Remember that show?!

Over the years I have followed the best of the best guilds in World of Warcraft quite closely, it is almost like following the rankings of the teams in your favorite sports, who will kill what first, who is the best at the time, what the best players are up to, who is using what strategies, etc.  One thing I have noticed which seems to be becoming a popular trend is a “No Girls Allowed” policy enacted in many of the best guilds in the world.  But why?

While this might appear sexist, I do not believe that to be the case.  I believe it is merely the leadership of said guilds recognizing the weaknesses of their players, and avoiding any unnecessary conflict.  This weakness being, girls.  The average male MMO players are single males in the age range of probably 18-30.  Generally lonely, and horny.  When you introduce a female into this environment, they become an immediate distraction.

Many people probably assume, wrongly, that these guilds are full of sexist assholes who think girls simply aren’t as good of players as men are.  This is not the case though.  Many girl gamers are just as good if not better then men are, and if you had to take a survey, I would be willing to guess that a better ratio of the girl players are actually good players then the men are.  This is of course probably due to the fact that there are so few female gamers vs male gamers, that there is much more room for suck with so many men playing.

To quote the VANQUISH recruitment policy (VANQUISH is a top 10 world guild):

Due to our history and experience we’ve had with female gamers, we currently do not recruit players that lack a penis. This can be taken another way but in this case, we mean literally lack thereof. Some of you may think this is sexist, but you have to understand, when you put a female in an organization with a bunch of sex deprived World of Warcraft nerds, their hormones get the best of them. Women in World of Warcraft guilds cause more drama than ‘TNT’ and this is a no-drama organization.

So, is this the fault of the women?  No, I don’t think so, but I also do believe the above is an entirely true statement, and that it should be a guilds peroggative to not allow girls in it.  So, exactly what impact does having no girls in a guild have?  Well, severeal of the top 100 guilds in the world do not allow girls, explicity, others perfer not to have girls, but will make exceptions, but most, do not discriminate.  So obviously, allowing women does not stop some of the best guilds in the world, from being the best.

What it boils down to, in my opinion, is simply wanting to avoid the all too common drama associated with guilds in wow, and the desire to remove any possible cause of said drama.  So, do girls cause drama?  Yes.  Absolutely.  By no fault of their own, though.

So what sort of drama and favoritism are we talking about?  Quite trivial things really, but usually enough to cause a stir.  These things range from: girls being flirty, or accused of flirting with other guild members to get what they want, girls being given “gifts” from other members, leadership being overall nicer and more forgiving toward girls, girls being given special treatment with regard to loot, or other things like this.  When exposed, it usually pisses people off.

Case Study

As an example, my girlfriend is a wow player, in fact, I met her in wow.  (Relationships starting in games will be an entirely separate post).  When we met, I was an officer and raid leader in the guild she was in.  I should mention though, and she will back this up 100%, that I for one, never gave her any special treatment, ever.  This did not stop the drama though.

Going backwards a bit from the above, we were in the guild together for over two years before we even spoke, I was just the mean old raid leader, and she was just another member who I treated just like everyone else.  She will tell you stories though, about some of the other leadership.  Before my guild adopted an open bid/fixed price DKP scheme, it was a closed bidding, highest bid wins, system.  This means, you send a message to a leader about how much you want to pay for an item, and if you bid the highest, you win.

She can tell you first hand, that many times, she and the other girls would bid on items just to have the officer taking the bids reply simply saying “bid more”.  Essentially awarding the loot to the girls to be nice.  The girls did nothing to expect this behavior out of the officers, did not ask for this treatment, yet, accepted it.

This is just the tip of the iceberg really, in the past year sitting next to her playing together, I cannot even being to count the amount of items, gold, or other sorts of help my girlfriend gets inside of an mmo, just because she is a girl.  She is not outwardly slutty, or flirty, just her cute female self, and men just feel compelled to help out or be nice.

So where does the drama start with regard to my experience?  It is quite simple really.  Once it was openly known that myself, and my girlfriend were seeing each other, members began to assume that something fishy was going on.  Simple things like treating her special, awarding her DKP which was not earned, giving attendance credit where it was not due, etc, etc.  While this was not the case at all, we began to have every aspect of everything we did in the game inspected under a magnifying glass and treated as if we were under suspicion.  This annoying drama, is what eventually lead to her and I both quitting the guild, and wow.

So as you can see, it is the fault of women that my old guild lost two of its best players, right?  All sarcasm aside, obviously it was not her fault, however, in a guild absent of women, this will NEVER happen.  Can you blame certain guilds for wanting to avoid this?

Some things are just never acceptable.  A club full of only white men, with only white men allowed, people automatically compare to the KKK, and assume it is a racist group.  A club full of only women, is perfectly okay, and no one will complain.  I feel it is the right of the guilds leader to allow women or not, and no one should complain about it or find it sexist.  Some feminist groups have even gone to extremes, such as hacking the guild websites of guilds which do not allow girls, even though there are probably more guilds in mmo’s which are girl only guilds, who never get bothered by anyone.

Further Reading

An editorial arguing for the girls

A blog post against women in guilds

Instant Gratification

Now lets try the opposite.  Imagine a world where people stay up so late watching TV and playing games that they barely make it to work on time.  Imagine a world where people will use any excuse they can get to take a day off of work.  Imagine a world where people do the bare minimum at work each day just so they don’t get fired.  Imagine a world where your co-workers throw you under the bus at any opportunity to make themselves look better.

Which of these two worlds sounds closest to the world you actually live in?  Hopefully neither, to be honest, but I suppose if you were forced to choose it would depend on which world you live in, the real world, or the world of an MMORPG.

I recently starting messing around in World of Warcraft again, except in a much more limited capacity.  I don’t play it that much and I do not forgo anything else in my life such that it provides me more time to play.  The odd thing is though, that I am now tagged in one of the top 5 best guilds in the entire world.  I won’t say the name here just so they don’t get upset about this post, but it probably wouldn’t be that hard to narrow down.

I got tagged in this guild because my girlfriend happens to know the leader and half of the officers from her home town.  Since joining I have taken the role of a sort of silent observer, and it has given me much insight into the inner workings of one of these so-called “uber-guilds”.

As it turns out, the players in this guild treat the guild like it is a job in the world described in the first scenario above.  It is a perfect communism, in a way.  Everyone works hard toward the betterment of the guild with very little sense of self.  Loot drops go to the person who would turn that item into the maximum guild benefit.  The players spend countless hours working toward making themselves and the guild better.  When a raid is scheduled, everyone logs on, early.  When a first kill is on the line, everyone stays late.  All for no pay.  All for virtual nothingness.

How do you convince a person, a real human being, in the real world, to spend such large amounts of time in a fake world, working toward fake goals?  How come these very same people are far and wide the greatest bunch of under-achievers the world has ever seen?  Could you imagine if the real world had such a robust system which combines the best aspects of a reward system with a sense of instant gratification?  What if you spent 6 hours this evening playing a guitar and became a “level 2″ guitarist, instantly becoming slightly, but noticeably better?  What if you stayed late at work today, and got a promotion tomorrow?  Would you?

Probably.

The problem is probably just that, gratification.  If I work late today will I see any benefit from it?  If I work extra hard every day, and my company ultimately does better because of my hard work, will I ever receive any recognition?  If I show up late to work, and never get in trouble for it, why should I show up on time?  If I take the day off to relax, and stand to lose nothing because of it, then why not just take the day off?

This is the real world.  The world where you spend your entire life, dying.  The world where everything good in your life takes vast amounts of time to achieve.  The world where nothing is a sure thing.  The world where no one cares about how hard you work, or how smart you are.

This is where the allure of gaming lies, for me, and probably everyone else playing them.  If I spend 6 hours playing WoW today, I might get a better item, I might gain a level, or I might simply win a few arena matches.  No matter what though, something, even if it is a very small thing, will occur which will make my character in the game slightly better then he was before I logged in that day.  If I went to bed each night a better person then I was when I woke up, I might be a lot more excited about waking up each day.  If a week of hard work and overtime gave me some sort of global recognition, I might be a lot more apt to work a lot harder.  In the game, if you work your ass off toward that world first kill, and you get that incredible item that only you have.  The entire population of the game (in the case of WoW, over 10 Million people) are in awe of your accomplishments.

If you aren’t on time for that raid, you might not get a spot ever again.  If you take the night off from raiding, you might miss out on getting that item you really want.  If you talk back to your guild leader, you might get kicked out.

How can one recognize the small incremental improvements in themselves on a day to day basis?  How could such a reward system become a part of the real world?  

People obviously work the best, and the hardest when not only rewarded, but when time spent instantly equals personal gain, even if that gain is virtual.  What if we could somehow recognize our own real life gains in the same way a game presents them.  What kind of world would we live in then?

Professional Gamers

Much like becoming a rock star, a movie star, or a pro athlete, there is a very small percentage of people who can actually succeed in this profession, and a very large number of people who spend their lives trying, just to fail.  The current generation of kids idolizes professional gamers more than they idolize astronauts, baseball players, or any other form of previously held types of heroes.  This is all fine and good, but as I mentioned earlier, peoples priorities get out of whack.

There are many successful celebrities who never graduated from college, or even high school.  Many pro athletes who skipped college to go straight into the big leagues.  Many successful people of all walks of life who made it on no education.  What we really don’t know is, how many people dropped out of school to pursue a career in sports, acting, or music, but never made it.  Where are they now?  What do they do?

While you can’t knock people for trying, following their dreams, yadda, yadda.  You know, “you’ll never make it if you don’t try.”  All that sort of stuff applies here.  What I wonder is, how can people take such huge risks with no contingency plan.  Didn’t the thought “What if it never happens for me?” cross their minds?  Or do people delude themselves so much that they simply do not believe there is even a possibility that they won’t be hugely successful if they just try hard enough?  The contestants on American Idol come to mind.  Not the ones who make it, the ones who don’t.  They are some of the most delusional people I have ever seen and they have a whole suite of other people (family and friends) who reinforce their believe that they will be the next huge star.

Fast forward to now, the new big thing, professional gaming.  To touch on some of what I talked about above, there is now a whole generation of people, a whole sub-section of society who is obsessed with making money playing games.  Just like being a rock star, this is now entirely possible.  Problem is, the prioritization issue comes up again.  I recently found this article about a 16 year old kid whose parents withdrew him from high school so that he could pursue a career playing Guitar Hero professionally.

This is not a competitive environment, so the score hardly matters. But his attitude about it underscores some Peebles family truisms: Blake is so dedicated to gaming that his parents let him quit school so he can better concentrate on it.

They pay for home tutors instead. Mom and Dad do this, even though there are very few people in this country who make their living playing competitive video games.

Now I know for a fact that playing guitar hero professionally is actually a viable way to make money, now, as are many other games.  But that game won’t be around forever.  So lets just assume that Blake can actually be successful in this.  What happens when he gets older, loses his skill, or the game simply goes out of style?  With no education to back him up, and some obvious parenting issues, he is destined to failure.

Professional gaming is just like anything else.  It can be very lucrative if you are good, while you are good.  But the games change and evolve so quickly, that it can’t really last that long for anyone, can it?  You don’t get contracts, you don’t get a retirement plan.  You go to tournaments with a chance to win a ton of cash, if you win.  As long as you keep winning, the money flows, as soon as you stop winning, what then?  I doubt you’ll see Blakes face on the cover of wheaties any time soon.

Winning Big

While I could easily see myself watching a WoW raid or arena tournament, a street fighter tournament, or a guitar hero match on television, much like I would watch a football game, I am not so sure professional gamers will ever have the same type of celebrity status that real athletes do.  At least not for a couple of more decades.

I could name the top 10 guitar hero players in the world off the top of my head using their Scorehero username, but I have no idea about their real name or what they look like, much less do I care.

I think gaming should be fun, it should be an entertaining hobby, and if you find yourself exceeding good at a particular game, polish your skills, and go to a tournament.  Who knows, maybe you can make a couple bucks while you’re at it.  But please, at least graduate high school first.  The last thing this country needs is more reason to be labelled as one of the fattest, lasiest, stupiest countries on the earth.

http://www.modelrockettier.com/posters/posters.php

Currently, I do not play any online games.  I suppose this fact alone has helped give me perspective on this matter.  Another thing which gives me perspective is the fact that many of my friends do still play these games, all different games, and I can see their opinions of each other, and each others games, very clearly and unbiased.

Rationalization 1, I play an MMO because…

If I didn’t, I would just be doing <insert other waste of time activity> instead.  This is the best way MMO players can make themselves feel better about it.  The truth is though, when is the last time you stayed up until 4 am watching re-runs of Seinfeld, or decided to not go out with your friends on a saturday night so you could read a book?  Chances are, you didn’t.  If you are a hardcore gamer though, you might have.  Maybe you blew off going out with some friends so you could attend that raid, or maybe you stayed up until 4am chatting and you were late for work the next day.  I know I did, on many occasions.

Every MMO player has their own excuse about why its okay to spend more hours per week playing a game, then they do at work.  In reality, is it bad to play an MMO?  No, I don’t think so, but I do think it can be bad, if you are able to rationalize your playtime to a point where it gets out of control.

Rationalization 2, Social aspects

Let’s face it, MMO’s are built around being social, and as such you make “friends” in the games.  The problem is, people come and go.  People join and quit.  The people you make friends with in the game are only your friends because of the game, with a few exceptions.  

If you play an MMO, and you are a part of a group who plays together, for years and years, and one day you suddenly quit, expect to be written off.  It is much the same for heroin addicts.  Surround yourself with those who make you feel better about your addiction, not worse.  Do not expect to keep any sort of meaningful contact with people who you meet inside an MMO, unless they also quit.  

The problem is that, most people are unwilling to form any sorts of real relationships with others inside the game, because we all know in the back of our minds that one of us will quit, eventually.  The servers will be turned off, eventually, and at that point, more often then not, the relationship ceases to exist.

When you invest time into a game, you feel like you are building something.  A reputation, a base of friends, camaraderie.  The truth of the matter is, the people in the game only care about you in so much as you are beneficial to them in the game, beyond this, there is nothing.  It is shallow.

I played World of Warcraft for almost 3 years.  I built and hosted (and still host) my guilds Website, I manage and deal with the billing for their Ventrilo server, but I no longer play the game.  Occasionally I will log in to say hello.  What I find is that, no one, not the players I spent so much time playing with, nor the players who have joined the guild since I quit, could give a shit less about me anymore.  It doesn’t bother me, but I find it interesting.

I suppose the heroin analogy applies again, if you quit heroin, would your old heroin addict buddies want to hang around you?  The answer is no.  As I have experienced a similar result in my real life (not related to heroin), where I quit participating in an “activity” all of my friends still wanted to participate in, and they no longer wanted my company, after I quit.

Why is this?  Rationalization would suggest that, people do not want to be made to feel that they are less good then someone else.  People do not like to feel like they are doing the wrong thing.  It is easiest for our emotional immune system to simply surround ourselves by people who agree with us, and approve of our behavior, then it is to surround ourselves with people who disapprove, and by consequence, make us feel like we are less good then they are.

Rationalization 3, All other MMOs suck, except mine

This is a great one.  Amongst the population of any MMO game you play, the entire population will agree to hate every other game that comes about.  Especially if a really good game is expected to come out and “kill” your game of choice.  Moreover, the people who decide to play the games you don’t play, are stupid, noob, assholes.

I believe this is a similar rationalization amongst gamers.  We want to believe we are playing the best game, which carries the most recognition.  We want to believe our time which is being spent so carefully, is being spent in the best possible way.  We don’t want to think that there is a better game out there, that we could be playing instead.  So it is best to just write all other games off, and ignore them.

The majority of people play WoW, and it has over 10 million players.  No other fantasy MMO out there can even touch that sort of player base, and as such, every player, who plays any other MMO which is not WoW, hates WoW.  Not only do they hate wow, but they hate the “noobs” who play WoW.

Rationalization in general

Aside from MMO games, people rationalize everything, in every aspect of their lives.  We may not even realize it.  Most people think a rationalization is something like, “I can do <this thing which I know I shouldn’t do> because <some stupid reason here>”, but it is not all that cut and dry. 

Rationalization impacts every aspect of who we are.  We choose our friends based on how much they agree with us.  When we buy an expensive item, we avoid the negative reviews of it in favor of the positive ones.  If we do poorly on an IQ test, we find reasons to prove the test was invalid.

It is part of our emotional immune system.  Much like our physical immune system, our brain tries to protect us from unhappiness, and it acts in much the same was as the physical does.  Our physical immune system kills bad things, but it knows enough to recognize not to kill our own cells.  An under-active immune system leads to disease, and an overactive one leads to auto-immune disorders.  The brain works in much the same way.  It allows us to feel the pain of events which we can learn from, and become stronger from, but prevents us from feeling unhappiness in our every day lives.  An under-active system leads to depression, where an overactive one leads to an attitude of eliteness: “I am right and everyone else is wrong”.  

I think its a pretty interesting concept, and the more you are aware of it, the more you notice it.

Image generated using this neat tool.

It is hard not to notice the impact of computers and video games on the overall productivity of oneself.  For me, being a little bit obsessive, features highlighted by the above are just the type of thing to deter me from being more productive.  I do not, however, blame them in any way for my lack of productivity.  In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it can be seen that video games in many ways fulfill a good amount of these needs.  MMORPG’s it has been seen, fulfill almost all of them.

Let us start outside the realm of massively online multiplayer games.  Let us just focus on the world of consoles for the moment.  The Xbox 360 has their Achievement System, and the Playstation 3 as of firmware 2.40 has a similar system branded trophies.  Both of these systems are basically the same:  You fulfill certain goals in a game, and get “points” for it.  What do these points do?  Nothing.  Nothing whatsoever.  They merely add to a never ending total which the world can see, and then use to judge you as to how good of a gamer you are.  I must admit, it is fun trying to get some of the achievements and for the most part, I enjoy the systems.  The problem isn’t with the systems, it is with the people who actually being to feel as if they are achieving something through them.  From a gamespy article on achievement addiction:

Hello, my name is Will, and I’m addicted to achievements. Not the real-life kind, mind you, as I’ve pretty much given up on those (just getting out of bed in the morning feels like an achievement). No, I’m talking about the kind of achievements that you can only get by playing Xbox 360 games. At first, I didn’t really pay much attention to them, although I did feel a slight sense of accomplishment every time I was informed that I had received one. Lately, however, I’m finding that I can’t stop trying to get them. It’s gotten to the point that I’ll stay up late into the night just to get an extra 10 points added to my gamerscore. I … I think I need help.

I too have felt this way, and I have felt even more frustrated when the game developers put achievements in games on purpose, which require an excessive amount of time to complete; leaving obsessive people such as myself spending far too much time playing.  Again, I do not fault the game developers or the console manufacturers for this problem, I fault the players.

In this generation, it is far too easy to get a sense of actual achievement from utterly useless wastes of time.  Getting 10 points added to your gamerscore on Xbox live usually supersedes something more important, such as studying for a test, or getting to work on time.

Consoles and silly achievements/trophies are just the tip of the iceberg.  MMORPG’s are the epitome of evil when it comes to choosing a game, over real life.  I myself have fallen into this trap more then once, and I hope I never fall into it again.

Studying the above pyramid of human needs, I would like to draw parallels to the world of MMORPG’s, illustrating just how easy it can be to not only spend all of your time playing games, but to actually feel like your time is not being wasted.  Your body and mind can actually get all of the things it requires to feel like a well rounded individual from the comfort of your desk chair.

The research published Tuesday in the journal Motivation and Emotion found that the driving force that draws people to games was not fun — which doesn’t keep players interested — but instead a sense of achievement, freedom and even social connectedness.

“We think there’s a deeper theory than the fun of playing,” University of Rochester motivational psychologist Richard Ryan said in a written statement.

Gamers said they felt the best about their experience when the games they played produced positive outcomes in scenarios related to the real world.

(from cbc news, canada)

We can safely ignore the bottom tier, obviously no game can fulfill any of those, and, they are all very easy to fulfill while being hopelessly addicted to a video game.  So beginning from the second tier:

Safety

• In a game, you are truly safe from harm.  In knowing this you can feel secure that your work is going toward something which cannot be destroyed.
• Health, Morality, and Resources are yours to command.  You do not get sick, you cannot be robbed, and the laws of morality do not apply.
• Employment and Family bonds can come from that of the group of players you spend your time with, the guild you belong to.

Love/Belonging

• Family and Friendship are fulfilled by your fellow players, especially that you are most closely tied to via the binds of a guild, or your games equivalent of a guild.
• Sexual Intimacy, while often attempted to be mimicked inside a game, is usually viewed as a joke.  However, it is very easy to meet a player of the opposite sex from within the world of a game and have not only instant ties with things in common, but to also have the freedom of the computer screen to hide any of your natural nervous tendencies.  Real life relationships often stem from games, this is probably one of few positive aspects.  Relationship formation in games.

Esteem

• Confidence and self-esteem come easily when you can hide behind the safety of your keyboard.  While it is quite rampant to be insulted or otherwise belittled from inside the game, there is always someone else lower on the totem pole then you are.  
• Achievement, as is the primary topic of this article, comes most easily.  The game is meant to provide this above all else.  You defeat enemies, you receive great rewards, you gain levels.  Very little time passes inside an mmorpg where you are not being rewarded in some small way for your efforts.  It is a constant influx of reward for your time.  It is very easy to get lost in this sense of achievement.
• Respect comes easily.  If you can play the game even half decently and be a higher level, or have better equipment then other players, they will instantly respect you for it.  There are many avenues for this in mmo’s.

Self-Actualization

• Laws of morality do not really apply but are commonly associated with the laws of real world morality.  
• Creativity and Spontaneity are most easily achieved.  You can literally go anywhere, do anything, you want, any time.  There are no limits.  Everything is open, everything is lively, 24 hours a day.  Creativity can even spawn outside of the game, yet still related to the game.  Such as designing a website or companion addon to the game itself, providing an extra creative surge.  I myself put more time into the design of my old guilds website then I had put into any other web project I worked on previously.
• Lack of Prejudice is a non-issue as in a game while there are races, there is no racism.
• The rules of the game are what they are.  They are accepted.  There are also platforms on which you can stand to have the rules changed if enough players agree to such change.  It is easy to accept the rules and laws of a game when it is utterly impossible to break them.

But something more intensely provoking has happened in EverQuest which makes it addictive. Another frequently encountered figure in introductory psychology textbooks is Maslow, known for his proposed hierarchy of needs. Maslow sees human needs in a pyramid scheme. At the bottom are basic hunger and thirst needs. Then follows security. At the top of the pyramid are aesthetic needs and personal achievements, which would only be possible on a strong foundation of sated hunger and security needs. Thus, even though personal achievements are more rewarding than filling an empty stomach, these achievements are only possible once you’ve filled your stomach. But EverQuest makes it possible for Joes and Janes to become heroes. EverQuest makes it so that you can slay Vox in a guild raid on an empty stomach. What happens when people can feel achievement through continuous mouse-clicking? What happens when these achievements are more rewarding than “real life” achievements? And what if it’s easier to click the mouse than to cook dinner?

(from a study of everquest)

Just to re-iterate, this is not an article analyzing MMO addiction, or otherwise meant to belittle the designers or players of such games.  It is meant to provide insight into why these types of systems are so easy to become addicted to.  It is not necessarily the lazy basement dweller playing these games anymore.  It is professionals, and parents.  Gaming has become so advanced that the human brain gets just as much out of 10 hours inside an mmo as it would from a well rounded life involving children, exercise, and constructive hobbies.

I myself was addicted to games, and I still do play probably more then I should, but I do not feel everyone who plays these games is hopelessly addicted, however, Maslow has provided us some insight into just how it can be so easy for something as pointless as a video game to take precedence over everything else in our lives.

Gaming is:  A waste of time.
Watching TV is:  A waste of time.
Watching Movies is:  A waste of time.
Sitting around drinking beer is:  A waste of time.
Reading Magazines is:  A waste of time.

Now that we have that out of way, when people look at me as an adult gamer, they find it hard to understand why I play games.  It is such a waste of time after all, right.  However, if I sat home watching re-runs of Law and Order for a few hours each day after work, I would be a perfectly normal adult.  So unless you come home from work each day and build shit, work on some sort of constructive project, spend time bonding with your kids, or something else relatively constructive and good for you, what are you doing.  Wasting time.  I simply choose to play games vs. the other things on my very short list above.  So, take that into account when reading the rest of this article.  

I have some friends who simply refuse to play Guitar Hero.  Why?  Because they feel gay, or silly sitting there with a plastic guitar.  However, they will sit and play sports games with a little plastic controller, or play the Wii with a little plastic steering wheel all day.  Why must it be so different.  ”I’d rather just play a real instrument” is another common answer I hear when people decline to play Guitar Hero.

Now I understand that everyone has their preference when it comes to games, even if that preference is to not play games at all.  That is fine, everyone is entitled to that.  I rarely hear anyone say “Meh, I just don’t like that game too much” when it comes to GH though, its always something about feeling stupid, or playing a real instrument.  Now, I can definetly understand not wanting to look like this guy:

But in reality, who cares what you look like when you are just hanging out at someone’s house around some friends?

Lets make a comparison.  On the left is the game, or type of game, and on the right would be the real life equivalent.  I am going to try to use games that tons of people play in this list, as to save myself having to explain that further.  I am also going to avoid fictional genre games like Halo, since you can’t go and shoot aliens in real life.

Guitar Hero -> Playing Guitar
Dance Dance Revolution -> Going to a club and dancing
NBA/NHL/NFL Games -> Playing real sports
Call of Duty -> Joining the army and killing people
Splinter Cell -> Becoming a Secret Agent
Tony Hawk -> Skateboarding

These are what I will call “reality games” as they simulate things you can actually go outside and do!  Unlike Mario, or World of Warcraft, or Halo, which simulate things you can’t do.  Many people will argue that the purity of video games is to put you into some sort of fictional world doing things you can’t do in the real world, thats why they are fun, and thats why they are acceptable.  Much like reading a great science fiction novel, you do it to enjoy simulating things which you could never actually do.

Reality games though, which are increasingly popular, simulate things you could actually go do, but in a more grandiose way.  In Guitar Hero you aren’t a shitty guitar player in your house, you are a rock star god.  In NBA games you aren’t shooting hoops in the local park, you are an NBA super star.  So the essence of fantasy is still there.  The fact that they are still a waste of time, is there also.  I think the perfect joke against all reality games, even though it was aimed directly as a stab at guitar hero, is heroin hero.

The thing is, when is the last time you heard someone say to you during a session playing Call of Duty “Why don’t you go join the army and kill arabs?”, or when you are playing NBA 2k8 “You should just go play basketball all day and become a pro”.  Are these valid things to say?  Of course they are.  If kids these days spent as much time doing the real life equivalent activity to they game they play, maybe they could become rock stars, pro athletes, or super spies.  I will never argue that.  Just like I won’t argue that parents might be better parents if they didn’t spend so much time watching television.

So why so much ridicule for Guitar Hero?  Its just a fun simulation of being a rock star.  You press on little colored buttons at the right time to win.  Same as any other game.  Sure the little plastic guitar is silly looking in the hands of a 6′ 6″ adult, but in reality it is no different from any other video game in the world.  An entertaining way to pass the time.  

The bottom line here is, no one who plays Guitar Hero actually thinks they are accomplishing anything.  No one thinks they are getting better at the real guitar when they play it.  Just like no one who plays Madden 2009 all day thinks it makes them any better at football.

This article is a perfect example of the mentality I am trying to argue against with this post.  Much like theGuitar Queer-O Episode of South Park.

This game is making people spend hundreds of hours in front of a TV and make pretend that they are playing actual guitar whilst being damn good at it. It really reminds us of the time when we were little and made fun of girls to have a make pretend tea party. Yeh, it is probably more faggish than dolls because females actually learned and practiced how to be housewives. This is due to the reason that people who actually play this game have absolutely no skill with the real guitar yet think of themselves as cool because they can rack up a score of a million in an hour.

Entertainment people, thats all it is.  Now playing the drums in Rockband, thats a whole different story.

Metal Gear Solid 4

So I started the game out on “Big Boss Hard” mode and it took me about 4 hours to get about an hour into the game.  Even though I generally play every game I get on the hardest skill level, it got so frustrating that I finally just kicked it down to the normal difficulty level.  It became a lot more fun after that, since the game is about sneaking around everywhere and the only way we were able to succeed on hard was to shoot everything, really took the fun out of it.

After I finally got a chance to play without dying every 10 seconds, it didn’t take long for me to realize just where the rumors of the game possibly requiring more than one Blu-Ray disc came from; cut scenes.  In fact, as the title of this post says, my friend and I quickly realized that we might have been spending more time watching cut scenes then we were actually playing the game.  Each day after dinner one of us would say “Hey wanna go watch some Metal Gear?”  And watch metal gear is what we did.

I searched high and low and I was unable to find exact figures, other then this, which is highly argued about what “running length” they are talking about in the article.  According to everything I can find, the best estimates of total cut scene length in the game is 9+ hours.  When we finally finished the game we had logged approximately 19 hours of game time.  We are still unsure if the total time we get at the end includes the length of the cutscenes, or if it was only timing us during actual gameplay.  I honestly can’t even take a guess as to weather we played the actual game for 9 hours or 19, which I believe is a testament to how good the game actually is.

So lets just assume there is actually 9 hours of cutscenes.  This sounds totally crazy right?  Well, I can say from experience that it certainly felt like there was 9 hours, if not more.  I will also say, that I was never bored, not even for one minute, during my time playing the game.

This game truly impressed me and made me finally realize the potential the PS3 actually has.  Prior to Metal Gear I never felt that the PS3 was superior to the Xbox 360 in any way.  I have owned an Xbox much longer then my Playstation and when a game comes out on both consoles, I always get the Xbox version.  However, I feel the PS3 will be a lot like the PS2, meaning it will LAST.  Games are still coming out for the PS2 and it is almost 10 years old.  I don’t want to get on too much of a tangent here but I must also say that contrary to much criticism, putting a Blu-Ray player in the PS3 was absolutely the right choice for Sony.  Not only did it essentially win the format war for them, but it also gives them a lot more potential for games that wont fit on a conventional DVD.  Games like Metal Gear.  I also just want to mention here real quick that while I was also an avid HD-DVD supporter, after it finally lost the format war, I invested in Blu-Ray, obviously.  Watching a Blu-Ray movie on my 1080P 60″ TV is absolutely the most pleasurable and impressive HD viewing experience I have ever had.  It completely blows anything you’ll ever see on an HD tv channel.

So back to the game.  I have always been a huge Metal Gear fan.  I have to admit though, I never actually owned a Playstation 2.  It is the ONLY console I have not owned, ever.  I am still not sure why I never got one, I think I was just too busy in college, and too broke, to get one.  So you can say, well, you missed the two best Metal Gear games ever by not having a PS2.  While I am inclined to agree with you, that didn’t stop me from reading a lot about the elements of the story which I missed out on by not playing those games.  Going into MGS4, I was totally caught up on the story.

The gameplay is phenomenal, the controls work wonderfully, and there are many elements of humor throughout.  While it has many many unique features which the other games did not have, the game still feels extremely familiar, and easy to get the hang of.  I have seen a lot of people complaining about the excessive length of the cut scenes, but to be perfectly honest, I enjoyed every minute of them.  It was nice to essentially watch a movie between each mission.  A welcomed break.  Not to mention the story line flows like an epic trilogy all rolled up into one long ass movie.  The plot of the game integrates perfectly with all of the other titles and it is very interesting to watch it unfold.

While there were a lot of cut scenes, I still feel like there was more then enough gameplay.  Surprisingly, there also seems to be a great amount of replay value.  It is very seldom I play any linear single player type game through more then once, and yet I fully plan to play MGS4 again.  Maybe I’ll even play it on hard mode this time!  I haven’t even begun to explore the online component, and I missed almost every secret item during my first play through.

Basically, to sum it up, Metal Gear was an extremely fun game, and had a very captivating plot.  The length of the cut scenes was not a problem for me at all, and it finally made me realize just how powerful the PS3 is.  If there ever was a “killer app” to come out for any console in history, I’d say this is one of them.

If you get a chance, I highly suggest you watch Metal Gear.

Don't Mess With Me

I have spent a lot of time on message forums, IRC, online games, and where ever else you can chat with people online over the years.  It seems though, that as the generation of kids after my generation is beginning to mature, absolute ignorance is beginning to run incredibly rampant online.

It started out with innocent abbreviations, you know LOL, BRB, OMG, things like that, now online language has turned into a completely different animal…I am honestly not sure sometimes if the kids even know correct spelling or grammar because internet shorthand is what they use the majority of the day.  Have you ever met a teenie bopper who chats something like this:

lol omg how r u?  im liek waitin 4 my gf to get home and im so bord. wut r u up 2?

That’s just me slapping together a quick piece of crap example but I almost have to think harder to talk like that then I do to type correctly.  It seems like its almost cool to be stupid these days.  It’s not just misspellings either, its the misuse of almost every interchangeable word in the English language, horrible vocabularies, disgusting grammar skills.  When you make the mistake of trying to correct someones spelling or grammar online you always get a response like:

I know how to spell n stuff d00d, wtf r u the grammer police lol, I come to a game so i dont hav to spell rite n stuff.

Ah, you come to a game to cut loose right?  To break free of your strict teacher all up your ass.  Is that why you just decided to use than instead of then, or except instead of accept, or whatever other 5th grade mistake you made?

This country is so damn uneducated it makes me sick.

Ah, but the purpose of this entry is not to discuss education, as I seem to have gotten sidetracked, its about arguing online.  The keyboard is a very powerful thing.  If you thought that 50 year old soccer mom who gave you middle finger driving in traffic the other day had a case of “in the car balls” as I like to call it, just spend a little bit of time online.  People become very different when you give them the sense that there will be consequences for what they do and say.

I am a 6′ 6″ tall 250 lb monster.  I’d be willing to say that the majority of people in this country would not  want to mess with me face to face.  If I cut in front of you in line at the grocery store, most people would just let me do it, and bitch about it later.  Put someone in a car, they get a little ballsy, they might honk at you, make a rude gesture at you, or even roll down their window and yell at you.  Put someone behind the keyboard and its a whole different animal.

I am going to try to classify the different types of internet arguers:

• I’m successful in real life, so I need to assert myself online
  This is the type of person who is reasonably successful in life, but they usually fail at games.  As such you get one of the other below types making fun of them for sucking, and the best way that they can retaliate is to boast about their real life success and pwn someone else with their superior intellect.  This usually just makes you look like an asshole and you get laughed at.  No one cares how successful you are in real life, much less believes you, taking this approach will almost always make you look like a douche.

• I fail at real life, so I must assert myself online
  This is your typical basement dweller who is well past the reasonable age for still living at home.  They usually try to over compensate for all their real life shortcomings by appearing to be awesome online.  While this type of person usually excels at MMORPG’s simply due to the massive excess of free time, they usually suck at everything else.  Trying to appear smart always fails.  Trying to appear good at a game and getting quickly pwnt in the face, always funny.  These are usually people who spend lots of time writing negative reviews of everything online because they think their opinion matters.
  

• I like to get a rise out of people online, and I’m an asshole
  These are usually people of higher intelligence with a reasonable enough amount of self confidence such that they don’t care to boast about their awesome skills online.  These are the types of people who are usually actually quite nice when you get to know them and they pick their battles carefully.  Every once in a while when a certain topic that they care enough about comes up, they will carefully pwn you in the face with their words, appear to be a huge cocky asshole, then carefully receed back into silence again without giving you the opportunity to retort.

• I’m immature and stupid, and I appear immature and stupid online
  These are the best.  Very immature teenage types who are super chatty and just make themselves look retarded over and over again.  From terrible spelling and grammar skills, to a lack of knowledge about almost anything.  These are the best to argue with because they will argue with you forever about nothing.

• I own at games and I want everyone to know it
  This is an odd breed.  Its usually a mix of being a retarded immature teenager, but actually really damn good at whatever game you happen to be playing.  These are the most annoying.  They are stupid, immature, and love to rub shit in your face, but no matter how hard you try you can’t best them, because they are just too damn good.  It doesn’t matter how smart you are, it doesn’t matter how dumb they are.  In a game, if you get beat, you get beat.  The worst type of immature teenager who will beat you are the ones who know how good they are and love to rub it in your face.

• I suck at games but I want people to think I own
  These guys are funny.  They want to be good.  They have posters of pro gamers on their walls.  They go to school for game programming.  They want to be good so bad, they just don’t have whatever it is that makes someone good at games.  Problem is, they think they are good, and they can talk the talk, argue with the best of them, spout the lingo, but they just have no game.  If you beat them, watch the shit talk and excuses flow.  Noobs always blame lag first, remember that.

• I get respect through actions not words
  This is my favorite type of internet persona.  The silent type.  They talk when they need to, will never waste their time arguing, and when something needs to get done, they get it done.  I wish I was one of these guys.

So what type am I?

I guess I’m a combination of the first and the third.  I love getting a rise out of people online and I pick my battles.  Arguing online is fun to me.  Problem is, I hate getting beat and I have caught myself on occasion spouting shit about how successful I am in real life to people online.  Tisk tisk.  It never works, usually just leads people to accuse you of being some 400lb moms basement loser.  Oh well.

Who cares right, the whole point of arguing online is that you’ll never meet me anyhow.

It’s really not even fun anymore though, really, people have gotten so stupid that you can never win an argument and you just wind up giving up.

WTB teachers, PST.

Recently, a couple of things have happened between Intel and nVidia, a little bad blood you could say.  Essentially Intel has made claims recently that in the not-so-distant future the graphics card as a separate pc component will become unnecessary, as Intel works to move the graphics processing features onto the die of the CPU itself.  Now before I go into nVidia’s rebuttal, I would like to focus on this for a moment, and analyze it.

I believe that in the future chip manufacturers will absolutely be able to bring the graphics processor onto the CPU chip, in fact there is absolutely no-doubt in my mind they could.  Could be as good as a separate card, absolutely, probably better.  Now while I have no doubt in my mind that this will happen, the question remains, will it put the 3rd party GPU out of the picture?  I tend to think not.  There are many reasons for this.

We are rapidly approaching a point where the speed of the desktop CPU is so fast that it need not be any faster.  When I say desktop, I am of course referring to the consumer desktop market.  If you have the latest quad-core Intel CPU in your desktop, I cannot think of many common everyday tasks you would need a new CPU to accomplish anytime in the forseeable future.  The only thing, in my experience, that has EVER warranted a PC upgrade within the last 5-7 years has been to keep up with gaming demands.  This means that if Intel integrated a powerful enough graphics processor into their CPU’s to play the latest games during the time in which they come out, when that graphics processor becomes outdated; which will probably be quickly (<1 year) as is the case with current graphics technology it would force consumers to essentially upgrade their entire PC.  Since the CPU is the core of it, weather or not they actually needed a faster CPU or not they would have to upgrade.  Consumers don’t like this.  I would not like this.  Upgrading an entire system simply because you can not upgrade it on a component by component basis is very unfair to consumers.

On the same line of thought as my above comment, I tend to think that third party GPU as an addon card into an existing system is quite convenient.  If the powers that be could simply settle on one interface which is fast enough to support the demands of at least a few years to come, a decently built system with the right CPU/Ram/Graphics Interface would likely be able to support several generations of graphics cards.  Upgradability at a fraction of the cost of an entirely new pc is essential.

We are getting to a point where graphics cards will not be pushing the limits of the rest of the system as they have in the past.  I do not think you will see as many cards coming out which are bottle necked by other components in a PC.  There was a time when you could upgrade your video card past that of your system, I tend to think that the most recent systems specced out properly should last much longer.  The only reason I have upgraded anything recently was not to support a faster CPU, in fact Intel has been kind enough to keep with the same damn socket for almost 3 years now.  I upgraded to obtain things like PCI-express 2.0, Faster Bus Speeds, and DDR3 memory.  I probably didn’t even need any of it, but it was a convenient excuse.

This leads me to comment on what nVidia had said in refute to Intels claims of the third party GPU going the way of the dinosaur:

Basically the CPU is dead. Yes, that processor you see advertised everywhere from Intel. Its run out of steam. The fact is that it no longer makes anything run faster. You don’t need a fast one anymore. This is why AMD is in trouble and its why Intel are panicking. They are panicking so much that they have started attacking us. This is because you do still [need] one chip to get faster and faster – the GPU. That GeForce chip. Yes honestly. No I am not making this up. You are my friends and so I am not selling you. This shit is just interesting as hell. [More Here]

I think what they are saying here is a bit harsh and presumptuous to suggest that Intel is dead, or even on a decline is simply ridiculous.  Intel is kicking ass right now.  They are destroying AMD, entering into the hand-held market, and making better processors cheaper and faster then ever before.  However, I do think nVidia is correct in trying to defend itself.  They should be careful though, the best motivation is always the motivation to prove someone else wrong, which is exactly the motivation nVidia is giving Intel here.

The GPU being a separate entity, while in the grand scheme of things, might be in the way of progress in the computing world; is a necessity in the economy.  Competition breeds progress, and makes that progress in turn more accessible to the rest of us.

Since ATI merged with AMD which I thought was a good move, since I used to be a big ATI/AMD fan, I have always thought of the possibility of nVidia merging with Intel.  After seeing this little bout between the two companies I have become doubtful of this possibility but if it ever happened I have a feeling they would be an unstoppable force in the market, which, would probably lead to some sort of evil monopoly.  Until that happened though, I have a feeling you would see some real innovation there.

My dream is to one day build a gaming PC which won’t become outdated within 3 days of installing an OS on it; and if it does become outdated, I would much rather drop a $500 graphics card in it and keep on playing then to have to upgrade the entire system from the ground up.  If the rest of the system does not need to be upgraded then it will be companies like ATI and nVidia who will allow me to do this, and for that alone, I am rooting for them.

Between the current bus speeds, DDR3 memory, and all the other new superfast bells and whistles the latest technologies have brought us, what they should really do is just put a socket on the motherboard itself for a GPU instead of having to keep changing the damn interface every few months.  PCI-e 2.0?   Jesus, looks like its time to upgrade, again.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics and sound are quite simply put, superb. That is, if you have a system good enough to support it. As stated in my prior entry I believe they have underestimated the system requirements of the game a good bit. Luckily enough my girlfriend and I are able to play it just fine.

The music is something I haven’t yet turned off, which says a lot. The combat sounds are really neat and really get you into the mood of killing stuff. It quite honestly takes a lot of the monotony out of questing. I haven’t noticed much in the way of ambient noise such as wind, birds, water, but I’m sure its there. I did notice the sound of snow “crunching” under my feet, so I know the ambiance is existent, just quite suttle.

The graphics, even on the lowest settings look great. There are really well done lighting and shadow effects, the foliage on trees looks great, the monsters are very unique and detailed. The world and landscapes are gorgeous. You can tell they have very good attention to detail which is very important to the immersion of one of these games.

Character Creation and Development

When you first enter the game you are placed on a slave ship. If you choose a male race the camera spins and centers in on one of the slaves who are rowing. If you choose a female, the camera zooms to the back of the ship and centers in on a woman chained to the wall who is obviously being used as some sort of whore.

At this point you being customizing. I must say the initial character customization is much more flexible then any other game I have played in any genre, hands down. While you are limited to only 3 different races at the time of my writing this, the amount of immersion and customization they put into the initial creation of your character really leaves you feeling like you are going to have something unique in the game, not just a carbon copy of everyone else. This really helps get you in the mood of your character and immerses you into the game.

Development seems quite similar to that of other games. You gain new abilities as you level up. So far this process has been automatic. I have not been to any trainers nor have I had to buy anything. Each level after level 10 you get one or more “feat points” which can be put into improving your character further. Much like most other games you get a limited number of points to distribute so you must choose wisely. There is another system beyond the feat trees which are skills you can put points into. I am not clear on how these points are earned as I have gained hundreds of them. Skills you can put points into are similar to the types of skills you get automatically in other games. Regeneration Skill, Hiding/Stealth, Casting Interruption, Taunt/Aggro Generation, Climbing, etc. These are just two more ways that you get more powerful as you level.

Storyline and Lore

I should start by saying that I am definitely not your traditional RPG player. While I generally like to read up on websites and stuff later to get an idea of the lore and figure out just who the bosses are I am killing, and why; during the game play itself, I do not get very involved in it. I just spam click past all the quest dialog and move on. This game is not much different for me in that respect, however, I feel that for someone who does enjoy the immersion of quest lore, and in-game storyline would be very pleased.

For the first 20 levels, every single NPC, and I mean EVERY one is voice acted. The quests have massive cut scenes and you get a real sense of immersion. I have to say that the initial “destiny” quest for Age of Conan was hands down the best starting quest and zone combination I have ever seen in any game. The first 20 levels fly by because the story is so, well, awesome. The voice acting, by the way, is VERY well done. It’s not just typical crappy acting.

Also, as a side note, this is one of the only games I have ever played where I still have the music turned on.

Since I don’t know much about the Conan universe and when I think of Conan all I can still think about is Arnold Schwarzenegger, I can’t really say how consistent the game is with the actual books and lore it was designed to emulate. I would be curious to see a response from someone who is aware of the consistency on this front.

User Interface

I am going to try hard not to bash the UI too much since it would be unfair to compare it to the more refined UI of games which have been out for several years. Basically, the UI is just ok. It has everything you need to play the game, and is relatively easy to navigate. The map is superb, for people like me, who hate questing and just want to know where to go and what to kill. If you like to explore and find stuff for yourself, you can turn the little dots on your map off, and run blind.

As of right now, you cannot customize the UI at all. Nothing is movable, resizeable, etc. Funcom recently created a “User Interface Addon/Modification” forum inside the official game forums which tells me that they will be opening it up for public modification. I also hear rumors they will be using the familiar LUA system Wolrd of Warcraft uses, which would be fantastic.

My biggest complaints with the default UI are the chat window and the social windows. The chat window is extremely clunky and limited. The only semblance of a “general” chat room is “OOC” (out of character) but that does not talk server-wide, I believe it only talks to the current instance of the current zone you are in, which sucks. I wish they had a collection of global channels, and I wish the chat interface as a whole was easier to use.

The social windows, and by this I mean friends list, guild management, player search, etc. are crap. You cannot manage ranks in your guild, you cannot easily manage your friends list, its just highly limited. I expect some major changes to these portions of the UI soon. Keep your fingers crossed.

The only other beef I have with the UI is the slash command system. Too many things are relegated to slash commands and have no spot inside the UI to show them. The emote system is limited, adding a friend to your friends list is some clunky command “/cc addbuddy <charname>” and many other regular every day MMO commands are quite similar. It is quite simply put, non-intuitive and quite clunky.

Combat System

Here is where the game really shines. The combat system is amazingly fun, and in about 20 hours of game play, has not gotten old yet. Essentially Funcom calls it their “Real Combat” engine. It is basically 6 directions you can swing your weapon, and 6 directions you can actively block with your shield (if you are using one) all in 100% real time. The really neat thing is how if you are wildly swinging a large weapon at an enemy and another enemy is next to him, you will hit them both. If a mage blasts them with electricity and they are close enough together, it hits them both. It really breaks the MMO mold in terms of “Target enemy, spam buttons”.

There is also a combo system, which feels something similar to what you’d get in a fighting game. You press a button to do an ability, much like in other MMO’s but you must then press a sequence of swing buttons (like UP then LEFT) in order to actual complete the combo, which your character performs. These combos and abilities of course have all sorts of different effects, just like regular spells and abilities do in other games.

There are also Fatalities, a-la Mortal Kombat, which are pretty neat. I am still not 100% sure on the mechanic to make them happen, I believe it is just a random % chance. Basically it seems like if you kill an enemy using a combo and not just a regular attack, there is a chance you will perform a fatality on them. The fatality animation varies depending on the weapon you have equipped, and I am assuming it also changes with level. Examples of fatalities are cutting off your enemies head, running them through with a sword, or smashing their head in with a mallet. After the animation finishes you get realistic blood spatter all over your screen. Trust me, it never gets old.

The only issue I see with these is that they happen at random, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to prevent them from happening. So if you are fighting about 6 enemies and you get a fatality on one of them, you continue to get hit by the other ones while the ~5 second animation plays. Can be a little annoying at times. I am sure they will do something about this such as only allowing a fatality on the last enemy you are fighting, or to turn off fatalities entirely.

The other neat thing about combat is the active ability to shield yourself in any direction or to attack an enemy in an area in which they are not shielded. This is just another aspect of the “Real Combat” system I really enjoy. If I open up an attack against an enemy with a series of overhead attacks they will shift their blocks to the top, then I can start hitting them at the sides doing more damage. It’s really neat.

So far I am loving combat in this game, which is the main point Funcom focused on and it really shows.

Questing and Leveling

The quest system is much like any other game. NPC’s have an icon either denoting they have a quest you can do, or a quest you can turn in to them. The big difference is really only at the lower levels (sub level 20) where you can play at night, which is entirely single-player based quests, or during the day, which is multi player. I have not seen the ability to play in single player mode at all past level 20. The quest system is very vanilla aside from the aforementioned immersive cut-scenes and voice acting. Post level 20 though, the voice acting seems to have totally stopped. I did not expect every NPC throughout the whole game to be voice acted, but I am honestly not sure if any of them are, aside from maybe a few major quest arcs here and there. This is really no problem with me though as I tend to just blaze through the quests as fast as possible anyhow.

The one thing I can say is, the quests themselves are much less boring to do. In most other games I have played you spend at least half your time killing snakes, rats, oversized bugs, or other lowly animals. This is not so much the case in Age of Conan. While there are definitely quests to kill things like snakes or crocodiles, the vast majority puts you up against large monsters or other worthy opponents, making questing not only more fun, but making it more realistic to me, as your destiny in every MMO is to become some great powerful entity. Great powerful entities don’t kill flies and rats.

One thing I really like is the speed at which you level, which for me has been quite fast. I know a lot of people will not like this as some people particularly enjoy a slow paced fun leveling experience. I for one just want to get to max level and focus on the end-game. If my hopes are correct, in Age of Conan less of the focus is on the level grind, and more of it is on the endgame content.

Equipment and Items

The gear system in this game is not all that unique. You have your different rarity and quality items denoted by some different color in the item name. The thing I really like is how most of the items look very unique. I believe they are dynamically mapped to the character making all of the gear look very good when worn. Most of the gear so far is pretty unique too. In most other games every robe or piece of armor you get is the same model but with different color patterns on them. In this game, while a lot of the low level gear is similar, it is not the same. I really like that.

Tradeskills and Professions

This will have to be summed up in another entry as you cannot get a real profession aside from gathering until level 40. So I have no experience with the crafting system in this game yet at all. This could really go either way. In most games I tend to ignore crafting since the items you get from it are usually sub-par and you get much better things from drops. If they actually make player-crafted gear useful and viable then It could be a very good thing for the game.

Groups, Raids and PvP

This is yet another subject I cannot really touch on except for in a very minor way. I know that groups are a maximum of 6 players and raids are a maximum of 24 players. I have not encountered much group content in the way of traditional dungeons or “instances” so I have no idea what this content is like or how it performs. One thing I do like is this “apprentice” system they have. It can bring a group member up to 1 level below yours, making it easier to group with people of unequal level. I do not believe this has any impact on XP gain. It seems to only really affect their core stats, and does not give you nor them any additional abilities.

As for PvP, I am on a PvE server (Zug). I have no yet participated in any of the mini-games, nor any other form of PvP. So I cannot rightly comment on this at all. I do know that there is a rather large implementation of PvP in the game though. Check out this review for more information about PvP in Age of Conan.

Final Thoughts

Having played many other MMORPG games, such as World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Eve Online, just to name a few. I feel my opinion might be only slightly valuable. I am a pretty objective guy. I know that it seems like most people who choose one game to play automatically sorta hate the ones they aren’t playing. I believe that is a way for all of us gaming addicts to feel just a little bit better about the game we do spend hundreds of hours of time playing, vs the ones we don’t. No one wants to feel like they chose the wrong game to play.

World of Warcraft is the game I played most. I was a level 70, uber-geared, officer in a raid guild. I played that game from the day it came out, until October of 2007 when I quit due to quite simply being tired of the game. WoW is the epitome of MMO success with over 10 million subscribers. The game has beautiful graphics, a very refined interface, and tons of players. They just simply made it too accessible and took a lot of the prestige out of being as hardcore as I was. For someone who played it for years and years, and put so many hours into it, it would pain me to see a player who just started the game a few months ago have equipment and gear equal to mine. It also has a very childish player-base which gets very aggravating to deal with at times.

Everquest 2, I played for maybe only the last 4 months, but it was long enough to get my character to level 80, get into yet another raid guild, enter Veeshans Peak, and get very very bored with the game in general. This is however not due to the game itself. My honest opinion is that EQ2 is superior to WoW in almost every way. There is just something very depressing and sad about playing a dying MMO, and In my humble opinion EQ2 is dying. There are less players and servers then ever. I am honestly not sure why this is the case, but it definitely seems to be. Just look at this chart. Quite sad.

Age of Conan I feel is extremely different from every other MMO I have played. It does have very funamental similarities obviously, but those are difficult to get away from. One very positive note for me is the “M-Rating”. I don’t care if theres blood, or if I can freely use bad language. I just feel this rating will keep a lot of the more annoying little teenagers out of the game, at least until they trick their irresponsible parents into buying it for them.

To sum it up, I believe at this time Age of Conan will be the MMO of choice for me. I have not yet cancelled my EQ2 account but I feel I will very soon.

I suggest anyone who is even remotely bored with the game they are currently playing, or curious to try an MMO out for the first time, give it a try.

I am very weary of Funcom. It is not a company with much of a reputation, good or bad, but I am weary of their experience with, and ability to support, such a lofty endeavor. I have played a few other MMO’s, namely World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment) and Everquest 2 (Sony Online Entertainment) to a very high degree, and I know what I can come to expect from these games. I started playing WoW the week it was released, and I can say their release didn’t go quite so smoothly either. This tells me that if a company who I respect so highly like Blizzard can’t make a release go smoothly, then Funcom certainly won’t be able to.

So, as expected, Funcom’s release hasn’t gone entirely smootly. Let me try to sum up why.

1. Early Access: I was one of the lucky people who pre-ordered the game and actually got into their Early Access program. Why do I say actually ? Well, because apparently, even though everyone who pre-ordered was supposed to get early access, Funcom “ran out of supplies”. Now, this is actually understandable, and probably responsible on their part not to oversell their capacity, but this really pissed off the community, before the game even came out. Big no-no in my book. On top of that, during the supposed 3-days of early access, I got maybe 8 hours of play time in. This is partially due to having to work, and being otherwise busy, which is not Funcoms fault, but it is also largely due to them.Early Access was supposed to start on Saturday May 17th at 1pm Eastern. Due to whatever problems they were having at the time, it actually started closer to 6pm Eastern. After that, they had a series of long server maintenance outages, the biggest being one that started around 4pm Eastern and ended at 2am. This is essentially the entire window I have to play the game during the work week. Okay, so I didn’t get to play that much during Early Access, boo-hoo, lets move on.
2. Learn to Plan an Outage: I work in the IT field, and I have to plan and coordinate server outages on an almost daily basis. Its not that hard. Aside from the aforementioned server outages since yesterday, heh, when the game came out officially to everyone, there has been yet another outage. Okay, so they are trying to fix bugs, thats great, but they need to plan these things better. So far of the four outages I can recall, they have all happened during what I would call “Prime Time”. This is, between about 3pm and 11pm in whatever time-zone you are in. Every outage has occurred within these hours. EVERY one. Not only that, but every outage has gone largely unannounced, with very few updates regarding their progress. They also seem to have this issue with estimating the time things take. All of the outages so far have gone something to the effect of…
   

   Maintenance will being at 22:00, we expect it will last 2 hours.

   QA Team Needs an Additional Hour.

   Server Team has identified a few more issues which should take an additional 2 hours to complete

   We are now finalizing all changes and doing some internal testing, the servers should be back online in 3 hours.
   

   Basically turning what was to be a 2 hour outage into an 8 hour outage. This is just highly unprofessional. At least Blizzard made it a habit of overestimating the outage time and usually the servers would be up sooner then you expected them to be.

3. Published System Requirements: I really don’t know what to say to this except that they seem to have grossly underestimated the requirements to play their game. I know a handful of people who went and bought it who have systems which meet or exceed the requirements but cannot play it. Basically, the minimum requirements are a decent computer with an nVidia 6600GT video card, and the recommended requirements are, a pretty new computer with an nVidia 7950GT video card. The minimum sounds a little underestimated to me, and it is. I know at least one person who has a very decent system with an older video card being the weak point, an nVidia 6800 Ultra, which is vastly superior to a 6600GT, and he had to turn every setting down to the absolute minimum, just to get roughly 20 frames per second. I highly doubt a 6600GT could even make the game remotely playable. Conversely, I myself exceed the recommended requirements (which I feel should constitute being able to play on high, if not max settings), and I myself can barely break 40 frames per second on anything higher then medium quality. This is unacceptable. They basically tricked people into buying the game who wont even be able to play it, and left the rest of us wanting to upgrade our pc’s just so we can play it with decent frame rates.

So now that I am done ragging on some of the BS Funcom has pulled over the last few days, I am going to see how it goes tonight and try to play a bit.  Stay tuned tomorrow for a more in-depth review of the game itself.