Tales of the Aggronaut

Section X

September 11, 2015 by Belghast

Life With a Teacher

It feels like I don’t have a whole lot worth talking about this morning. My evening was rather fragmented, in that I got home fairly early and then spent the next couple of hours trying to pass the time while waiting on my wife to get home. We had tentatively made plans to go out to dinner, and on a normal evening I would have fixed something and been engaged in a game by the time she got home. This school year has been rather rough for her, and she is spending silly amounts of time up at school grading and planning. It gets annoying at times because it is super hard to plan my life around her ever changing schedule, but I manage. There are certain aspects of being a teachers husband… that no one will ever really understand fully. We ended up going to a BBQ place near the Walmart Neighborhood Market, because my thought was after dinner we would walk over to the market really quick and pick up a few things. This seemed like a simple in and out trip, and we could get on our merry way homewards.

Fate stacked against us, and of all of the places to have “back to school clearance” I did not expect a Walmart Neighborhood market. For those who do not have these in their area, they are essentially a grocery store only Walmart, but have some minimal other items. As we were rounding the bend past frozen foods I saw that they had a kiosk of back to school stuff. I didn’t think anything about it, but next thing I knew we were sorting through all of the folders trying to pick out nine of each color from a mixed up bin of them. I cannot count the number of times I have had an experience similar to this one. There really wasn’t much space so my wife did most of the sifting through the folders but in the past I have had my hands knee deep in vats of assorted merchandise looking for that one item that matches the rest of the things we had pulled out. Part of being a teacher is trying to find all of the things you need for your classroom as cheaply as humanly possible, and while I am fairly used to it… it just surprises me sometimes when I am not expecting it. After all of the bin sorting… we got home a little later than I had expected.

Section X

When I finally got settled in for the night, I made a blanket cocoon on the couch and booted up Star Wars the Old Republic. I am now on this kick of trying to get through all of the story line that I have missed before the release of Fallen Empire. For this I am going to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Disney. You cannot go anywhere right now without being deluged in Force Awakens merchandise, and with it comes an upwelling of all of the other movies that I am really damned nostalgic about as well. I have these designs on making a Marathon of the movies this weekend while working on the SWTOR content. It has been a really long time since I have watched the prequels, so I am honestly hoping I can bury the hatchet that I hold towards them. The prequels broke me, and came damned close to breaking my love of Star Wars as a whole. So when I heard about Force Awakens I was mildly interested, but now I feel like I am full on in the thrall of overwhelming feels towards the franchise I grew up with. I even went so far as to order the Disney Infinity 3.0 Saga Edition… because it was on sale and two I had enough saved up discover credit to get it essentially for free.

I have to say playing this game again… and seeing fresh content in it… reminds me of why we were so damned addicted to it for a couple of month period after launch. The story content is really good, and even though Makeb does not actually feature any “class specific” content I am absolutely enjoying myself. I did however take a break from Makeb last night to start working on the Section X content. I guess I played long enough to get that area unlocked for free, and with it should give me access to my very own HK-47 droid. From what I hear it is a rather lengthy quest and involves collecting bits on several different characters, including a Sith. Mainly I was told that if I cared about story progression, that I should go ahead and do that now before getting too deep in the new content. As you can see from my previous pictures I went back to the Jedi Knight robes as seen on the box art. I have to say I dig the Holowardrobe because it is way cheaper to change your appearance using it than re-modding your gear. There are a few of us currently going through this Star Wars nostalgia attack, which makes me feel kinda sad each time I interact with the person who held down the fort while we have been gone. I know that I am just here doing some MMO tourism… and as soon as I am done with the story content I will be gone once more. Even though I have not been playing a lot of it… Final Fantasy XIV is still my home base of operations.

Breakup on Reentry

September 10, 2015 by Belghast

Returning Players

If you have followed me for any length of time you realize I play an awful lot of games. One of those traits also involves going back and re-exploring games that I have long consigned to the dust bin. One of the challenges with this lifestyle however is trying to figure out what the hell you were doing some six months ago when you last touched a game. This morning I want to talk about a problem that most games have. As content is released there is often times no real thought about the folks that will come back to the game several patches behind. While there is generally one game that I stay up to date with, and that game currently is Final Fantasy XIV… the others sit in various states of completion with no real easy route back to where I last left off. What ends up happening generally is that I start a brand new character, because it is simply easier to start fresh than try and sort out the options open to a formerly “level capped” character. As a programmer it seems like it would be easy to create some sort of new features tool that lead you to what has been recently added to the game. Various games have attempted this, and honestly Final Fantasy XIV has one of the better versions of this technology… but it could still use a lot of work.

World of Warcraft has these quest boards in main cities that are supposed to lead you to the starting quests of new areas. The problem being that you level so damned fast in that game that you always are well ahead of the quest completion curve. The worst offender however has to be The Secret World. In that game every single quest is essentially repeatable, so even if you are up to date… it can be a challenge to sort out what quests are new in a given region. The last quest content I completed was the “Last Train to Cairo” from Issue 6, and even then I think I missed most of Issue 5 because I didn’t quite know where to start to find it. Now we are sitting at Issue 12 and I know I have a ton of awesome content waiting on me. As each has been released I have popped in to spend some of the lifetime membership currency that I gain each month. The problem being… without significant research on my part I have no real idea where to start to even begin trying to sort these out. I spend most of my free time consuming MMO content… and if this bothers me… it has to be an impassible wall to more casually interested players.

Content Advisement

With the launch of Cataclysm, the World of Warcraft attempted to solve this problem by creating a series of billboards spread throughout the major cities that are designed to give you the start of a quest chain leading into new zones. The problem there is that you level too damned fast, and I constantly had a back log of these quests telling me to go to various zones that were less than optimal for my questing experience. While I applaud their efforts… I think all of these MMOs need to do a much better job at giving players advisement as to what they should be doing. What I envision is an optional box that says what zone you should be in based on your level and or gear, and provide a series of quest suggestions that you never completed. If there is a holiday going on, it should prioritize this and if you are at the level cap it should guide you to the next patch worth of content that you had not experienced. This would go a long way in making returning players feel welcome and relevant in the game experience. Considering I have done this dozens of times… I can tell you that returning to an MMO that you tucked neatly away into your past… is a completely overwhelming experience.

Firstly you have to sort out your bags, because I have not left a single MMO in a state where I did not have hundreds of items in my inventory with no memory of what was actually useful and what was simply dross that I picked up while killing things. Next you have to sort out your quest log, which also is never really left in a neat state. If you are the level cap you generally have a mixture of quests that you never completed and quests from whatever happens to be the current “daily” hub. Upon returning generally speaking neither of these is much use, but at the same time I find it just as hard to sort through my quest log as it was to sort through my bags. What I really want is some intelligence guiding my decisions. Present me with options of things that players in my level range are normally doing. Help me get back into your game, and set down roots again. It honestly shocks me that no game company seems to have thought this one through. There are a fixed number of new players out there, so many times established games are just trading their populations over time. Anything a game can do to make it more “sticky” for returning players has to ultimately help the bottom line.

Breakup on Reentry

Like I said Final Fantasy XIV does a decent job at this, but their own advisement window is greatly limited based on several factors. The biggest is that most of the items in the list are limited to the zone you are currently in. In the case of a returning player, they may or may not know what zone they should even be in. For years I have been trying to play Star Wars the Old Republic again. The problem being that I always end up playing on an alt character because it is simply too confusing to try and sort out what I should be doing on any of my three previously max level characters. My original instinct has always been to go to the space station hub for my faction. Problem there is that there were no sign of new quests. I have repeated this process dozens of times, until last night it finally dawned on me that I should maybe return to my starship. Sure enough waiting there for me was a quest chain starter leading me to Makeb. The problem being… that since it took me two years to finally find this quest it was anything but obvious, which tells me there is a problem with the way the systems are working.

What got me on this topic was yesterday some friends and I were listing off “must have” features for an MMO. Which got me thinking… that this is the one feature that no MMO really does a decent job of. Please someone out there… put some thought into the experience of returning players. The answer is not to ignore all of the content that came before. The answer is to help players go back and experience the things that they missed. As a result some sort of intelligent system is well worth the time it takes to build. All we are really talking is a handful of database queries based on a few parameters, and then returning the relevant items to a window. This would go so far into making returning players feel like they matter and are welcome in the game. I cannot count the number of games that I have reinstalled… only to leave after a single night of trying to sort out what it was that I was doing when I last played. In each case I “wanted” to play the game, but the game required more out of me than I was willing to give it. When this situation happens all I really needed was a breadcrumb to lead me to what I should be focusing on. On the positive side I did finally start the post release content in Star Wars the Old Republic, which is a thing I have been passively trying to do since the free to play conversion. I would really like to see where that story goes before the launch of Fallen Empire.

Performance Anxiety

September 9, 2015 by Belghast

Cash Shop Fodder

With the impending launch of the Wildstar free to play model, I thought I would talk this morning about one of my problems with cash shops in general. One of the most popular items in any MMO cash shop is the “experience potion” for lack of a better generic term. These are items that grant a limited duration buff and increase the aquisition of something. These sometimes apply to experience but also pvp systems and token currencies. They seem to be fairly ubiquitous when it comes to MMOs and they often times hand them out like candy in your introductory packs. My theory is that they want to get players hooked on these early so they keep coming back to the cash shop anytime they run out. Now if you had boomboxes in Wildstar you already have a few of these more than likely. My problem is… I never spend them. I just logged into my Rift account to take a quick census and I am currently sitting on somewhere between 150 and 200 of these in various forms. They are generally locked from you selling them on the auction house… and since I am not using them they just take up inventory space.

The problem I have with them is that I feel like there is a value associated with them. They cost money, and I want to make sure I get my most out of them. So when a game gives me one.. I hold onto it forever never quite finding the right time to spend it. If the potion is an hour long, it feels like I need to find the perfect time to use it when I will have an hour of uninterrupted time at the keyboard. Even more so it feels like I have to figure out the optimal way to spend my bonus experience time. I do a lot of running around aimlessly in video games, and when I have used an experience potion it feels like I am “on the clock”. I have to get the most out of my time and need to do whatever I am doing with minimal downtime. As a result I just end up crushed with indecision and so they sit in my inventory unspent collecting dust. I end up resenting them being there, because they are taking up space that I could be using for other things. I didn’t want them in the first place, and the game keeps handing them to me like they are important and special… and something that SHOULD be desired.

Performance Anxiety

This just highlights a bigger problem I have in games, that I will call performance anxiety for lack of a better term. It is like there are times when I have to be super focused on the game and take it more seriously than I really want to. When I sign up to raid I accept the fact that once the raid starts it is “go time”. The rest of my game time however I want to be able to stop and smell the roses. The problem is when I group with another living person… I feel like I am also “on the clock” and responsible for making the most of that time grouped together. So instead other than dungeons and raids I actively avoid grouping with anyone. That way I am only responsible for my own enjoyment and won’t feel guilty when I need to step away from the screen because my wife needs me, or the animals have knocked something over and I have to go investigate what they just broke. The worst is when I am in an MMO and there are quest objectives to be done. I feel like I not only have to be aware of my own needs… but the needs of everyone in my party and assure that they also accomplish whatever they need to get done before moving on myself.

I realize all of this is irrational, but this is the sort of mental struggle I go through each time I accept someone else’s group invite. Most of the time I can steel myself against the anxiety and just push forward, but there are other times… when I just cannot risk taking responsibility for others. I talked some yesterday about my current desire to “hide out” and as such I thought I would talk a bit this morning about the other side of the coin. Grouping with other people is often times a draining experience for me. I shift into responsible adult mode, and step up to the plate like I know what I am doing. I am willing to take on this mantle for my friends and my guild… but I am rarely willing to take on this mantle for strangers. I realize most other people don’t quite have the hang up I do with grouping with strangers. So when someone asks me to tank something, or dps something… I always feel strange asking if it is a guild only group. The worst of these experiences so far has been when it comes to partially queuing for raid content. The anxiety that comes with tanking for strangers in a dungeon… is nothing compared to the anxiety of tanking for a raid group full of strangers. For me at least it ranks among the least comfortable experiences, and I would rather simply do nothing… than queue with a bunch of people I don’t know.

Opening The Curtain

I get the impression sometimes that folks seem to think I have my act together. The truth is I am just as strange and vulnerable as the next person. I put on a really good front sometimes, and I do a fairly good job of pushing down my own insecurities. You might ask yourself… why in the world would I be opening up like this? Well the truth is that I know there are lots of people out there with their own quirks, that think they are somehow lesser for them. My theory is that by showing the weak points in my own armor, that others might be more comfortable with themselves as a result. Once this down cycle finishes I will be back to my normal self again, and the armor will go back up. In the mean time I am talking about the things I am struggling with, in hopes that it might help someone out there. We all have our own hang-ups and we learn to deal with them however we can. My coping mechanism tends to be disappearing for a bit while my shields recharge. Tonight I will be submitting myself to a raid group where I assume that we are ultimately going to have to PUG people… even though every fiber of my being tells me to run screaming into the night. There is a certain power in knowing your own limitations and forcing yourself to face them. I’ve learned over the years that everyone is broken inside… just most are better at hiding it than others.

Hibernation Season

September 8, 2015 by Belghast

Hiding Out

Every now and then I go through these periods where I run away from the groups and games that require me to interact with other people and for lack of a better term “hide out”. They are usually paired with a period of high stress in my life, and I guess the current work stress mixed with the life stress of a bunch of big things looming on the horizon… could count as that. I also just went to the doctor and found out that I am dangerously low on Vitamin D. Generally speaking a healthy range is between 30 and 70 and on the test I came back with a score of like 10. Vitamin D effects all sorts of things… not the least of which is mental health and mood, so I would not be surprised if all of the bouts of depression were related to that chemical deficiency in particular. I am taking some insane 50,000 unit Vitamin D supplements once a week to help balance me out again, but I am still in the thrall of that desire to hide away from the rest of the world.

I think in part this is why I have not really been around in Final Fantasy XIV much because I have helped to build this wonderful and interactive world… that likes me being around. So when I am around I feel obligated to interact and be friendly…. and right now that is just too much of a drain on me. Similarly I have an issue with Wildstar because the Black Dagger Society is so damned friendly that I feel like an asshole if I am not also friendly back. As a result I end up playing a lot of Diablo III because I can get lost in a private game without the feeling of needing to reciprocate too many social graces. This is definitely a me thing and not due to any of the amazing people in my life. I am broken, and every now and then I just need to retreat inside myself until I am “less broken”. What I do when I am like this is hang out downstairs and binge television shows. I don’t really watch TV on a regular basis apart from Walking Dead/Fear the Walking Dead which becomes Monday morning water cooler discussion at work. I am what is wrong with broadcast television… I either record a show or watch it from a combination of hulu/netflix/amazon prime. The concept of watching a television show as it airs just seems so damned strange to me now. The problem being… I am the reason why good shows get seen as failures… because they are designed for people like me… not the nightly television viewing public.

The Strain

Awhile back one of my coworkers told me about the show The Strain. The problem with not watching television is that you also don’t really find out when a show is on the air. I love movies and television shows about things that go bump in the night, and as such I have a deep respect for the director Guillermo Del Torro. This show is apparently an adaptation of a graphic novel by the same title from 2009. There is really no disguising the fact that this is a vampire show… but not one in the Ventrue/Toreador tradition that we have seen Hollywood obsessed with lately. These are the Malkavians and Nosferatu that hide in the shadows. This show brings back a return to “vampires as monsters” instead of “vampires and glittery swoony boyfriend material”. The problem is I am not sure how much more of the plot that I want to give away other than that. Suffice to say you end up with a badass team of Vampire Hunters, lead by a grizzled old Van Helsing type that is played by none other than “Argus Filtch” aka David Bradley. The show has a very “zombie apocalypse” feel to it, but with smarter hunters stalking their prey rather than the mindless oppression of a world constantly looking for food. If you like the monster genre, I highly suggest you check it out. Even if you don’t normally like monster movies… it might be worth your time because the characters are really excellent and with their own interesting flaws. The first season is available on Hulu, and the show has been picked up for a second season.

Constantine

Constatine might be the “least NBC” television show I have ever watched. I am not really sure what the network executives were thinking when they greenlit this show…. but honestly it was not destined for broadcast television. The show developed a very small but fanatically devoted following… and honestly after finishing the first season I can see why. Sadly watching this show I felt pangs of regret… because I am part of the reason why the show never got a second season. I recorded it on my DVR and then binge watched it months after the show was cancelled. This is going to be another Firefly/Space Above and Beyond regret for me… because really the show is quite amazing. It does an excellent job of presenting the character of John Constantine with all of his flaws… and virtues. They did a much better job with the casting this time around than the Keanu Reeves movie…. which while they failed miserably at Constantine did a pretty damned good job of capturing the setting. I am still holding out hope that someone might pick this up as a Netflix, Hulu or Amazon exclusive. They have already announced that the character of John Constantine would be appearing regularly on Arrow, so there is at least hope keeping this franchise alive. Placing this show on NBC however…. was just destined to fail. I think had it even appeared on the NBC Universal owned USA network… it might have found a home.

Killjoys

This show… took me a few episodes before I got into it… but now I am currently watching my way through it and I love it. What it reminds me of is Firefly… but a show set in a different corner of that universe. In Firefly you were out on the outer rim of society… in a lawless wild west simulacrum. This show instead is about the bounty hunters operating in and out of the core worlds, the Killjoys. So far the show has spent equal time on and off of civilized worlds, and as it progresses there is an interesting world emerging. The bulk of the show is set in an area of space known as the Quad… which is a planet orbited by three dwarf planets. Qresh being the central planet ruled by the nine families, and between them is an unsteady peace… along with comes a very brutally cold war. Westerly gives you a big barren wasteland world, that was exploited by the “The Company” for natural resources and then sometimes nuked from orbit when the worker class rebelled. Lieth is the farmland world, filled with “indentured servant” farms and their own share of illegal farming going on. Finally you have Arkyn that so far in the series we have not heard much about… other than the fact that something went really wrong there… and folks tend to call it a “dead world”. I am only about halfway through the first season and I have to say I am loving it. The first episode does not do a great job of really showcasing the feel of the show so I would say give it at least three before you decide if you like it or not. As soon as I wrap this up I plan on returning to watching the show… which is available through Hulu… but you have to connect to your cable provider to grant access to it… and have to play it through a web browser. Both of these things I find annoying but I am dealing with it. What are some of your most recent favorite shows?