T w e n t y S i d e d
This one is a study in Xenobiology. And toilet jokes.
Torchlight: This looks… familiar.
People are raving about Torchlight. I haven’t picked it up yet, but I’m a bit confused by the buzz. The game is apparently:
1. A “Diablo clone”
2. Whimsical art style
3. You can have a cat or dog companion, who can help you fight, has inventory space, and who can run back to town and sell for you.
4. You can feed your pet certain fish in order to transform it into other creatures.
5. Skill-point based leveling system that lets you mix & match powers.
6. You can pay to have a shopkeeper add a random spell effect to an existing weapon or item.
So, didn’t we see this exact same game two years ago?
Torchlight is basically a clone of Fate. Yet Fate was obscure enough that nobody seems to remember it now (or they’d be making comparisons) and Torchlight is causing a big fuss. I’m sort of confused as to how this happened.
In the long run I found Fate to be a fun diversion, but lacking in long-term appeal. I wonder if Torchlight has some ingredient that was missing in Fate, or if Torchlight is just benefiting from better marketing. Or perhaps Fate was ahead of its time, and the audience wasn’t there for it yet.
I’m going to have to get Torchlight so that I can do a proper comparison.
Four more years!
I can’t believe I missed it, but a month ago this site turned four years old. I count September 1st as the official birthday of the site. (Although the actual “launch” date is a somewhat abstract idea. I mean, nobody read this thing at the time, and I used timestamps to organize the first posts without regard to when they actually went up. Which didn’t matter anyway because hey, no audience.)
My father was an English major, and a poet by trade. This would confuse people who met him:
“What do you do?”
To which he would answer in his deep, gravely voice, “I’m a poet.”
There would be this little pause, followed by the question, “No, I mean what do you do for a living?”
Dad would smile, “That is what I do for a living.”
This was perhaps overselling things a bit. It was true that poetry was the only work he did, but it didn’t really earn him a proper living in an economic sense. He’d had a massive stroke at 30 which left him partly paralyzed. He spent the next 29 years living alone, slightly impoverished, and moving every couple of years or so to escape the trail of bills and debts that always followed him around.
I didn’t really spend time with him or get to know him until I was entering my teens, and it wasn’t until I was grown that the two of us clicked and became friends.
Dad always said that “poetry is a performance art”. To him, reading poetry to yourself was like reading the script for a play instead of seeing it performed. You can do that if you want, but you’re probably missing out. He self-published books of his work as a way of earning cigarette money, but what he really loved was reading for an audience. Back in the 90’s there was a coffee shop in Slippery Rock which had a weekly poetry… thing. My dad was some sort of local celebrity / folk hero / mentor / crank for the college students who hung out there. The poetry readings were more or less open mic, although there seemed to be some unspoken rule that dad – the only non-student who ever took the stage – was the “headline” act. A few of his followers were musicians, and sometimes they would play backup music while he read.
When I visited him in his dusty, smoke-infused apartment he’d often read me some of his recent work. I could tell it pained him when I didn’t get it. I thought of poetry as just a very roundabout and imprecise form of storytelling. When he was done I’d always ask him who the poem was about or where it took place. If he mentioned a man in his poem, I’d ask if he was anyone I knew. There was this artistic rift between us. He was a poet and an abstract thinker, and I was a computer programmer and a slightly obtuse concrete thinker. I could tell he was always trying to bring me into his world. I guess he wanted me to be a writer. Not intensely, as a father trying to live vicariously through his offspring, but in a more casual, “It would be cool if you were into this” sort of way. We got along well enough, and we were both more amused than frustrated at the ways we didn’t understand each other.
In the last four years on this blog I’ve discovered, to my own amazement, that I love writing more than I love programming. Or maybe I’ve just finally had my fill of code after three decades. I don’t know. I wrote a book, and I can tell I’ve got another one in my head even if I don’t have the time to set it down right now. I’ve even dabbled in poetry a bit, which would astound the man if he were alive today.
This blog has changed the trajectory of my career, taught me about writing, and given me a better understanding of a man who died five years before I put up the first post. Not bad, as far as unintended consequences go.
I’m glad that during this strange journey you’ve been able to find some entertainment value in it. Thanks for reading.
Dragon Age Anxiety
So a couple of Dragon Age characters are appearing in Maxim along with the real-world models on which they were based. Maxim? Really, BioWare? It’s like… it’s like I don’t know who you are anymore.
I’ve been observing the strange, oversexed marketing campaign for Dragon Age and I played around with the puddle-deep character designer. I have to admit I wonder where they’re going with all of this. It’s possible this is an effort to reach out to the less nerdy demographic and get them into some RPG-esque games. That would be fine. But the other, more cynical way to look at it is that perhaps they noticed that Mass Effect – despite being their most shallow and character-thin story in a decade – has outsold their earlier, deeper titles. Maybe they noticed that, and decided they needed less roleplay and more sexay.
On the other hand, Susan Arendt over at the Escapist had nice things to say about it in her Twitter feed.
Really Shamus? Are you really pinning your hopes for an entire company on a slightly favorable remark in someone’s TWITTER FEED?
Yeah… Look, I don’t know. I’m just trying to read the signs here. We don’t have a lot to go on. Russ Pitts gave the thing decent marks at the Escapist, but I haven’t really calibrated myself against his reviews yet.
I really don’t want to believe that BioWare is just abandoning their branching RPG format for interactive Sex In the City on rails. Where else will we look for our next KOTOR? Is this the direction they’re going, or is this just a feint by marketing? Consider this infamous trailer: (Warning: Contains gore, nudity, swearing, and lack of character interactions aside from aforementioned gore, nudity, etc.)
Link (YouTube) |
I don’t really object to them aiming a game at grownups. I’m not going to flip out if they decide that they need lots of particle-effects blood and bare polygonal asses to sell the thing. Just as long as they keep what has always made their titles great: Compelling settings, interesting characters, meaningful choices. Rutskarn makes a very convincing case that we shouldn’t get our hopes up for Dragon Age in this regard.
It comes out today. I guess we’ll find out soon. Dragon Age will probably be my next target, after Borderlands.
A Star is Born:
Let’s Play Champions Online Pt. 7
Now that I’ve defeated the snowstorm, I’m at last free to explore all of Canada, experience its rich cultures, and meet its peoples. I am so taken with the land that I have decided to share with you what I learned from my time in Champions Online. If you’ve never taken the time to visit America’s neighbor to the north, then you’re in for an educational treat.
| Country: | Canada | |
| Demonym: | Canadian | |
| Flag: |
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| Anthem: | O Canada | |
| Motto: | THIS IS NO ORDINARY STORM! | |
| Official Languages: | English English with “Eh?” at the end of every sentence. |
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| Capital: | Force Station Steelhead | |
| Ethnic Groups: | 70% Terrorists 12% Gadroon Frog Space Aliens 8% Bigfoots 5% Zombies 4% Superheroes 1% Civilians |
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| Major Cities: | None | |
| Imports: | Superheroes | |
| Exports: | Slightly higher-level superheroes | |
| Predominant Wildlife: | Bears Wolves Velociraptors |
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| Thing they hate the most: | Being called “America’s Neighbor to the north”. |
After touring the land, I am shocked at how inaccurate the Canadian Wikipedia entry is. I tried to fix some of the more glaring omissions (they don’t even mention the Velociraptors!) but someone keeps reverting my edits. No doubt it’s one of Dr. Destroyer’s minions.
Anyway, after my journey through Canada I thought I’d share a few snapshots of their more famous landmarks and iconic locations:
The United States is so proud of their amusing little Mt. Rushmore, but it’s nothing compared to the size and majesty of Canada’s Skull Mountain:
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A Doom Telescope:
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Some sort of haunted Tiberium Fields:
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Bigfoot Village:
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A good portion of Canada is being terraformed by an Alien race called the Gadroon. I know they’re evil because all space aliens are evil unless they’re superheroes, but I have to say I kind of think the Gadroon have made an improvement here:
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Here is Canada’s famous haunted glacial rift:
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And here is the terrorist oil pipeline / pollution factory:
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While you were learning about the great land of Canada, I upgraded my powers.
I took the “regeneration” passive ability. If you find yourself playing the game then for the love of spandex, TAKE THIS POWER. It’s hilariously broken. As long as you have a few points in the recovery stat, you should be able to heal faster than foes damage you. I’ve been in fights with groups of same-level foes where I was able to simply hold the block button and wait for my health to fill all the way back up while the enemy pounded away at me. No other passive superpower comes even plausibly close to being this useful. (The power “invulnerability” is a distant second. The two are roughly even when fighting foes under your level, but invulnerability doesn’t help much if you start to push against foes that have a few levels on you. No other passive defensive power in the game is even worth considering. I’ve tried them. It’s not even close.
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| I hope for your sake you didn’t read this. |
On the downside, the items are guarded by the Hunter-Patriots, who are the predominant terrorist group in Canada. (Viper, the other major terrorist group, is smaller but better armed and equipped.) Their plans seem to be thus:
1) Groups of dudes in parkas will bury themselves in the snow, right outside of the Steelhead base.
2) When a superhero comes along, they leap out of the snow and attack.
3) They get beat up. Yay good guys.
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| Out on the frozen lake, I have to fight some more Hunter-Patriots. Here is a commander kneeling on the ice, looking at me through his binoculars from ten feet away. I wonder if he’s using them backwards, “Oh! There’s a superhero, but he’s like, way off in the distance.”. |
I have to beat up a Hunter-Patriots commander, to get him to tell me about couple of super-villains I’ve passed about a half dozen times so far. Once I beat up the super-villains, they tell me their plans, and then I can go thwart those plans by beating up additional Hunter-Patriots.
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| Credit where it’s due: One of the super-villains is Lynx, a cat girl. She signed on with the bad guys just because she wanted the catgirl costume / abilities, and then had second thoughts once she saw their plans. She doesn’t really want to join a terrorist group, she just wanted to be a cat girl. I liked this idea. It was humorous without being stupid nonsense, and it manages to do it without simply referencing some other, funnier fiction. I would be so much happier if the game had gone for this style of humor instead of the slapstick goofball stuff it’s usually engaged in. |
Back at base, I meet Lt. Fisher. He was out on patrol with his buddies when (and I am not making this up) Mister Zombie attacked and buried Fisher’s squad mates in the snow in an effort to create more zombies. Fisher wants me to go out and rescue his team.
I fly out and dig the soldiers out of the piles of snow just outside of base.
How it works is this: There are piles of snow. You click on them and wait for the progress bar to fill, after which you’ll either get a zombie or rescue a soldier. The odds of getting a soldier seems to be about 1 in 3. Fighting zombies is kind of time consuming and annoying because of the way the game clears your target when they go down and then begins regenerating their health. You have to defeat them, then stand there for a few seconds and wait for them to fall down, then re-target them and hit them a few more times to finish them off, after which you get such phenomenally low XP that it’s not even remotely worth it.
All of this makes a strong incentive for the player to simply hit & run the snow piles, activating them and then jumping to the next one without even looking to see what pops up. You can clear the mission in about thirty seconds, or you can spend several minutes fighting worthless zombies. This setup isn’t a terrible crime, but it’s disappointing when a game punishes you for playing your character and rewards you for acting in ways that don’t make sense.
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| Left: Ravenspeaker, showing off what must be a world-class case of the goosebumps. Center: Lt. Fisher, who hangs around base coughing and asking superheroes to do his job. Right: My Heroic self. Top: Defying all expectations, the writers managed to not name this guy “Dudley”. |
Disgusted with Ravenspeaker’s laziness, apathy, and lack of pants, I take the bag of zombie bits and fly to the summoning circle.
Before I can use the summoning circle, I have to defeat Mr. Zombie:
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| Wait. You “live” to kill superheroes? An odd assertion for someone named Mr. Zombie. And does fighting superheroes come up all that often? And while we’re at it: Why are you even talking in the first place?!? |
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So I give Mr. Zombie a few pops in the face. Then a few more. Then a lot more. Then I look up and notice I’ve chipped off about 10% his total health. My self-healing powers allow me to keep up with him, but knocking this zombie apart is apparently a long-term project.
Eventually I manage to bring him down. Afterwards, I have to run around and do little magical arm-waving gestures around the summoning circle. Then a spirit wolf appears. Then I speak with him, and he nods his head to cleanse the zombie bits.
None of the other zombies I’ve killed have needed this treatment. And I didn’t need to drag Mr. Zombie over here for some cleansing. I don’t know. It’s all very confusing.
There’s a line of heroes behind me, each with their own bag of zombie bits, each needing to have their turn with the wolf. But they can’t just talk to the wolf that I summoned. They have to stand around and wait a minute or two for the now-useless wolf to disappear. As an added bonus, it’s possible for someone to let you activate the first four totems around the circle, and then they will swoop in and activate the final one, thus securing the wolf for themselves. Then you have to wait a couple of minutes. And during that time Mr. Zombie will respawn and you might end up fighting him again.
Making matters worse is that Mr. Zombie is the only place in the game where you can get a rare item drop which – either by bug or by design – will let you be fifty feet tall. People love to get this item and then stomp around the city. (It doesn’t make you stronger or anything, just huge and kind of in the way.) So there’s always a high-level character or two hanging out and killing Mr. Zombie as soon as he appears. Between the spirit wolf and the Mr. Zombie farmers, this quest turns into a real logjam of confusion and griefing during busy times.
Yes, I know things were so much worse back in the Everquest days and this sort of thing used to be the norm, but that’s no reason to celebrate this mess. A few very minor tweaks is all it would take to clear up this traffic jam and let everyone get back to their fun without all the headaches.
Now I have a quest to go to the site of the airplane crash and, if I understand the directions, beat up even more Hunter-Patriots in search of their secret plans. Sure enough, they are swarming the downed aircraft. I don’t understand the strategic value of a wrecked civilian aircraft, but here they are.
I work my way around the site, beating up terrorists and collecting the occasional plans. The Hunter-Patriots have five different schemes they’re working on. I don’t know what their goals are, since having goals would involve characters with coherent motivations, but at least we now have a picture of how they want to go about attaining their goals, whatever they are. Here are the plans of Canada’s most dangerous terrorist organization:
1. Bomb-laden Zambonis
2. Maple-powered Death Ray
3. Questonite curling stone cannons
4. Radioactive Loonie coins
5. Nanite-infused Poutine Gravy
Some people have trouble telling which parts of this LP are part of the game and which bits I made up. A general rule of thumb is this:
1) If it’s something silly about my character, then I made it up.
2) If it’s something face-slappingly apeshit loco stupid crazy, then it’s part of the game.
In case you still doubt, I offer this screenshot:
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| And you thought I was kidding. Don’t you feel silly now? Still, I bet you don’t feel half as silly as I do, since I’m the one playing this thing. |
Next Time: More Canada! Because fighting in the snowy wastes is what being a superhero is all about!
Stolen Pixels #139: BorderLAN
The latest Stolen Pixels is about the broken Borderlands multiplayer we talked about yesterday. Some people will find this strip to be really moving. Enjoy.
Experienced Points: You Don’t Scare Me
My Halloween Experienced Points article is a lament for where the Survival Horror genre has gone. (It touches on some of the points I wrote about here, but does so in a lot less words. Having a soft ceiling on your word count can do wonders for your writing skills.)
The common trend is to blame a lot of the negative industry trends on the bumbling and idiocy of publishers, but this is one case where I think the move is just a response to what people actually want. I think those of us who like tense, story-driven games with lots of atmosphere and not too much combat are actually a small minority.
From The Archives:
The Best of 2016
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2016.
Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
I'm not surprised a fighting game has an absurd story. I just can't figure out why they bothered with the story at all.
Dear Hollywood: Do a Mash Reboot
Since we're rebooting everything, MASH will probably come up eventually. Here are some casting suggestions.
Artless in Alderaan
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
Seven Springs
The true story of three strange days in 1989, when the last months of my adolescence ran out and the first few sparks of adulthood appeared.
Overused Words in Game Titles
I scoured the Steam database to figure out what words were the most commonly used in game titles.
Secret of Good Secrets
Sometimes in-game secrets are fun and sometimes they're lame. Here's why.
In Defense of Crunch
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
The Loot Lottery
What makes the gameplay of Borderlands so addictive for some, and what does that have to do with slot machines?
The Death of Half-Life
Valve still hasn't admitted it, but the Half-Life franchise is dead. So what made these games so popular anyway?