Ed wrote a wonderful review of Skyrim for the Xbox recently. I don’t want to steal his thunder, but I thought I would chime in on how the game feels on PC.

First, let me just say that I agree with Ed’s overall assessment of the game. It certainly merits the Seal of Excellence from Adrenaline Vault. And let me also indicate that I think Skyrim balances the demands of gamers for an open-ended experience with the needs of others for a CRPG with real structure. Skyrim is pretty darn open-ended; if you don’t even begin the major narrative arc, it’s like there isn’t even a threat of dragons at all. You can immerse yourself in the Byzantine politics of the region, pursue wealth and riches, or even become a hated villain who murders people for fun and profit (with all the attendant consequences). In fact, your actions outside of the main narrative of dragons attacking Skyrim still have a large impact on the world around you. The game is not only open-ended, but you can change the status quo while not pursuing your destiny as the Dragonborn. (I’d say more, but I don’t want to spoil anything related to certain quest-lines or stories.)

But the main narrative is also gripping in its own way. It embraces moral ambiguity over black-white moral decisions (just because you are trying to save Skyrim does not mean you or your allies are the good guys). It has a logical progression and plays down the busy work of fetch and carry quests. The voice acting is top notch all around, and it doesn’t ever get in the way. And thanks to the way the journal and maps work, there should never be a moment when you are confused about what actions to take or how to achieve certain goals. Everything that was right with Oblivion’s fast travel system has been carried over.

I also have to give Bethesda credit for revamping the game’s skill and character rules in such a way as to eliminate the pitfalls and exploits of the old system from Oblivion. Character classes are gone and it is no longer really possible to game the system by under-leveling, or to screw up your game by over-leveling. In fact, since there are no attributes (like strength and so on) anymore, skills and perks are the only things that really matter. There is no race to raise certain attributes by incrementing stupid skills you don’t really want to use. Instead, you simply increase skills by using them, regardless of other considerations. There’s no point in spamming pointless skills that you don’t use anymore. Even better, the perks system ensures that specialization is still possible while retaining a character development procedure that emphasizes freedom of action. It is way too complicated to explain here, but let me just say that the tool tips and explanatory information on the character and skill sheets make everything very transparent. Those who love to plan their characters methodically will not be disappointed, while those that just want to focus on doing things will never find themselves leveled badly.

I am also pleased that alchemy is no longer the skill to rule them all. In Oblivion and Morrowind, alchemy was so profitable that anyone who wanted to make lots of money legitimately in the game would just buy out entire shops worth of alchemy ingredients and process them into potions, which you sold to make money to buy more ingredients. Now, alchemy is just plain more difficult because food items are used in cooking and can’t be made into potions (no more cheap stamina potions from bread). Furthermore, while you can make money with alchemy, you have to have both a high skill AND invest your perks in alchemy in order to make it financially worth your while. Since perks are a finite commodity, abusing alchemy for cash means giving up on better combat skills or magical spells. Along those lines, Skyrim has included several methods of crafting. You can make your own armor, weapons, food, potions, and enchant your own items. Since enchanting is now a skill, you can’t just grab grand soul gems and make awesome equipment. Like everything else in Skyrim, making your own awesome magical equipment requires perks that involve sacrificing some other ability your character might have. So, while I have a character with a full set of awesome Daedric armor and weapons he made himself, enchanted in just the way he likes, he’s just not super great at certain combat tasks like another character would be. Another character would have taken all those perks invested in smithing and enchantment and put them in weapon skills, making his attacks much more deadly in certain ways.

About the only complaint I have is that the menus are clearly designed for a console. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that they interact poorly with a three-button mouse. It is a common occurrence that in dialogue, I will point the mouse at one option, and the game will register another choice, because the mouse wheel was used to scroll between all the choices, while the keyboard controls have another option selected entirely. I end up using the keyboard to scroll through dialogue choices to prevent infinite loops, but I find this to be a bizarre issue. Also, in case anyone does not already know, the game requires Steam activation, even if you bought it on disk. I don’t find this to be a big problem, as Steam can be offline while playing Skyrim, but those with an axe to grind against Steam might find themselves disappointed.

Aside from these minor problems, I can say that Skyrim is worth every penny I paid for it. I was initially skeptical about certain features, but after playing through with different characters and choosing to do radically different things in the game, I have to say Bethesda hit a home run. Christmas came early for PC gamers!

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments

DRM, Internet connections, and digital downloads for games and content are always controversial. My own colleagues here at Avault have very strong feelings about these subjects. Mentioning Steam as a service can raise the specter of a flame war between those who like Steam and those who hate it. But even as people flame each other, we can all generally agree that DRM does not really work to deter the piracy of games and digital downloads can be convenient, even if download services can get rid of the content later.

That said, it should be no surprise that Blizzard is forcing PC gamers to play Diablo III with a live connection to the Net. Blizzard wants to protect its investment, and DRM that does not involve a connection to the Net is shockingly easy to bypass. By the same token, connecting to the Net enables plenty of functions that both PC and console gamers enjoy. Achievements, chat, and an auction house that allows for both in-game currency and RMT for in-game content, are some of these goodies. While we may argue about the value of these services, I can understand why Blizzard would feel that an always-on Net connection would be in their best interests. If I were in their shoes, I would be sorely tempted to make the same choice. After all, Blizzard does not exist just to entertain us, but to make money while doing so.

However, that does not mean that I approve of their decision. My reasons are, perhaps, a bit different than most gamers.

First, to clear the air, it seems that Blizzard feels piracy considerations are not that important. Robert Birdenbecker has said, “Internally I don’t think [always-on DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate. Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters. You’re guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that’s not really entering into why we want to do it.” That actually makes sense, considering that there are plenty of ways to modify games that require servers to function. While I am skeptical that the topic of always-on DRM didn’t come up at all, I do believe Robert when he says that there are other considerations. Whatever else this is about, piracy is not that important. But Birdenbecker’s statement reveals what is important to Blizzard. When he says “…no hacks, no dupes…” and you combine his statement with the knowledge that there will be real money transactions at the Auction House that comes with the game, and that Blizzard gets a small cut of those RMTs, then the real reason is quite clear. Blizzard wants to make additional money off their players, and they are embracing an MMO-lite gaming model in order to do so.

This is where I start to worry. Not because I begrudge Blizzard making money (make good games, and I will wish you healthy quarterly profits), but because I think the model they are using is flawed. MMOs are themselves a healthy model for gaming. I’ve talked at some length about MMOs as a successful model, especially Turbine’s “legalizing” of gold farmers’ services. It is a model that makes good money and provides an experience that many gamers enjoy. But Diablo III is not an MMO. Instead, what Blizzard is doing here is making a single-player game that has just enough MMO elements to generate extra revenue without actually being a real MMO.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 27 comments

A brief response to Alaric’s rant against BioWare, to Jim Redner’s PR goof, to Michele’s assertion that our reputation is not for sale, and to Angel’s commitment to stay out of the mainstream.

Recently, Alaric vented his anger at BioWare. I wanted to respond at the time, but my response was really too long to fit as a comment. Since I can just write an editorial blog anytime I want, I figured I could respond in a more lengthy and thoughtful way from my own soapbox.

First of all, let me just say that I have had some of the same feelings as Alaric. While I don’t bear the same kind of malice against BioWare that he apparently does, I completely understand his frustration. In my case, one of the last straws was NWN2. While NWN itself suffered from some problems, the writing and characterization of NPCs got much better in the Hordes of the Underdark expansion. The plot involved making some real choices, and had some interesting characters with compelling dialogue. (Whoever wrote Deekin’s dialog during the final encounter with Mephistopheles gets a gold star.) But by the time we get to NWN2, most of that wonderful writing is gone. NWN2 had so much potential that went unused because most of the NPCs were uncompelling and the plot had a kind of recycled feeling to it. The antagonists were named something different, but the ancient evil from the past schtick was something we had covered before in NWN. (One of the things that made Hordes of the Underdark so interesting was its unique plot construction when compared to the original NWN.) The game also suffered from a buggy release and unjustifiably high system requirements for the kind of graphics it had. The best NPC was Bishop, but you only got to see his full characterization if you made certain choices towards evil. (Bishop’s refusal to help Garius towards the end and his scathing commentary was pretty good. Just because Bishop was evil did not mean he had to just do what the bad guy said to do.)

What is perhaps more troubling to me, though, is that brief flashes of good writing like Bishop pop up in other works. While most players thought The Sith Lords was inferior to the original Knights of the Old Republic, I found that some of the characters were compelling. I was also very pleased by the way that game handled the standard ethical choices of Star Wars. Not only could you fall to the Dark Side or pursue a path of virtue via the Light Side, but your companions could be influenced in their ethics as well. All of your companions had their own starting ethics, but several characters could be convinced to see the world your way thanks to the influence system. While convincing Visas Marr to accept salvation and embrace the Light Side and abandon her devotion to her Sith training and moral outlook was fairly easy, convincing Brianna, the Handmaiden, to fall to the Dark Side was much more difficult. In fact, one of the chief satisfactions of playing The Sith Lords were these interactions with your companions. I played through multiple times just to see who I could convince to do what. Also, HK’s dialog, while probably not quite as good as the original Knights of the Old Republic, was still a lot of fun. His lecture on how to kill Jedi, and his complete disgust for people who try to shoot Jedi with blasters, was almost worth the price of admission.

Yet, these encounters with great characters and gameplay mechanics tend to underscore Alaric’s complaints. Even when BioWare has had a real winner on its hands, something has caused it to move into the land of “meh.” Smart players have looked into the files of The Sith Lords and discovered all kinds of content that would have made the plot make a lot more sense. The best thing they discovered was content related to the place where HK was made (tying up a loose end regarding the number and mission of HK assassin droids). This kind of thing points to something other than a lack of creativity. BioWare has had some good writers, but it seems like somewhere in the production process, interesting things got cut.

Of course, I am talking about games that are several years old. I have not really spent time with more recent BioWare titles for two reasons. One, since I am on staff here at Avault, I tend to spend time reviewing games; I can’t go out and spend billions of hours playing through Mass Effect and its sequels without compromising my employment, my review schedule, or my time spent with cats. Second, since I have to budget my time accordingly, I have to pick and choose games that I play outside of my capacity as a reviewer very carefully so that I don’t waste time on something I won’t like. While BioWare products continue to get good press from some quarters, nothing I have read makes me want to run out and pick up a copy of any of these recent titles. And that’s with our very own Michael giving some very high praise to these titles.

Wait a second now…Michael Smith of our own staff gave those games good reviews? I thought reviewers were part of a hive mind that reached a Borg-like consensus on what every game was worth. What in the Hell is going on here?

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments

Here at Avault, we tend to only review games and related hardware accessories. Yet, every once in awhile, I feel the need to comment on something hardware related that has little to do with games. I’ve complained before about the lousy product performance of NetGear wireless products, but today I am compelled to write something much more positive.

For the past few months, I have been the proud owner for a 2011 Ford Fiesta (a good car, by the way). What is relevant to the technologically savvy crowd is Ford’s Sync system, an option available on most new models. Now, I admit, I was a bit skeptical when I read some advertising on Sync’s capabilities; after all, what could be more pretentious than driving a smart car that requires regular updates from the Internet? However, after a test drive, purchase, and five months of ownership, I feel confident saying that Sync is a wonderful piece of automotive engineering, even though it doesn’t utilize any cutting edge, science fiction technology.

Sync is a computerized automobile system, courtesy of Microsoft, no less, that integrates media, vehicle diagnostics, Bluetooth technology, and GPS/Roadside assistance services all in one voice-controlled piece of hardware. Utilizing a microphone centrally and unobtrusively mounted in the car’s ceiling and a voice actuator switch on the turn signal stalk, Sync allows the driver to control various important functions of the vehicle by voice. You can tell Sync to change the source of media, order the car to diagnose itself and send the report to Ford, demand that the car bring up a list of Italian restaurants within a few miles, or call someone with your cellphone. Advanced cellphones can even have Sync read text messages to you while you drive, although my phone in this case is less advanced than Sync (thus, I still don’t drive and text). Sync even acts as a GPS, utilizing Sync services ($60 a year, but the first 3 years are free with purchase of a new vehicle) to get directions, as well as grab news and weather reports. All of these features are just a few voice commands away.

Sync also has two different dedicated points that allow access to media devices. Whatever you like to keep your music on, just plug it in and you can use Sync’s voice system to select playlists, individual tracks, folders, and even play by artist, genre, and album. However, that is not really what I consider to be the coolest aspect of playing music with Sync. Sync’s USB port also supports flash drives. Just put your favorite music on the flash drive, plug it into the USB port, and just leave it there. It recognizes multiple playlist formats (I use Winamp playlists just because I’ve been using Winamp for years), as well as recognizes all the same tags on your mp3s that your portable media player recognizes. And since flash drives are really cheap compared to iPods, I just put all of my music on a cheap drive and keep it in the car. No one is breaking into my front seat to steal a flash drive. For satellite radio aficionados, Sync also works well with satellite radio, although I did not get that option since any radio, satellite or local, is anathema to my musical interests. Satellite radio competes with Radio Jason (all Jason music, all Jason talk, all the time) and since even cheap flash drives can hold a few hours of music, I find radio quite unnecessary. (I’m sure Sync would let me program and voice control dozens of local radio stations as well, but I haven’t bothered with all of that, and you shouldn’t either.)

Sync’s voice recognition system is pretty good. It learns your voice as you use it, which means that its ability to recognize my very fast idiomatic speech has improved over the past few months. Because of the way the microphone is mounted in the car, it has a hard time recognizing voice commands when your head is turned towards the left (like when you are looking over your shoulder to merge or turn left), and if you are in the middle of traffic, Sync sometimes gets confused when you say something like “Play list OMFG that #%^(*$# just cut me off!” When Sync does not understand a command, it patiently asks you to repeat it or, if it thinks it knows what you might have meant, it will ask if you meant X. Sync also cannot understand voice commands when twelve people are talking at the same time (much like a human being), and you really can’t use it while driving with the windows down. The ambient noise is just too great. Also, there are three voice commands that I think Ford should have included in Sync’s database:

1. Raise shields.
2. Fire photon torpedoes!
3. Intensify forward firepower; I don’t want anything to get through.
(This last command really confuses Sync. I think Sync was installed on the Super Star Destroyer, which just goes to show that Ford products are reliable, but they cannot be made to serve evil.)

All joking aside, I have been impressed and pleased with the way Sync works in my car. Sync is not really as smart as KITT, nor is it quite as psychotic and condescending as KARR, but I consider it more or less indispensible now. The closest thing to a complaint I have is that I cannot change the voice set. I really wanted Douglas Rain to reprise his role as HAL and do the voice menus for Sync. This would match well with the HAL quotes from 2001 I use for my sound events in Windows. Still, while we don’t have commercially available flying cars, personal jetpacks, or space travel, it is nice to know that I can have a driving experience that is in some ways more advanced than Knightrider, with the added bonus that the Hoff is not required.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments

It’s time to face up to something. It’s been on my mind for some time, but I’ve been avoiding any discussion of it here or at my job, for fear of game-based reprisals and jeering. But I’m not afraid anymore. As some of my colleagues might point out, being in the closet about anything is a terrible place to be in one’s life. I might as well come out about it.

I’m a teacher. I enjoy what I do, and I take that part of my life into the games I play.

There, I said it. It wasn’t easy, but there you go. Sometimes, a man’s got to be honest with himself (and, as Dirty Harry would point out, know his limitations, but that’s a discussion for another time).

See, I didn’t really know just how invested I was in teaching until I realized the other day that I probably have about 25-30 memorized and prepped lectures on how to run instances in LOTRO. I spend a lot of time in PUGs, so I end up running new players through existing content. It wasn’t until I gave the Great Barrow Maze lecture for the billionth time that it finally dawned on me that I had come home from a long day of teaching at work only to start teaching in my spare time. Of course, the material is radically different; Ost Elendil has quite a different story from the revenge machinations to be found in The Spanish Tragedy (The Spanish Tragedy is a bit bloodier than the Ost Elendil instance, for one). But sound pedagogy (that’s a fancy term for the study of teaching, you knuckleheads) applies in both cases. If you want your group to be successful in an instance, you’ve got to teach them everything they need to know and make it relevant to them. You can’t just blab mindlessly about specific tasks without telling them the why of it all; you have to explain it well. Otherwise, players go into an instance mindlessly doing some random fellowship maneuver that has effect X, rather than understanding something important, like “hey, the boss wipes all bleeds every 20k, so a yellow CJ is pointless, along with all of your other long-term bleed skills that I see you like to use.”

This is not meant as a direct counter-point to Simon’s recent blog post (although Simon is quite free to hijack my comments section to suit his own nefarious agenda should he so choose; his nefarious schemes do not conflict with my own at the moment). I am simply observing that in a genial multiplayer environment, one that refrains from castigating newer players as noobs, I find that no matter what role-playing scenario I am in, the multiplayer aspect causes me to revert to type… whatever type that is.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | One comment

My colleague Alaric wrote an excellent blog entry recently entitled Unfree-to-play. In it, he discussed Turbine’s move in Lord of the Rings Online to a free-to-play model with microtransactions. After giving the subject some thought, I felt moved to comment on a tangential, but related topic. And since I have a blog here, I can get on my own soapbox without stealing from Alaric’s thunder.

First of all, let me say something that might seem like it has absolutely nothing to do with free-to-play microtransactions. I hate businesses that illegally sell gold, leveling, or any other in-game services for MMOs. I loathe their activities. I hate the impact these activities have on MMOs, which range from devaluing in-game currency to causing security risks. I hate their use of chat channels to advertise. I detest the damage to game balance caused by this industry. I am even mystified by my fellow gamers who patronize such services, when they should know that gold-selling services exploit a supply of labor in much the same way that sweatshops exploit workers to make cheap products to be sold in countries such as the USA. I also hate players that level their characters using such services and then try to run end-game content. Not only do they not know how to play their character, they also don’t even know what the story is about. And by the time they learn how their character works, they might as well have just leveled up normally anyway. Gold-selling businesses are an unethical blight upon gaming. (Can you tell I don’t like them?)

At the same time, it is a lucrative business, isn’t it? No matter how many accounts are shut down for violating EULAs, gold sellers continue to thrive, hawking their black-market wares and making money. Much like alcohol during Prohibition, there is a big enough market out there that Turbine, or any other MMO owner, cannot simply legislate away the desire to pay for perks in a game. In fact, I would wonder how much money, in terms of enforcement man-hours and software development man-hours, MMO developers spend combating this problem. They would never tell us, but I would wager that at least 10 percent of LOTRO’s budget, to say nothing of World of Warcraft’s budget, is devoted to directly or indirectly combating this scourge. It is an insurmountable problem, which is only made worse by the fact that people who pay gold sellers money are not even paying the game’s developers to improve upon the game. So, not only does the MMO developer waste money fighting gold sellers, but there is potential revenue they fail to collect. This is a lose-lose situation for everyone, because the gamers who patronize these services screw up the game they are playing, and the owners of the game are wasting resources fixing the problem.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 12 comments

My colleague Michael Smith wrote an excellent review for the recent move of LOTRO to free-to-play. And he provided an excellent summary of new mechanics and technical features in the game. However, I can tell that he did not have time to play through the substantial end-game content that was provided with the most recent update. This is understandable. The level cap is currently at 65, and just leveling to 65 does not even remotely qualify someone for running endgame content, as class traits, virtues, and legendary traits are all a part of end-game preparation. The grinding for some of these deeds can be time consuming, so it would be asking too much to expect him to have magically leveled all the way up, ground the appropriate deeds, and run the end-game content several times over all in a matter of a few weeks. Instead, I figured I would chime in on how the new content impacts high end characters since I am at the level cap and familiar with the content. And since I am not writing an actual review, I can focus on more specific issues, rather than summarize the entire game experience with a few, well chosen words.

Perhaps the most important thing Turbine has done is recreate and update a number of old instances. Instances like Annúminas, Helegrod, and the Great Barrow have been staples of the game since before Moria was released. But stuck at lower levels, they did not get run very often ever since Moria came out. After all, why run Annúminas for gear that you don’t need when you can run Moria for things you do need? So the designers went back to these instances, redesigned them from the ground up with all of the new tools they have available to them in the wake of Moria and Mirkwood’s release (acid damage is now a staple attack from the crawlers in the Great Barrow, for example) and they have rewritten them using the scalable opponent and loot system used in skirmishes. You can now run Annúminas at level 50, or grab a group of 65 characters and run it for level 65 rewards. Also, just like they did with Garth Agarwen, these huge instances have been broken up into smaller chunks. The Great Barrow is three smaller instances, and Helegrod is in several smaller pieces. This makes it less of a time commitment, so that players can run one smaller instance without committing to a two hour run. It also means that raid locks are no longer in use, so you can run it as often as you can get a raid together. Combined with the new “Join an instance from anywhere in Middle Earth” function, running this content is challenging and fun, without requiring players to wander all over Middle Earth in search of a fun run.

The designers have also added a new region: Enedwaith. As part of the continuing story of Volume 3, the players follow the Grey Company south towards Rohan, encountering a strange land with its own problems and conflicts. While Saruman has deceived most of the people of Dunland into following him, some of them resist his influence, giving players the chance to once again do battle against half-orcs and wargs. Since the most recent update was not a full expansion, Enedwaith is still kind of sparse in terms of things to do. Volume 3 will send you all over the new region, and there are plenty of quests to do and plenty of enemies to fight. Book 2 of Volume 3 ends on a cliffhanger, with the Grey Company and the Sons of Elrond confronted with a mystery atop Nar’s Peak. Some players have expressed frustration at this lack of closure, but I found it the most appropriate way to set up the new story. Since this update is not a full-fledged expansion in the manner of Moria or Mirkwood, we cannot expect them to have given us eight new books of epic quests to go through. And since there is very little canonical writings on what the Grey Company experienced on their way to meet Aragorn, Turbine is doing what they do best: filling in the holes in the narrative, just like they did with Shadows of Angmar and especially with the Siege of Mirkwood.

There are also two new factions: the Grey Company and the Algraig, the men of Enedwaith. Each faction has some gear (not very good, but what do you expect for reputation gear?), some new emotes, a new mount, and they barter tokens for useful items like Scrolls of Empowerment and new damage titles for legendary weapons. The only disappointing part of these new factions is that it is a ridiculous grind to get rep with the Algraig. After doing the regular quests, you are barely Acquaintance with them, but there are only four daily quests that give additional reputation. Since there are no items you can farm from defeated enemies to barter for additional rep, it will end up taking me and other players several weeks to get Kindred standing, even by putting out the maximum effort, as each quest gives a measly 700 or 500 rep, while Ally and Kindred will cost tens of thousands of rep. The developers are aware of this problem and plan to introduce additional quests, but for a group of designers that properly balanced reputation with the factions in Moria and the Galadhrim, it is odd that they were blindsided by this problem.

Some other end game tidbits include the increased drop rates of Symbols of Celebrimbor. They are now common enough to sell for a mere 25-30 gold on the Auction House, as opposed to the 60-08 gold we were seeing for months. Most players, even if they can’t acquire one on their own, can afford to purchase one with a bit of effort. This will allow many players to get access to good, solid Second Age items for both class item slots and weapons. As for armor sets, there are several new radiance sets available for all classes, including the Annúminas set and the Helegrod set. Depending on your class and what role you are expected to perform, each set might suit your needs. Even with the knowledge that radiance is going to be phased out at some point, these new armor sets are worth pursuing through the newly updated content.

My only real complaint is that the Rift was not included among the updated content. The Rift has always been a popular run for raids. Even after Mirkwood was released, some groups would continue to run the Rift to grab the Rift armor set for cosmetic purposes. An upgraded Rift, complete with its beloved Balrog fight, with a way to spend skirmish marks on cosmetic versions of each classes’ Rift armor set, would be a great addition to the game. Most likely, the developers could only afford to revamp one raid, but I can only hope that they continue this trend with other good content.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments

Warning: Those unfamiliar with LOTRO and its past year of updates will think I am speaking like one of the Sand People from Star Wars. This blog post assumes familiarity with the game, not unlike my fellow reviewer’s blog posts about Lost.

Sometimes gamers are their own worst enemies. When it comes to MMOs, some people quickly master the most recent content and demand more because they are bored. I’ve talked at some length before about LOTRO‘s use of narrative to give the game something beyond XP and loot grinds, but today I thought I would share how much I love the flexibility of the game’s mechanics.

Instances like Sammath Gul have great rewards. The Symbol of Celebrimbor alone makes the run worthwhile, but items like the Glass Flask and Ril-Mir round out the loot. Instances like SG are also difficult; while not impossible, players really need to be smart about their class’s abilities. And for new players, following instructions is a must. (It can take about 5 minutes to brief a new player on everything they need to know.)

At the same time, these rewards and difficulties encourage players to stick to very basic strategies and character class combinations in order to ensure a good run. Many players will sit around and say “We have to pull this group with strategy X,” or “We have to have a champion for interrupts and a captain for heals.”  Having discovered a single approach to an instance that works, players have a desire to stick to that strategy so that they can reliably farm it.

Thus, it is not surprising that some players get bored. You can only defeat Gorothul so many times with the same gear, traits, and classes before it gets old. The good news is that it is unnecessary. If more players were willing to be open to all of the possibilities afforded to each class, then they might find themselves having runs that are more fun and that allow for more players to participate. You might even get to use traits and skills that have been gathering dust for months on your interface.

In my own quest to do things differently, I have been experimenting recently with healing champions in Continuous Blood Rage. When healing with my rune-keeper, I found that it took much less effort than I expected to heal champions who were tanking, even when they stayed in fervor. Having a captain assisting with heals meant that on some pulls I wouldn’t even bother healing at all. I would just DPS while the captain took care of the champion. After joking with a champion friend of mine who loves to spar that he was too easy to heal, he offered me the real challenge. He was already traited for CBR, so he said he would activate his CBR during the next pull just to prove that there were limits to my healing ability. After a few trash pulls and killing Boss #1, we were all surprised to see that between my rune-keeper and a captain, we could keep him healed indefinitely while he stayed in CBR. Of course, due to the sheer DPS, he held all the aggro whether we wanted him to or not, so he was getting hit all the time, with no blocks, evades, or parries, while having a -90% incoming healing penalty. I finally broke a sweat when healing some good players I roll with all the time.

Am I just telling my readers this to show off? Only a little bit. Remember, it’s not just me, it takes a secondary healer to pull it off. But with a good fellowship covering me so that I can heal with impunity, we had discovered a new way to run some existing content. And with this new knowledge, I have been working with others to change things up and do some new and spectacular things. I figure if a rune-keeper and captain can keep a champion up in CBR, why not have multiple champs in CBR? Or perhaps run a group in SG with three captains, daisy-chained together so that no matter which one has aggro, they can be healed. Why not run SG with two minstrels and have one trait for war speech? Or have two loremasters, one of which is traited for DPS and the ever popular improved sticky gourd? Or what about giving our guardians and wardens a true test of their tanking abilities: see if they can hold aggro while champions CBR and hunters sit in strength. Or why not have a bunch of wardens and one primary healer?

The point is that there is no reason for the content to get boring. LORTO is flexible enough to sustain smart players who are willing to try new things. If a captain and rune-keeper can keep a champion up in CBR while facing bosses, then the possibilities are limitless.

I recently recorded a run I did with some players I know fairly well. With their permission, I recorded our most recent attempt to use CBR in SG. Posting this on the blog is meant to serve two purposes. One, to negate any cries of “Lies!” regarding any claims to healing champions in CBR, and, two, to demonstrate what we did right and what we did wrong in the run. It will also fulfill my promise to my friends to show their exploits on Youtube. Hopefully, as time goes on, I’ll be able to convince more healers and champions to join the CBR Club. And then I can move on to another project of taking the content and doing something creative with it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

In case you missed Part 2.

Not a day goes by when I am logged on to LOTRO that someone does not comment on their anticipation for one day raiding in Rohan or stalking orcs in Mordor. Many players seem to have a longing to visit all the areas of Middle Earth that are central to the story of Frodo, the Ring, and his companions, and yet, every time I hear someone say these things, I silently chide them (after all, there is no need to troll others while taking down Gorothul) for missing the most amazing thing LOTRO has accomplished. LOTRO is not just an MMORPG with a story; it is an MMO that has utilized the wonderful setting of Middle Earth to tell the untold stories of elves, dwarves, men, and hobbits.

As a close of reader of Tolkien’s canon, the one thing that made his work so vivid is the richness of the setting. The Shire isn’t some vague place where short people live. Practically every tree, stone, hedge, and hobbit-hole has a history. The same is true of everything in the setting. Galadriel isn’t just some elf chick with a cool mirror; she has a personal history that spans thousands of years. Aragorn’s family has a history (he is descended from a line of kings, after all), but his people have a long, complicated history that intersects with various other narratives in Middle Earth; the story of Numenor goes on for page after page before we even get to Aragorn’s more immediate ancestors. Thus, while the primary story of the War of the Ring is fun, interesting, and full of potential game content, you could build entire video games around other aspects of Middle Earth.

If Turbine were lazy, we would just see the parts of Middle Earth relevant to Frodo and Aragorn’s story. Instead, fully utilizing the setting, Turbine has given players plenty of content that explores Middle Earth in its great variety. Entire regions, including Forochel, Evendim, Angmar, and Mirkwood, have very little to do with the Fellowship’s actions. For the vast majority of the epic storyline in Volume I, the players take up the fight against evil in a part of the war that has nothing to do with the primary focus of the conflict that we see in Rohan or Gondor. The epic storyline of Volume II details events that happen in the wake of the Fellowship’s passage through Moria, but which do not involve the Fellowship at all (they’re resting in Lothlorien at the moment). From Tolkien’s few comments, spoken through the voice of Gandalf in the appendix, about how war engulfed the rest of Middle Earth, Turbine has created a story that is interesting, works with the lore, and which does not see players merely rehashing scenes from the novels.

Turbine also demonstrates a keen understanding of how the setting works, not just creating a cookie-cutter fantasy story and slapping it into the setting. While some players balk at the inclusion of the Runekeeper class (I am not one of them, since I understand just how important both the written and spoken word is in Tolkien’s canon), Turbine has made an effort to get all the small details right. Minor Spoiler Alert For example, in the recent expansion, there is a scene where the player, along with the detachment of elves and dwarves dedicated to bringing Mazog to Dol Guldur, are discussing their plans in light of the severe poisoning of a comrade. Because one of the dwarves has gone missing, the elves begin accusing their dwarven counterpart of cowardice and an argument breaks out. While the argument grows hotter, Mazog begins to add his opinion to the discussion, including telling the elves that he and his orcs always feared the elves but never had anything but disdain for the cowardice of dwarves. Mazog’s manipulation is obvious to the player, but some of the NPC elves begin to be swayed by Mazog’s words. It is a small detail, but when the elves start echoing his hateful, twisted words, dread animation and interface changes begin to grip the player (equal to dread 5 so that the eye of Sauron replaces the radar, an effect I have always found disconcerting). While the discussion ends on a happier note when the dwarf reappears with a cure for the poisoned comrade (he ran off to get the herb without telling anyone), this minor detail of dread effects occurring in the scene when the elves are swayed by the lies of Mazog demonstrates one of the central and repeating themes of the entire canon. For Tolkien, evil is not a function of race; it is a function of thinking an acting in certain ways (for a fuller treatment of this, go read The Silmarillion and see how various elves misbehaved throughout the First Age). End Spoiler Alert

Turbine also uses this same philosophy when making trailers. Check these pre-release trailers for Mirkwood.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

YouTube comment sections generally make for poor reading, and many of the comments for both videos are no exception. Many people spend their time focusing on the quality of the graphics (which, for those who have not played, are toned down for these trailers). But what some people clearly get, if unintentionally, is that these trailers are meant to get us interested in the game because of the story. There isn’t any mention of raids, instances, mobs, or class abilities. And why bother mentioning those things? It’s an MMO with a track record for good end game content, so of course its going to have a new raid, new instances, and some rather tricky mobs. But by releasing trailers like this, Turbine further reveals what it views as important. Content is important, but the story and context for that content is what separates this game from WOW.

Turbine has announced the next chapter of the epic storyline. With Volume II completed and the stories of its NPCs fully explored, an entirely new story is about to begin. Turbine has indicated it involves the Rangers in some way, so it looks like we will be revisiting some places in Middle Earth we already know quite well. Some players will continue to hope for a Rohan expansion some day, but I saw Rohan plenty of times when Peter Jackson’s films were in theaters (and quite a few times since). Instead, I’m hoping that perhaps we will one day see the Lonely Mountain and help its dwarves and the men of Dale repel the hordes of orcs and goblins which nearly wiped them out. After all, Gandalf himself reminds us to never forget the sacrifices made by Lothlorien, the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain, and the men of Dale, because if they had fallen, things would have gone much worse for Gondor and Rohan. Turbine has already given us one of those “other” tales. Here’s hoping they keep moving in that direction.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments

In case you missed Part 1.

Last time around, I spoke about the skirmish system in the Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood expansion. Now I want to narrow my focus and draw attention to something smaller. A single instance, in fact. Today, let’s talk about Sword Halls and why it is a well designed instance for three people.

Now, before getting started, I am sure someone is going to flame me and complain that, with all of the beautiful content in Mirkwood, why focus on a three-man instance that can be run (if you have me in your group at any rate) in less than 20 minutes? One reason is because there is no need to talk about Sammath Gul or Barad Guldur. The big stuff gets plenty of discussion. And yes, I think Sammath Gul is also a well designed instance, if only because it is one of the few instances in which marginalized classes (Loremasters, Burglars who focus on CC, Captains who do more than heal) get some real action that lets them use their class capabilities to the fullest. But in focusing on Sword Halls, I want to illustrate the small things that Turbine did correctly. I will also, inadvertently, point out how some players betray their own gaming ignorance by not seeing the full potential of such a small instance.

First, let me say that making the Challenge mode a simple “light the brazier” choice, rather than some obscure, arcane or counter-intuitive challenge, makes the instance simple. There are no accidental failings of the challenge mode (other than wiping) just because someone did one little thing they weren’t supposed to do. It is also sorted out at the beginning, rather than being something you have to worry about halfway through the run. Compared to the 16^th Hall or Dark Delving in Moria, it is a simple matter to decide how you want to run it. Hopefully, Turbine will continue this tradition in future content.

Second, I have to say that running Sword Halls in easy mode is an experience that illustrates that numerous enemies or varied landscapes are not the only recipes for success. As you fight the trash mobs before each boss, smart players who have never run it before in their lives should be able to figure out how the bosses will fight and some ways of countering those moves. The Angmarim sorcerers that appear first have similar attacks to their boss, the Morrovel mimic their boss, and so on. While the bosses have other tricks up their sleeves, you cannot say that Turbine just threw it all together at the last minute with implausible combinations of enemies.

Third, the instance takes full advantage of the flexibility of classes. When I first ran it with my Loremaster, I was angry because most of the run is taken up with lengthy boss fights in which my Loremaster’s CC was worthless (for those who do not play LOTRO, all bosses are immune to stun, mez and root, the three ways a Loremaster does CC). Further adding to my anger, most players running it on easy mode wanted nothing to do with a Loremaster for the run. Because it is a three-man run, all they wanted was a tank (guard/warden), a DPS (champ/hunter/DPS RK) and heals (minstrel/healing RK), never mind that Loremasters, Burglars and Captains would like some loot, too. But after running Sword Halls a few times with players willing to experiment, I discovered that it is really designed for any class to be useful if the player knows their class and traits. Burglars can dispense with their CC, but should instead focus on positional damage and fellowship maneuvers. Give me a Burglar with positional damage and some marbles, and you can keep your DPS classes. With the correct traits slotted, a captain can heal the run all by himself while doing decent damage, so who needs a minstrel or healing Runekeeper? As for Loremasters, you can drop all your CC traits and instead slot Healer and Light of Hope, combined with all the DPS traits you have. The result is someone who can heal the run adequately while barbequing the bosses with improved sticky gourd for minutes at a time. Mmmm… barbeque. Anyway, the point is that the instance is designed in such a way that every class has something to contribute, and it is only the lazy or stupid players who think that you have to have a specific combination of classes to beat it.

A final note about the Sword Halls. Because it is a three-man run rather than a full six-man group, the Sword Halls privileges players who can adapt. Mindless button mashers such as Champions who sit in fervor all day, every day, and spam AOE attacks, or hunters who don’t know about the threat-reducing effects of quick shot in endurance stance, perform poorly because they do not know how to function without a group composed of specific classes. Players who know their own class, as well as others, do much better because they can suggest strategy changes in the middle of the fight. Having a warden who is willing to focus on aggro-grabbing at first, then switch to more self-healing skills later in the fight is handy, while having a guardian who waits to remove corruptions until everyone can benefit from the buff considerably speeds up each battle.

Many people run Sword Halls because it is a fast way of getting Dol Guldur Medallions for radiance gear, but its popularity should come from how well designed it is for such a short instance.

To be continued…

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments

The Siege of Mirkwood expansion to Lord of the Rings Online has been out since December. It has gotten a lot of good press from our competitors (I’m not going to run up their site traffic; you can look up their reviews yourself). Most of that good press is rightfully deserved. In spite of the smaller amount of content compared to the last expansion pack, Mines of Moria, Mirkwood offers the right amount of gameplay for the price: free to multi-month subscribers when it was released. It’s a great expansion to what I think is already an excellent MMO with an excellent community.

But I don’t want to do a review of the game. Instead, I would like to spend some time discussing the finer points of the game design that Turbine put into the title. I want to point out the small things that they did right, to which I hope other designers are paying attention.

Doing a blog post also means I can assume that the reader knows something about the game and expansion already, so I don’t have to explain things like radiance, mithril flakes or fish-slapping emotes.

For today, let’s examine the Skirmish System.

Let me just say right now that, just because MMO means “massively multiplayer,” we are not obligated to assume that the only quality high-end content should be raids. Single-player and small-group gameplay can be just as fun. LOTRO has handled this well in the past (the epic storyline is worth pursuing regardless of XP or gear), but the skirmish system really cashes in on the possibilities of flexible content. At their heart, skirmishes are instances. You enter the instance, complete the objectives, get the rewards (or die trying) and leave. But unlike instances, skirmishes are completely flexible and varying in their content. First, they can be scaled from single-player to raid in size at the touch of the mouse. This means if you just want to storm the Necromancer’s Gate all by yourself, that’s fine. If you want to roll with your two best buddies, that’s great. If you want to run a whole raid for your kin, go ahead. The game will spawn enemies accordingly. Second, in line with this flexibility, anyone you invite into your group can join the skirmish from almost anywhere on the server. There’s no hassle with porting and summoning.

Then there’s the content itself. Each skirmish has its own objectives (some defensive and some offensive), its own map and its own enemies. Fighting skirmishes in Dol Guldor will see you facing orcs, trolls and fell creatures, while fighting in Bree consists of engaging Saruman’s human lackeys and half-orcs in combat. But each skirmish also changes every time you play it. The lieutenants who lead the opposition are varied in their capabilities, and you never know which ones are going to face you at any given time. Furthermore, each skirmish has optional objectives, called encounters, which give increased rewards. Encounters spawn randomly for each run of a particular skirmish, adding more uncertainty, and thus replayability, to each of the battles.

Each skirmish also emphasizes that it is a battle in the war. While you can run them as often as you want, they provide the illusion that war is overtaking Middle Earth without redesigning the entire game world and removing content that takes place before some of these battles. For example, players can still help Strider/Aragorn reforge Narsil by recovering the Silithar from Annuminas, even though such an event takes place substantially before the elves’ assault on Dol Guldur. By putting these battles in the war for Middle Earth into skirmishes, the designers help prevent the lore of the game from getting confusing or out of hand (“Why are there suddenly a thousand evil men wandering around the Shire when Frodo just left it yesterday?”). For many players, myself included, keeping the lore in perspective is vitally important to our continued desire to play.

Reinforcing this warlike content, the skirmishes also provide all players with a temporary pet-like companion called a soldier. Soldiers only appear by your side inside skirmishes. Unlike pets and pet-based classes (Captains and Loremasters, you know who you are), soldiers can only be given rudimentary orders. They are warriors who stand beside you, not slaves to be ordered about. But what makes them useful is that soldiers are completely modifiable to suit your needs. You can assign them one of several soldier classes, everything from the healing Herbalist to the threat-managing Protector. Beyond simple classes, you purchase skills, buffs and special abilities for them to use. You can only use one soldier at a time in a skirmish, but eventually you can buy every soldier and all the traits (by eventually I mean after several months of grinding, but who needs every soldier anyway?). This mechanic helps any class to get equal enjoyment out of skirmishes, without skirmishes having to be designed in a lowest-common-denominator sort of way. It also means there is never a problem of “Well, we have a group, but lack so-and-so,” since every member of the group, or even every member of a 12-man raid, has their soldier with them. Intelligent gameplay, rather than following a script of “One tank, 1 DPS, 1 healer, etc.,” creates a game system that rewards smart play rather than playing by the numbers.

Skirmishes have another aspect to their flexible content: difficulty. While challenge modes are nothing new to players who have run Grand Stair a thousand times, what I dislike about them is that you have to complete the instance in some obscure way that makes no tactical sense. Why on earth is the hard mode for Dark Delving to fight Gurvand in the dark? I know it’s harder, but you’d think the game would reward you for figuring out how to get around his extra strength when he is in total darkness. Skirmishes do not do this. Instead, when you choose a skirmish from the menu, you can select its difficulty. The objectives do not change, merely the number and difficulty of enemies, lieutenants and encounters. There is no guessing or accidental failing of challenge modes in skirmishes. Failing just means you wiped because you couldn’t handle the enemies you faced. While Mirkwood instances such as Warg Pens and Sammath Gul still have challenge modes, I hope that in the future Turbine integrates the easy-to-select difficulty of skirmishes and puts it into instances (like the challenge brazier in Sword Halls).

A final good design choice is the length of skirmishes. You can generally run one in under an hour (raids are longer because of the sheer number and potency of enemies, and higher difficulty skirmishes see more waiting around after fights to regain health and power). This means that you are not committed to three hours plus the time to find a group that likes longer content. Let me be clear and say that I am not opposed to lengthy raids and long-term group runs, but it is nice to have such well designed content that can be run easily when you’ve had a long day at work and just have a bit of time to relax.

Before moving on to another topic on another day, let me say that, just because I think the skirmishes are designed well and should be emulated by other designers, I am not suggesting that the rewards are well designed. First, the good news is that skirmish marks (the reward from all skirmishes) can be redeemed for any number of rewards, from gear to mithril flakes to 45 level-class quest items (a feature I have used, since I have a hard time getting into Carn Dum runs these days). This flexibility is great. The bad news is that all of the gear is absolute garbage compared to on-level equipment you can either craft yourself, buy at the auction house, earn for running instances in either Moria or Mirkwood, or even earn as part of the epic story arc in either Volume 1 or Volume 2. I will chastise Turbine right now and say that I was disappointed that the skirmish gear did not fulfill an in-between role, much like PvMP gear. As it stands now, in terms of classes, you can buy or craft really nice gear, and then work for the full radiance set appropriate to your level. Turbine missed an opportunity to create skirmish gear that would be different from, but almost equal to, other available gear. After all, I would love to be in the game and have to decide whether my Moria radiance set, the Mirkwood radiance set or the Skirmish set would be best for a particular run because of different stat increases and other buffs. I’ve said it before (in-game to other players at least) and I’ll say it again: LOTRO, like any RPG or grand strategy game, works best when players must make strategic decisions about their setup for a particular situation. If, as Turbine has done, you are going to include a system of traits that can be slotted and unslotted to tweak your character to a particular situation at hand, why not have gear sets that do the same?

To be continued…

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

Readers who frequent the PC reviews here at Avault have probably noticed that I have started posting video commentary on YouTube along with my regular game reviews. I thought I would take a few minutes here and explain what my goals are with these video commentaries, where I see them going, and how they connect with our other work here.

My initial foray into video commentaries was sparked by some of my academic work. I purchased a copy of Fraps so I could screen capture games for use in presentations. After doing some initial work, I realized that there were some things I could highlight to our readers in a video that would take up too much space in a written review, such as describing the good and bad qualities of a title’s interface. I did some experiments, and found that iMovie makes adding commentary fairly easy, provided I keep the cats out of my hair (they like to mew at me while recording). It’s taken a bit of practice, but I really only need about an hour or two to record and edit a video commentary once I have the raw footage from the game.

With that being said, I want to be clear that what I am attempting with these video commentaries is not an all encompassing video review that will one day replace the written reviews. There are a number of reasons for this, the most important of which is that our readers can read our reviews in circumstances wherein it would be impossible/unadvisable to watch a video review (while at work, using computers in public, and so on). Second, the written word is better for conveying certain kinds of information. But there is also another consideration. Making an entire review from video would obviate what I think is the most beneficial part of doing a video and providing commentary. Instead of just blabbing away mindlessly while random clips from the game play in the background, I can actually show our readers how an interesting part of the game plays.

I think that posting video commentary of this kind is going to be better for you, our readers, because I can illustrate that which is either really good or really bad in any particular game. I can show my readers the “pew-pew” aspects of Stalin vs. Martians in all its RTS tedium or demonstrate the dirty brawling of the gang fights in Zeno Clash. I can also show our readers some parts of how the game is played to help them make an informed purchasing decision. After all, even a 5-star game with our Seal of Excellence, despite its quality, will not be the kind of game everyone will enjoy. Seeing me playing through part of the game, commenting on the action, will enlighten readers further. And that really is the name of the game, isn’t it?

However, there are some things that my video commentaries are not meant to accomplish. Video commentary cannot really be used to demonstrate the quality of the graphics or audio of a game. While I can demonstrate an annoying soundtrack, bad sound effects, or poor artwork, video compression makes showing the quality of the actual rendering impossible. Any game that I screen capture and compress for posting on the Internet will lose some audio and video quality. Thus, even if I forget to say it in the commentary, none of my video commentaries should ever be used to judge the quality of a game’s rendering. (Whether the game trailers that the companies promoting various games put out on the Internet should be used to judge the quality of the game’s audio and video is a whole different consideration.)

Furthermore, video commentaries should not be construed as revealing everything about a game. Due to time constraints, I could not possibly reveal everything about gameplay in a video commentary (you’d get bored after thirty minutes, trust me). I will only pick the most relevant portion(s) of the game to comment upon, primarily to illustrate things that are exceptional or abysmal, that would take up too much room in the written review.

Also, it will be rare that I present the multiplayer aspects of the game. The reason for this is that I would not want to post footage from a multiplayer game unless I had the consent of the other players. I would consider that borderline unethical, not to mention rude. This will make it unlikely that I would get significant footage from MMOs unless I am member of a guild/kinship/in-game organization whose members would be cool with appearing in a video.

Finally, video commentaries are not meant to demonstrate winning strategies or my brilliance as a player. As I intend to illustrate specific aspects of the game, I may reduce the difficulty settings or use specific scenarios in order to engineer the things I want to show our readers. While this may be less important for completely new titles, for expansions and add-ons, experienced gamers who played the original should take my actions with a grain of salt and not try to emulate them unless I specifically mention my actions as a valid strategy.

All of that being said, I would like to make it clear that I am not trying to up the ante in the reviews we do here at Avault. My colleagues are doing a great job, and my experiments in this direction are in no way a refutation of their work nor an attempt to show them up. In the face of some new software I acquired, and, after seeing what our competitors do with video reviews, I want to try something different.

Of course, our readers might want to chime in and indicate what they want to see. You’ve seen my work and the video reviews of others. Given our format here at Avault what would you like to see? What kinds of details?

P.S. After getting ready to post this, I thought I might want to mention that I really have no idea where any of this fits in with what our editors have in mind for the future. Whether they think this is a good idea, a bad idea, or that it fails to fit in with their plans to initiate a takeover of the planet at the behest of their masters, the Flying Lizards of the Planet Zorb, is something only they can answer.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments

… and I must say that I was rather surprised. I mean, it’s not a normal malfunction that PC users confront in the course of their daily lives. It’s also the kind of thing that defies typical conversations. Imagine the following discussion while hanging around at ones workplace.

“Over the weekend my monitor caught fire.”

“Really? I guess it smelled bad.”

“Yeah. The flames didn’t shoot up very high. I was kind of disappointed.”

“Too bad. Becoming a towering inferno was the least it could do before dying on you.”

And that was part of the disappointment; the flames, what little there were, were not visible. The first indication of a problem was the monitor’s refusal to power up. It just stayed in power save mode when I started up my PC. Since I had just woken up, I figured it was being difficult and went off to the bathroom to take care of my morning business. After all, what sort of mischief could a monitor get into while I took care of basic hygiene?

It wasn’t until I was partaking in the Ritual of the Brushing of the Teeth, sometime between the Spitting and the Rinsing, that I noticed the faint of aroma of burning plastic, with a hint of burning lint. Immediate inquiries to my beloved (laced with only minimal profanities in a Samuel L. Jackson kind of format) about what was burning in the kitchen led to an investigation that revealed nothing on the stove and no melting/burning/blackened plastic. From there we both started going from electrical outlet to electrical outlet, hunting for the burning plastic. The smell grew worse (and more annoying) but we had no real luck. It wasn’t until I started working over all the cords leading from the surge protectors around the desktops that I realized the odor was stronger. Hovering my face over the monitor, I finally found the burning plastic. Imagine, if you will, putting the smell of three plastic cups burning on a stove with cat dander and lint into an inhaler and then using that inhaler. That was the smell I found as my nose hovered over the back of the monitor.

The next string of profanity to issue forth from my mouth was more akin to combination of an episode of Jerry Springer and Eddie Murphy’s classic comedy routine Raw.

I quickly unplugged the monitor and took it out to the balcony, refraining from putting any water on it (electrical fires and water don’t mix). After watching it for five minutes, I determined that while there was no visible flame, it had indeed been on fire. Despite having no power applied, it was still stinking as it sat upon the balcony smoldering. With some resignation, I finished my morning routine and went out for the day, picking up a new 23” monitor while dropping off the dead one in the dumpster (no dumpster fire, in case you’re wondering).

I suppose I could complain about a major component catching fire, but to be honest, I wasn’t too angry. I picked up the monitor at a hefty discount since it was a display model. So, for $50, a 21” flat screen LCD lasted a couple of years. What more could I ask for? But what did disappoint me was that my monitor caught fire, and I didn’t even have a good story about five foot flames threatening my very life and my heroic battle to save the rest of my electronics and my cats. (I wouldn’t have to save my beloved under those circumstances; unlike the cats and the PCs, she has enough sense to leave an apartment that’s on fire.) Instead, my apartment smelled like burnt plastic for 24 hours as I put my new monitor through its paces.As you might expect, burnt plastic odors and Zeno Clash don’t mix.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments

If it’s one thing I hate, it’s when a laptop refuses to turn on. Generally, the moment a laptop just doesn’t want to turn on anymore, you can be rest assured that you are about to spend big money. In my own case, since it refused to even turn on, the range of potential problems all boiled down to a bad battery, ruined chasis (i.e. ground has gotten loose somehow), or the motherboard was cracked. Given that my laptap was new, this was not encouraging.

So, in some despair, I took my laptop to my local Best Buy. My only goal was to get a diagnosis of the problem before I sent it in for warranty work. To do otherwise is to invite a never ending litany of “we fixed it” “no you didn’t” with HP. I approached the Geek Squad technician and told him that my laptop would not turn on at all. I started to speak at some length about how the power supply still provided power, how the charging indicator would still light up, how I took out and replaced the battery to make sure the contacts were lined up properly, and so on. Rather than listening to my homegrown attempts to diagnose the problem, he calmly took out the battery and pressed the power button a few times. Then he replaced the battery.

As  I was about to ask him what in the Hell he was doing, since laptops are not generally known to function with the battery removed and no AC power, he pressed the on switch and it came on. After blinking in disbelief for a moment, I asked him what the problem was. He told me that my laptop, while reliable in every other way, has this odd known problem with how it interfaces with the battery. Removing the battery and pressing the power button a few times solves the problem.

He handed me my laptop and said goodbye. No charge, no hassle, and out of the store in under five minutes. Not bad, considering I was staring into the black hole of sending my laptop back to the manufacturer for warranty work. I know that Best Buy takes fire for their Geek Squad’s technical support in some circles, but my local store and their staff are just fine. And if you own an HP pavilion dv5 and it won’t turn on, just take the battery out, unplug it from AC, and press the power button a few times before replacing the battery. It’s goofy, but it works.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments

While Adrenaline Vault was down, I undertook a minor experiment in memory upgrades: Readyboost. For those unfamilair with Readyboost, you can tell Vista to turn part of your flashdrive into an extension of the PC’s own memory. Because flashdrives access their memory faster than a hardrive, telling Windows to turn a couple of gigbytes of your flashdrive into extra memory  has the potential to speed up your PC.

In my case, I am not suffering any real shortage of memory; however, I had received an 8 gigbyte flashdrive as a gift. Now, since I don’t make a habit of toting 2 or 3 movies with me everywhere I go, I end up with plenty of empty space. Just for fun, I figured I would asee if I could get better performance out of my PC when running memory intensive games, such as LOTRO: Mines of Moria. I spent about a 3 weeks consistently using Readyboost, and in the tradition of Fight Club, I came up with a few rules.

Rule #1: You do not unplug the flashdrive without telling Vista to stop the device.

Rule #2: You do not unplug the flashdrive without telling Vista to stop the device!

When it comes to rules 1 and 2, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to stop the device before taking it out of the USB port and running off. While it should be obvious to my IT readers, for those who are wondering why, let me list some of the bad things that happened when I forgot/got lazy and just pulled it out: blue screens of death, background applications like AVG crashing (having your anti-virus software crap out without you knowing it is a bad thing), and Windows Update getting confused. However, it’s not just a problem while the computer is on. The rules also apply if you order your computer to hibernate or sleep. If you remove the flashdrive while the computer is asleep/hibernating, it will have a heartattack upon waking up, which in one case included a corrupted registry and required a restore from a restore point a few days prior. It’s almost like the computer wakes up to find that is has been lobotomized; the only way it could be worse is if you removed memory sticks while it hiberated.

Rule #3: If your computer is sick, fix its problems before bothering with Readyboost.

As for sick computers and Readyboost, this should also be a no-brainer; however, given the impact on performance that comes from bloatware and bad drivers/windows settings, it is worth reiterating to my readers that a 4 gigabyte increase in memory can’t fix any of these problems. Windows, and most applications, whether viruses, spyware, or video games, will try to use all available memory. Clean your system up before using Readyboost.

Rule#4: If it is your first time using Readyboost, be prepared for a 1 to 2 minute setup time if you dedicate large amounts of flashdrive memory to Readyboost.

Readyboost isn’t magic. If you tell Vista to take over 4 gigabytes of a flashdrive. it’s going to write and organize 4 gigabytes of data. It’s also worth mentioning that you will sometimes be asked to run Scandisk to reclaim stray bits of data.

Rule#5: If you need to transport large files, even if you have plenty of room, stop Readyboost and reclaim the diskspace.

Readyboost uses the fast access portion of the flashdrive’s memory. If you want to quickly put large files on it, you might as well shut down Readyboost.

Rule#6: If you are always taking your flashdrive places, it’s probably better to not bother with Readyboost or buy a separate flashdrive just for memory purposes.

You’re going to forget to shut it down one day, or you are going to unplug it accidentally when trying to unplug another device, or you are going to get carried away.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments

So, a good friend of mine accidentally gets an Xbox 360. I say “accidentally” because he received it as a gift. If he had his say so, he probably would’ve gotten a new PC; however, he’s pleased with his gift because he has Call of Duty 4, which keeps him more than occupied. Of course, the sad part is that my PC version and his Xbox version won’t play together online, so we’re still stuck either playing at my house on the PC or at his house on the Xbox, either of which devolves into drinks, telling goofy stories and wondering why we both keep getting killed. It also leads to the occasional rant about why the PC and Xbox version of the game aren’t compatible and how this should be patched/fixed/updated, despite the fact that we’re probably members of a group of gamers comprising one-half of one percent of the Call of Duty population.

As amusing as our problem is, it got me thinking about multiplayer and PC games in more general terms. David already spoke at some length about his views on exaggerated reports of the death of PC games. As I thought about it, a curious thought struck me: World of Warcraft, if Blizzard is to be believed, has 10 million or more paying subscribers. That’s 10 million people paying more than 10 dollars a month to play a PC game, not counting the cost to actually purchase the title and its associated expansions. That’s big money no matter how you slice it. So big that it’s no surprise that MMOs continue to be developed. There’s even been talk of a great disturbance in the Force: Bethesda, developer of almost exclusively single-player titles in the Elder Scrolls series (Battlespire being the exception), might be planning their own. If the rumors are true, it shouldn’t be that surprising. Titles like Morrowind and Oblivion were already large virtual worlds in their own right (heck, even Arena was large, and that was back in the 90s), so why not funnel all that effort into something that could generate even more revenue? Even if the rumors turn out to be false, I can’t imagine that their corporate leadership hasn’t at least given the issue some thought.

Given the popularity of various titles in the genre, I began to wonder if maybe we’re going to see a longterm migration of PC gaming in that direction. Is it possible that in a decade, the majority of PC titles will be MMOs of some variety or another? Couple that with download distribution, and you won’t find shelves lined with PC games in stores anymore. That saves publishers money, and if they make more money from subscriptions than just selling titles, that will make them profitable. And that’s the name of the game, whether PC or console: profitability. As long as PC games remain profitable, we’ll continue to get more of them.

However, my inexperience with MMORPGs meant that I, until recently, was unsure of gameplay differences between them and the PC games I’m used to playing. In an effort to understand them a bit more, I decided to play the free trial versions of two very different games: Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Lord of the Rings Online. After playing Pirates for a very short period of time, I realized it wasn’t what I was looking for in a game. It was a bit heavy on the grind and cameo appearances by characters from the movies, and a bit light on real piracy (which should have been no surprise to me, as the movies are much more focused on fantasy than they are on pirates doing what pirates do best). Not my cup of tea, but I’m sure some folks enjoy it. I then tried out Lord of the Rings and found something a bit more to my liking. Less outright grind (quest XP tends to be much more than XP for wandering around randomly killing), a well-rendered virtual world, a friendly community and a PvP setup that’s completely optional and never intrudes in the lives of those who don’t want to get involved. In fact, Lord of the Rings seems fun enough that my beloved and I are considering purchasing it while the price is right so we can play together over the summer.

However, even as fun as this game is, I notice that it still suffers from some of the same oddities that affect all MMOs. For one, the world doesn’t change in response to the things you do. I’ve had to “stand in line” a few times to slay a particular critter to solve a quest because multiple fellowships were in the area, ready to tackle that baddie. Obediently, it respawned and let us all take our turns killing it, yet at no point was Middle Earth ever permanently saved from the ravages of old Bloodtusk. While many single-player games also suffer from this, either by fault or by design (Hellgate: London is the most recent game that comes to my mind in which named, unique critters respawn all the time, even after quest completion, if you return to certain areas), it seems that MMORPGs can’t let you have too much of an impact in the world around you. To do otherwise would ruin the game for others playing. Also, it seems that gold farming is in action in Middle Earth as it is elsewhere, although thankfully, the message spam relating to such things is minimal. There’s also the “Server Down For Maintenance” issue, along with the very similar “Server Needs to Be Taken Down For Maintenance Because of Lag, Rubberbanding and Inability to Leave Certain Areas.” These problems are the kind you’re going to find on any game where your PC must connect with some other server in order to do things, and it’s rarely a big problem. It does mean, however, that with any dedicated MMO, you can’t always play when you want.

At the moment, these issues indicate that the gameplay offered by MMOs can’t replace single-player, even if these titles add substantially to the entire spectrum of gaming. I do wonder, though, if the profitability of these titles will eventually render single-player PC gaming obsolete, not because single-player games stink, but because there just isn’t enough money to be made on them to justify development. I am aware that companies that develop MMOs also have higher support costs. I’d love to see Blizzard’s bandwidth costs for supporting 10 million subscribers in World of Warcraft, not to mention server maintenance costs, employee salaries and benefits, and legal fees for in-house lawyers who craft EULAs and use them to police players who violate them or hackers who try to hack the system. Yet, these kinds of costs have already been born by companies like Blizzard and Ensemble Studios for years without a monthly fee in order to enable games like Starcraft and Age of Empires (Battlenet and ESO) to be played online. While all of these things indicate that falling flat on your face when developing a MMO will result in bankruptcy even faster than developing a single-player title, the revenue potential is also much bigger.

Maybe single-player developers will mutate their content and publishing in order to increase profitability. Instead of high priced games with occasional expansion packs, maybe episodic games like Sam and Max Season 1 and Season 2, wherein the game is divided into much smaller chunks which are much cheaper and development is paced differently, is the way singe-player will go. Perhaps we don’t understand the economics of MMOs fully just yet, and there’s a theoretical point of market saturation that, once reached, means MMOs will compete with each other for gamers and their ever necessary subscriber fees rather than attracting new gamers (if that point is 20 million players or less, watch to see them start dying off in five years). Maybe there will one day be hybrid games that do both right out of the box. Imagine a game of Oblivion‘s scope that can be purchased for X amount of dollars and played single-player or for a monthly fee (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Bethesda). Time will tell, I guess.

Still, one thing is for certain. Console gamers shouldn’t look with too much glee on this post. There is a theoretical point of profitability where even console developers will drop singe-player titles for exclusively multiplayer content, massive or otherwise. I do wonder if Xbox gamers would be willing to pay for both Xbox Live Gold and a subscription fee for an MMO. This question will likely be partially answered when Age of Conan comes out for the Xbox in 2009. Rumors have it that Microsoft might only demand Xbox Live Silver for MMOs like Age of Conan. If this is the case, and if Age of Conan is successful, my colleagues who work console titles might end up making the same kind of post five years from now.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2008. | Permalink | One comment

No doubt the news that Jack Thompson has been censured by a Florida Court for 27 Bar rule violations will be greeted with a rousing chorus of acclaim by the gaming community. That’s to be expected, as he has been no friend to our community. But we shouldn’t get too excited just yet, as the fight isn’t quite over. While the judge’s decision has been made public, Florida’s Supreme Court still gets their say in the matter before Thompson actually loses the ability to practice law for up to ten years. Given his antics at the latest hearing, not to mention previous sanctions for inappropriate conduct, I suspect the Florida Supreme Court will revoke his ability to practice law.

Like he has in previous legal scrapes, Thompson has waved the flag of First Amendment rights, arguing that there’s a conspiracy to deprive him of his freedom of speech. I find this odd, considering that his attacks on the industry would themselves seem to be the kind to reduce freedom of speech; however, I have no intention of spending thousands of words on discussing hypocrisy, fun as it might be. Instead, I’d like to point out something that might not be obvious throughout all of the courtroom theatrics and heated rhetoric. Even assuming that he loses the ability to practice law, I imagine it will have little impact on his anti-gaming crusade. He can still write books, launch into tirades and express his hate and discontent in any manner of ways. In fact, if he still has money, he can hire his own attorneys to continue the legal battles. Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, losing this legal fight will not impact his freedom to speak.

What it will do is put an end to Thompson’s frivolous lawsuits and dubious abuses of the legal privileges that lawyers enjoy in their line of work. Hopefully, the taxpayers of the great state of Florida will no longer have the rather expensive time of their courts taken up with Thompson’s legal silliness. He’ll have to fight these battles on equal footing with the rest of us now.

I, for one, welcome the challenge. As I’ve said before, I’m not one to trample on anyone’s right to express themselves. I rather thrive on discussing things in a calm, rational manner. While I’m sure many of my peers wish he’d just go away, I will instead extend an offer of dialog not unlike the offer I extended to Lyndon LaRouche. If, and when, Thompson is disbarred, he can feel free to discuss video games, violence and First Amendment rights with me in a debate that’s likely to enlighten both of us.

Let’s exercise our First Amendment rights instead of mucking about in Florida courts with frivolous filings. We have those rights for a reason, after all, don’t we, Jack?

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2008. | Permalink | No comment(s)

So it finally happened a little while ago. My computer, a top of the line custom built rig from four years ago, finally went to the great computer desk in the sky. One too many cords being unplugged and chewed on, and one too many things being dropped on the tower resulted in the death of my computer. I’ll mourn that machine for a long time……….

Okay, mourning time is over.

So, I go out and get a good deal on a desktop at BestBuy of all places (remember: sale + open box = fewer $$$). Of course, it comes with Windows Vista Home Premium. I’m not too excited, but I figure I’ve had a good run with XP, and if you want DirectX10, you gotta have Vista. I take it home and begin the long process of installing everything again. I quickly found out, though, that Vista doesn’t work or play well with others…

To be fair, I had heard the horror stories from those who went out and bought it right away. And truth be told, the horror stories were nothing compared to the evil that was the original release of Windows 95 (anyone who ran the OS when it first came out knows what I am talking about). In that respect, I was prepared for a few frustrating days of working around compatibility problems and getting used to the new Aero-style desktop. (It’s nothing special, in case you’re wondering.)

My first clue that it was going to be an uphill battle was the very first piece of hardware I installed: my wireless networking adapter. Vista wouldn’t properly install the software or the drivers on the CD because it needs a special set of Vista drivers available at D-Link’s website.

Question for Microsoft: If my network adapter can’t be installed because Vista won’t properly install the software that comes with the hardware, then how do I grab the Vista drivers from the Internet?

Answer: Hope you have another computer in your apartment; otherwise, no Internet for you.

You get bonus points if you can answer this question with the right amount of snark: How hard is it to update Windows Vista with no Internet connection?

But that’s not all. In addition to my pastime of writing reviews for games here at Avault, I also beta test games. (Sorry, I signed an NDA, so I can’t talk about them.) One of the games I’m testing, which means it’s not even released yet, uses the most up-to-date DirectX9. Now, you’d think that since Vista has DirectX10, then I’d be all set. Nope. It turns out that DirectX10 isn’t the same thing as DirectX9. That meant I had to download and install DirectX9 in order to continue beta testing. (The download is only 71 megs, and it installed smoothly.)

Question: If you go through the trouble to put Windows Vista on a DVD and give it the cool, new DirectX10, how much effort does it take to ship DirectX9 with the OS and have it installed as well?

Answer: What, are you a noob? You shouldn’t be playing games that require DirectX9.

You get bonus points for asking the next question with the right amount of snark: How many games released by Ensemble Studios, which is owned by Microsoft, require something other than DirectX10 to run?

The best part, though, is my guilty pleasure. I like to play older games occasionally. Right now, my beloved and I are fighting our way through Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. I haven’t played it in years, and she never got to play it in the past thanks to her idiot former boyfriend. (What gameplaying moron wouldn’t want to play games with his favorite gal?) Now, I knew that Vista wasn’t going to like Diablo II, so I was prepared for running things as the administrator and running the game in “Super-Duper Retro-Gaming Compatibility Mode” which is slang for Windows XP, SP2, 256 colors and 640×480 compatibility mode, run as the administrator. Of course, despite setting this up, the game wouldn’t even install from the disk because of an error related to the Start Menu. Yes, the Start Menu. No, the Start Menu was never involved in my attempts to install the game, and yes, others have reported a similar problem over at Battle.net. Wanna know how I got it to work? I copied all 1.8 gigs of Diablo II from the second computer (not to be confused with my broken one) to my new one over the LAN. Then I set it up to run in compatibility mode. At this point, I can run the game, even if I can’t install it.

So far, Diablo is the only success story I have in running things in compatibility mode, and I still had to find a work around.

Question for Microsoft: Why?

A more specific question: Why make Vista so uncooperative with things that were developed in the past? Sure, Diablo is seven years old, but my D-Link adapters sure aren’t, nor can you claim that beta testing a new game counts as retro gaming. How hard would it have been to provide a wee bit more compatibility, like installing DirectX9 along side DirectX10? It doesn’t make any business sense.

Making DirectX10 Vista only makes business sense, as it encourages consumers to purchase your produce to get the coolest graphics. It doesn’t make me happy, but it’s the right move for making money. But it’s not like Blizzard is some two-bit software company, and D-Link isn’t some cheap knock-off of better hardware. I’m not trying to use off-beat, weird stuff, so you can’t say I’m asking for something unreasonable. All I’m saying is that maybe, just maybe, making Vista a bit friendlier with pre-2008 applications and hardware would have won Microsoft some real prestige.

Still, Vista isn’t the total mess that Windows 95 was when it was first released. At least there’s that.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2008. | Permalink | 19 comments

Those familiar with my debacle with NetGear Wireless Garbage will no doubt remember the ultimate cause of that technological fiasco and my subsequent invective of discontent: my cat, Iago. Despite his fascination with destroying all cords, all the time, I still love him, much as a parent can love a child who destroys hundreds of dollars in household goods. But I’m not blind to his terrorism of electronic components. He is, after all, the reason for wireless networking, wireless keyboards and wireless mice. If someone would invent a cheap way to rig a monitor as wireless, I’d do that too, although he has some difficulty chewing the monitor cable; it’s a bit thick for his jaws.

But in my quest for wireless perfection, I’ve noticed that wireless isn’t the same as “free to roam about the room.” True, I feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of my D-Link WUA-2340s. Due to an odd apartment configuration, I’ve ended up putting the router and cable modem in the bedroom, and I can get decent reception in the living room with my two desktops. But when it comes to mice and keyboards, I can’t seem get reception that’s worth a damn.

Between two different apartments and three different wireless mice and keyboards (three different brands, even), the best I can do is get the keyboard and mouse about 12 inches away. That’s only if I want word processing or Internet browsing capability. When I’m playing COD4, I have to put the wireless desktop items within three inches of the receiver or I miss out on important things, like firing my weapon and actually hitting things. And since you can’t pause COD4 in multiplayer to adjust your equipment, this is an inconvenience to say the least.

I understand that such items aren’t meant to let me sit across the room and play Crysis. But it’d be nice to put the receiver in a place where my cat can’t reach its cord. After all, that’s the whole point of having wireless in the first place, at least in my household. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who has this problem!

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments

I have a sore spot in my soul for Electronic Arts. Not because of money ill spent or lackluster titles, but because I remember Bullfrog Productions. Bullfrog was the British developer for such ground breaking titles as Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Syndicate. Those of you who remember will smile as I do when I think back to hours spent sending floods against the worshipers of the opposing deity or of training and disciplining the creatures of my dungeon. The programmers at Bullfrog had a certain synthesis of programming expertise and designing savvy. A generation of gamers on both PC and consoles, whether they know it or not, were influenced by the design decisions of these clever folks.

My sore spot comes from EA’s decision to consolidate Bullfrog into its other British holdings and to farm out the workers to other projects, which occurred early in 21st century. (Yes, I’m going to speak of the century in these terms now. It’s 2008, so don’t complain.) As a result of this decision, there will never be a Dungeon Keeper III or another version of Populous.

But even EA can learn from its mistakes. In this article, EA’s CEO acknowledges that “These were great studios that created great products and yet these places no longer exist today… Something broke, it didn’t happen as we or they dreamed it. I would state simply that we at EA blew it, and I was involved so I can say I blew it.”

Yes, you blew it. And EA has posted some losses recently. But perhaps EA can learn from its mistakes. In any event, I accept Riccitiello’s apology. There will be no future releases from a developer whose products I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope that EA will fill in the gap they themselves have created.

Doing so will go a long way to winning over gamers with long memories. I know I’m not the only one.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2008. | Permalink | One comment