up go into a dressing room and you can swap bits whenever you feel like it. The actually “gear” that gives you statistics are your weapons and a number of talismans… necklaces, bracelets, rings etc… that are other than your weapon non-visible gear. To make weapons cosmetic as well, they give you the ability to create a weapon mold that can chance the appearance of an item. Combined this gives players extreme freedom in expressing their characters… but sadly that means that the majority of players are going to be women running around with as little clothing on as humanly possible. The above screenshot is one of my favorites, because my friend Tam and I essentially both arrived at super similar looks while doing a mission completely accidentally. We jokingly dubbed this our Blues Brothers pose.

Another great thing about the game is that it is truly a mega server experience. There are “servers” but they really don’t actually matter. All of the characters span all of the servers, and you can group freely with anyone regardless of faction. This means that there is never a situation where two friends playing this game won’t be able to play together. The only negative is that Cabals themselves aka Guilds… don’t span multiple factions. I’ve spent most of my time playing for the Templar, but I know just as many diehard Illuminati and Dragon players. The only problem is with the Cabals not spanning factions, it made it mildly frustrating for the folks who didn’t want to play Templar, since the guild was in that faction. The workaround is that the game supports social channels and we used them prolifically when we were playing actively. Another really cool thing about the game is that it has an extremely devoted and active role-playing population. If you wander around London you are going to find pockets of players acting out their characters, and that adds a certain depth to the environment.

Expansion

The growth of the game comes in the form of comic book like “Issues” where a batch of content is released with a common theme. To date there have been twelve issues spanning from July 2012 to August 2015, each with their own themes and usually their own comic book cover to go along with it.

Issue 1: Carter Unleashed
Issue 2: Digging Deeper
Issue 3: The Cat God
Issue 4: Big Trouble in the Big Apple
Issue 5: The Vanishing of Tyler Freeborn
Issue 6: Last Train to Cairo
Issue 7: A Dream to Kill
Issue 8: The Venetian Agenda
Sidestories: Further Analysis
Issue 9: The Black Signal
Sidestories: Love & Loathing
Sidestories: The Last Pagan
Issue 10: Nightmares in the Dream Palace
Issue 11: Reaping the Wind
Issue 12: To the Dark Tower Below

Monetization for this game comes primarily in the form of purchasing these issues, and in the various cosmetic items that you can purchase only through the store. They have a number of really cool themed outfits that you can pick up, and for subscribers they give you a unique batch of items each month. I purchased a lifetime subscription when the game was released that converted when the game went free to play to one that gives me access to all the subscription content, and a stipend of cash shop currency each month to spend. While we call this game “Free to Play” it is in truth “Buy to Play” meaning you have to purchase the base game in order to do anything. From there to get these new stand alone issues you have to purchase them one by one. Right now on Steam the game is running $29.99 but quite often it goes on sale for as little as $10. Similarly there is an ultimate version available for $59.99 that includes all of the content as well as a custom costume and some other consumables. I fully expect that as we get closer to Halloween we will see both of these versions get discounted heavily. The long and short is.. this is one of the most enjoyable questing experiences I have ever had in any game. The story content is amazingly well written and the quests themselves are extremely inventive. That said occasionally the solutions are insanely difficult to figure out. Thankfully there are plenty of awesome guide sides out there like Unfair.co for if you find yourself stuck. This is one of those games that I think everyone should try, just be willing to devote some effort into sorting out just what kind of character you want to build. Once you get into the game world however… it becomes extremely infectious… just like the Filth.

Sithmas Time Is Here

October 8, 2015 by Belghast

Merry Sithmas

It has been so surreal since the launch of the Force Awakens toy line. Everywhere I go the world seems to be teeming with Star Wars enthusiasm and with that… comes a bunch of priced to own kitch. While we have yet to reach anything close to the hype bubble we experienced before the release of Phantom Menace, it is still extremely noticeable. A few weeks ago I wrote about re-watching the prequels and how I had wondered if maybe I was just too harsh on them at the time. After re-watching I decided that no… they really were horrible films. The problem is that for years I let them have control over my enjoyment of the Star Wars universe as a whole, and that frustrates me. If you were to completely ignore their existence, then honestly the rest of the Universe is still pretty great. Sure there was some strange stuff on the fridges of the Expanded Universe, but I cannot discount just how phenomenal the Old Republic Era has been. I remember picking up one of the first Tales of the Jedi comics and being completely blown away at this concept of a universe set essentially 4000 years before the time of Skywalker. Then as that universe blossomed over the course of sever comic series, and then came to life in the form of the Knights of the Old Republic game, I was absolutely hooked. Now that I am back roaming around SWTOR, I am realizing I care about this universe far more than I ever realized.

When the game mentions Freedon Nadd or Exar Kun… I remember who they are and what they did in this worlds history. I remember awesome characters like Nomi Sunrider from the comics, or Jolee Bindo from KOTOR. When I see a reference to Casus Fett or Mandalore the Ultimate in game… I know who those characters are and can remember reading about them in the comics. The thing is… it is not just the Old Republic era that is amazing. Essentially each time another creative force has been given free reign in the fertile Star Wars universe… really awesome things have happened. For example while the official Prequels are pretty horrible, the Clone Wars cartoon series is amazing. No one can deny just how awesome Ahsoka Tano as is a character, and just how much more interesting the interaction is between her and Anakin… than pretty much ANYTHING in the Prequels. Now if we scan forward we have Star Wars Rebels… also being allowed free reign in the universe, this time within the constraints of the more well known modern era. Similar to Shadows of the Empire it is weaving its way in and out of events we already know, and doing a great job of making us care about this new cast of characters.

Excitement Grows

Which leads me to realize… the times I have really loved Star Wars lately is when someone has been able to wriggle out front under the grasp of George Lucas and run freely creating their own plot lines and characters. Essentially this is exactly what is happening with Force Awakens… it is all the goodness of the Star Wars universe with none of the harmful effects that Lucas has forced upon it in recent years. In fact Lucas has been more than a little bit salty when talking about Episode VII and the fact that for the most part Disney ignored his plans to create a movie focused around teenagers. What is happening is that Disney has become the most powerful marketing juggernaut on the planet, and at the core of their methodology is protecting the bottom line, and with it the long term profitability of the franchises they own. I am sure there is some computer program somewhere that knows precisely what fans will like, and just how far they are willing to allow the themes to be stretched. While at some point down the line this might be a bad thing for innovation… I sincerely doubt they will allow anything even vaguely close to midichlorians to ever happen again.

The only frustration I have with the Disney approach however is that so much of the Universe became ruled “non-canon”. There were characters like Mara Jade and Grand Admiral Thrawn that were absolutely amazing… in fact I have action figures for both of them hanging on my wall as well as Clone Emperor Palpatine, Dark Jedi Luke, and Jedi Leia. Those stories meant a lot to me, and while there were parts of the Expanded Universe that were completely unfollowable… most of it made a certain logical sense at least at one time. The problem being like most fan centered fiction, it iterated on itself causing the characters to become more distorted and unbelievably heroic as time went on. It is my hope that they will figure out how to work some of the best characters into the new tales. There has been rumors that Mara Jade will be introduced as an Inquisitor instead of the Emperors Hand for example, which is fine with me… so long as she is introduced at all. Basically I find myself in a strange place, of having hope for Star Wars… when for so many years I lacked it almost entirely. I imagine as we get closer to the December release of the movie, the cross promotions and Star Wars branded soup cans will start to get annoying. However in the meantime… I am reveling in Sithmas.

The Professional

As of last night I have finished Balmorra and Nar Shadda on the Bounty Hunter and just went through the “intermission” that generally occurs there. I didn’t really expect to be all that into this storyline, because essentially it was one of the ones that I never intended to actually complete. While I enjoyed the Trooper storyline, the class itself was not that compelling to me. Largely I think this was the reason why I ultimately fell out of love with SWTOR after pushing three characters to the then level cap of 50. Bounty Hunter however feels completely different, and much more action packed. There are little things like rocket punch and the jet pack charge that make it feel more brutal… even if the attacks are essentially the same as my trooper vanguard. The funny thing about the storyline is just how much of myself I can pour into it. I am playing a very grey bounty hunter, who does not kill anyone for free. Also as the story goes on I am becoming a bit of a softy, and I am wondering exactly when that will bite me in the ass. Essentially it does not seem like a very “sith side” storyline so far other than the fact that essentially I am doing everything for the sake of payback… and for a girl.

I imagine over the next few days I will rip through the content quickly and before the end of the weekend start work on the last of two classes. Not sure what I will be doing next, if it will be the Inquisitor and its constant shock treatment… or if I will go for the Imperial Agent. As it stands now… I am starting to lean towards Agent. Whatever the case playing all of these stories is making me fall in love with the Bioware writing all over again. It is also making me look forward to Fallen Empire and its more story driven focus. When you ONLY play the class quests, SWTOR becomes a much better game because it has a nice clean story arc that does not get muddied by repeating the same planetary quests over and over again. At some point I will go back and play some of the quests I missed Sith side, but for the time being I want to push through the classes because each one feels like it adds another piece of a puzzle to the central story arc of this game world. This is also making me want to go back and get KOTOR 2 working, and actually attempt to beat it this time. It feels like there is a chunk of storyline that I am missing there, and with it several characters that I really only know by name. Essentially I am saying by all of this… that once again I am proud to be a Star Wars junkie.

Warriors and Bounty Hunters

October 7, 2015 by Belghast

A Day Off

Last week as you might be able to tell from the posts I made during it… was extremely stressful. As a result I ended up taking off yesterday as a sort of “mental health day”. It was absolutely glorious, because essentially I sat around playing video games and watching Netflix. I won’t talk about the Netflix viewing because I will save that for Saturday, but I will talk about the games I played. More than anything yesterday was a day devoted to Star Wars the Old Republic. I have this mad mission to somehow finish the rest of the class storyline that I have not completed before the launch of Fallen Empire at the end of this month. I know that seems a bit mad, but I am enjoying myself especially since we are in this length lag period in Final Fantasy XIV content. Over the weekend I finished up Smuggler, and yesterday I completed Sith Warrior. At this point I have completed Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Trooper, Smuggler and Sith Warrior… and I think quite possibly the Warrior is the most satisfying conclusion yet. The most interesting thing to me is how the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior class stories end up making a nice set of bookends.

The Jedi Knight storyline is deeply impersonal. It always felt less about your own exploits and more about you essentially saving the galaxy. What I mean is that the Jedi Knight storyline, IS the story of the game. Every major story arc event that trickles down into other characters seems to stem from a conflict brewing for the Knights. The end result is that it feels like you are more a slave of events and you doggedly follow the main story arc as the Republic war progresses. Sith Warrior on the other hand is a completely different experience. It is more personal, and more about your ambitions and your power as you ascend from an apprentice all of the way through essentially the Dark Council. I don’t want to go into a ton of detail but the end result is a much more satisfying experience. Every obstacle in your path you personally get to remove by your own hand. Last night I mentioned to a friend that the Sith Warrior storyline felt more “Sithy” than the Jedi felt “Jedi” but I guess in the grand scheme of things that isn’t true. The Sith are by nature about thinking inwards, and the Jedi are about thinking outwards… and the Jedi storyline being detached from more personal vendetta… I guess IS what a Jedi should be.

The interesting part about playing a Sith is that you know someone is always about to betray you. So you go into the equation knowing that none of your allies are really ever your “true” allies. As the story progresses they really find ways of driving this point home, and in many ways you have to deal with that fact or at least find ways to get past it. In the end however every decision made leads you towards an epic conclusion allowing you to take out all of your frustrations. The Sith Warrior story may be my favorite so far, just because there are so many epic moments where I absolutely feel like this avatar of wrath blazing a path through my enemies. I started off trying to play a mostly Light Side Sith… but as the events started reaching their conclusion I found myself succumbing to the darkside and began taking those “red” options to dispatch those who betrayed me. In truth I ended the story line in a fairly “grey” state, which I guess is fitting. In truth if I were a force user I would more than likely be a renegade that tried to live between the two factions, because it feels like the true path of the force is to find a balance between the two extremes. To draw on the dark side and your rage when you need to defeat an enemy, but draw on the calm and peace when you need to solve issues. My friend Tam mentioned something and it is absolutely true… making a “good” choice Sith side feels more rewarding because people are shocked and amazed that you did not force choke them into submission… whereas everyone expects it of you on the Jedi side.

Hunting Prey

After finishing off the Sith Warrior I decided to flip over and start working on my Bounty Hunter that was just now getting to Dromund Kaas. I figured I wanted a bit of a break from the “Sith” thing and having just finished playing a Smuggler I did not really relish playing a cunning character quite yet. This leaves the Bounty Hunter, which has always felt a little odd to play. As a Trooper the abilities felt like they made more sense, so I will have to sort through the bar and try and figure out what abilities I actually should be using. I did not want to re-roll my character so I am playing Powertech, but planning on going one of the non-tank options. At some point I am going to play a commando, which seems like it is far more satisfying to have a bit damned cannon than two pistols of the bounty hunter equivalent. I think I will be fairly happy as a bounty hunter as soon as I can get my hands on some armor that LOOKS like a Bounty Hunter. If I could run around in a color variant “Boba Fett” Mandalorian armor… I would be super happy to play this character. Until that happens however… I think I will ultimately be rather disappointed.

That is honestly one of my big complaints replaying content is that SWTOR should have made the getting of your class armor more of an important thing as you level. There is an iconic look for each of the classes, and as you travel through the content you should start adding pieces of moddable armor to allow players to complete that “fantasy”. Smugglers do a fair job of getting a few pieces of Han Solo-esc armor, and Jedi Knights eventually get a set of armor that feels like the armor+robe appearance you often see. However the other classes… seem to be a little less determined. Jedi Consular is the story of having to suffer through a whole series of stupid looking armor sets, never quite finding one that really fits the class. Bounty hunter so far, feels like I got my armor by scavenging bits off of my kills… and I guess in a way that fits. All I really want is to look like Boba Fett… is that too much to ask? I need to sort through my various cartel market options and see if I can find something I will be happy with. If my characters look good I enjoy playing them regardless of how they perform, and my fear is that I won’t really get into this class until I can make him “not look stupid”.

Beginner’s Guide Experience

October 6, 2015 by Belghast

The Hype

I am breaking my own tradition and writing this blog post… while things are still fresh in my head instead of waiting until tomorrow morning… or today if you are reading this. Every now and then there is an immediate buzz about a game title, and this has lead me to be leery of this factor. Sometimes the games are absolutely amazing, and other times they are pure hype. So when a brand new “art as game” title pops on the radar I get a little suspicious. This is not normally the type of fare I go into, because I like things that explode and things to whack with big heavy swords. That said when the word of The Beginner’s Guide started to circulate I got a bit curious. When my friend finished playing it yesterday and wrote a lengthy blog post called pretentious I thought it might be worth checking out. Especially knowing that it is a word he especially dislikes. Granted when I sat down to watch a Let’s Play of the game, I had not read that blog post… or pretty much any other “review” of the game, other than the fact that there was simply a lot of buzz about it all of the sudden. So I went to YouTube and ultimately found a video by someone I have never seen before playing the game.

What I am left after watching the hour and a half long video… is some stuff I am not even sure if I can adequately put into words. Hell to be truthful I am not really sure some of the emotions I am feeling actually even have proper names. There are going to be spoilers involved with this post, so if you intend to play the game I highly suggest you stop reading. I came into this play through like a blank slate, not really knowing what to expect other than the fact that this game came from the creator of The Stanley Parable which we had talked about a few times on AggroChat but I have never actually played myself. After watching what is essentially an act of interactive fiction, I think you get out of it what you take into it. Much like “The Box” from Dune, and the cave on Dagobah in Empire Strikes Back… it ultimately becomes a reflection of your own mental state. Seeing the events unfold in front of me, I guess makes me realize how potentially broken I am inside. I am sure someone could see the experience and immediately think “wtf is this crap”, but I guess I was in the right mindset for it to seep into my core.

The Terror

The narrator of the game is none other than the author, one Davey Wreden. He tells a tale of a fellow game creator that he met at a Game Jam, and the unusual series of games that unfolded between the years of 2008 and 2011. I have no idea who this Coda is or even at this point if it is a person that exists. There are moments during the game play that you follow Davey down this course, descending into the deep interpreted meanings of these games. Each game has a supposed point, and tells us a little bit about the Author. As we reach the halfway point, there is a slow growing dread because I am scared that I know where this tale ends. Each game seems progressively more alienating and more isolating… like someone retreating into the dark cocoon of depression. My terror at times was that we would find out at the end of this tale, that Coda had killed himself… and all that we were left with were this series of games that Davey was trying desperately to unravel. That however is not at all what happens… but instead in 2011 after Davey attempted to show the games to other people… he simply broke off contact completely. The final game is a series of frustrating puzzles that are either unwinnable or at the very least antagonistically set against the player. After cheating your way through them with the help of the narrator you see a series of messages essentially telling Davey to never contact Coda again.

This game we are playing is supposedly a last ditch effort to get back on Codas good graces, to apologize publicly. The thing is… I don’t think there is a Coda. I think this game is the tale of how one Davey Wreden reacted and internalized his struggle with his own fame brought on through the quirky success of Stanley Parable. I think the game as a whole is essentially him working through is own issues, like he supposedly thought Coda was. The problem there is… am I essentially doing the same thing he supposedly was by projecting myself and my own thought processes into the whole experience? The truth is… we cannot help but do this. There is no clinical distance that can keep us from doing this. We imprint on the things we experience and we have to decode them through the only language we know… which is that of our own experiences. So if you have never felt any of this alienation or crippling self doubt… then I feel like you could probably just let a game like this wash over you and not effect you in any way. Unfortunately that is not the case for me.

The Stupor

Part of the reason why I am writing this while the experience is fresh, is that I hope to maybe be more honest about the experience. I am by nature a creative person, and everything I do at least contains a part of me in it. While I don’t blog in my own name, and have chosen to adopt a pen name of Belghast… every post I write contains certain nuggets of myself that are more honest than I really mean them to be. I am constantly beset with this desire to be liked and loved, and to find validation in the favor of others. I find myself craving attention, but the problem is when I actually get it… I don’t have a clue what to do with it. This blog and the constant forward momentum, comes from a place that I don’t really understand. Before blogging I was one of those people that would post all too long posts on forums. Before that I was a devout IRC junkie and even managed to meet my wife that way. I have this need to connect to people, even though I don’t really know how to.

I think in part this is why I find myself constantly trying to start new things, like segments on my blog, or lets plays… only to abandon them when I get bored with them a few weeks to months later. I am always dissatisfied with nearly everything I do, and nothing ever quite works the way I envision it working. I’d love to say I don’t care about statistics and readership… but there are days I think to myself… why am I doing any of this if no one is actually reading? Then the very next day I sit down and the keyboard and keep writing. I guess I do this because I have to, and I am not sure exactly how NOT to do it. My world is arranged in a series of circles within circles, and the closer you get in the more I let people see of me. However deep down at the center there is this place that no one gets to go, where I keep the parts of me that I think no one would like if they knew existed. So there were levels in this game that maybe struck a deeper cord with me than others. There was a level that as the player backed away from a stage, these walls kept slamming down in front of them… until at some point you simply couldn’t see the light of the stage any more. This felt almost scarily familiar, and like all of those times that I needed to get away because I simply could not stand any more human stimuli in my life. There have been so many times I have eaten my lunch in the silence of my car, just because I needed not to exist around others for the thirty minutes to an hour that it afforded me.

Final Thoughts

This post is ending to be far more personal than I intended it to be, but in truth the experience brought on by the game is more personal than I had expected it to be. On AggroChat we have talked a lot about how games are generally bad at emotions, but this game… has so many. For some this experience might be liberating, but for me… it was something else. It has left me wallowing in my own faults and short comings. Ultimately I saw myself in both Davey and Coda during this tale, because I think we are all a little bit of both of them. Since finishing the Lets Play I have gone out to steam and purchased the game, and it will likely sit in my library unplayed. I am not sure if I can really handle going through this experience a second time. More than anything I wanted to purchase the game as a thank you for the experience, because even though I am a little off balance right now… it is a rare experience that a game can cause that effect on anyone so when it does… it is well worth supporting. Now I am going to spend the rest of my evening trying to get the thoughts out of my head that the game so firmly implanted there.