Due to how my computer, monitors, and PlayStation 3 are set up, I can actually type this while looking at the television screen showing the PS3 interface. I’ve decided to try liveblogging the first few hours of FFXIII-2 to see if I like playing the game in this manner, and to gauge my personal interest in dividing my attention in this particular fashion in an attempt to try something new and blog more.

How it’ll work: most liveblogs use some kind of software that I have no idea where to get in order to liveblog quickly and efficiently. While I won’t be using that software, I can use their format of updating in tweet-like fashion, with the entries going chronologically upwards from the beginning (the bottom-most entry) to the most recent entry (directly below this paragraph) using military time to denote hours in the GMT+8 timezone.

I’ll begin in approximately 30 minutes from this post, at 19:30, after I grab dinner.

See you folks in a bit.

————– LIVEBLOG BELOW ————–

22:15 Standing in front of the First Time Gate. Will continue some other time.

22:13 It seems there’s also a map percentage aspect to the game. Can’t seem to trigger 100% on the first map though. Strange.

21:57 There appear to be sidequests for Artefacts and other items. Hmm… not sure what to think about fetch quests.

21:38 Got an artefact… Why not spell it Artifact? Is there a big difference?

21:27 So Snow actually left Serah to find Lightning for his fiance. That’s nice.

21:18 So the moogle is some kind of a treasure hunting device and a weapon. How multifunctional!

21:04 Oh man. I can save anywhere and it saves to the same file I made at the start of the game. That’s cool.

20:57 Crystarium has been altered somewhat. Not sure how to explain it, but basically, each crystal allows you to choose your path of development.

20:48 Staring at a meteorite. Amazed it crashed without making a bigger crater.

20:43 LOL. First non-tutorial boss is called Gogmagog.

20:35 The game uses random encounters that require you to encounter the enemy in a time limit. That’s a nice implementation of two existing battle type tropes.

20:26 Hmm… early enemies dropping Accessories.

20:19 So… they give a brief overview of the ending of FFXIII through dialogue in the first hour. Not bad.

20:17 And the kupos of the moogle are weird. Some kind of dialogue weirdness.

20:07 LOL. Jumping mechanics included in the game now.

20:05 Live Trigger… Branching Dialog options, it seems.

20:01 Magical Changing Clothes. Go Squeenix go!

19:59 Noel Kreiss…. jumps into a time gate.

19:54 First Tutorial battle of the game completed, Multi-stage, very forgiving, extremely epic.

19:50 I guess they use gameplay footage to allow for cinematic actions. I got to choose how to engage my enemy in the cinema.

19:44 Apparently, the enemy is a fricking Bahamut of Chaos.

19:42 Cutscenes become actual gameplay footage now. Tutorial stage played as Lightning Riding Odin.

19:40 Caius and Lightning fight. Beasties galore in battle.

19:38 Opening Cinematic of the game. Lightning looks over the sea.

19:36 Game gives a bonus reward if you have FFXIII save data, and asks you to create a data file upon starting game. Autosave and manual save is available.

19:34 Game loaded, Opening Sequence playing. Pretty Cool.

19:30 Turning on PS3.

… and I’m feeling good.

—- The Rest of the Post —-

2012 is a new year, and if the naysayers in this world would have it, the last year for humans to exist on the planet.

I don’t want to believe that. I mean, there’s so much to be thankful for.

Like Free Speech, and its counterpart, Using Words Responsibly.

Like Being Happy, and its counterpart, Choosing to be Angry.

And GAMES! Oh so many games!

This year, I choose to speak my mind more about the things that interest me, even if it makes me uncomfortable to open up in that way.

I will play the games I want and I will enjoy (or not enjoy) them at my leisure.

I will respect the minds of others, even if I disagree with their ideas.

I will not limit myself to one avenue of thought, and I will open up to other ideas and not act in a passive-aggressive manner to people of perceived authority.

I will not let the negativity of others invalidate what I feel towards a game.

I will balance my gaming with healthier pursuits.

I will finish that first book that’s been in my head and evolved since I was a kid.

I will define who I am by what I do and think, and not by what people think of me.

I will play more Final Fantasy XIV and maybe even get Final Fantasy XIII-2 on the PS3.

I will experience games I never thought to try out. That may include superhero MMORPGs.

I will keep writing about games!

I will stay smiling and awesome, the way I envision myself as being for the rest of my life.

Stabbing Dragons in the face in Skyrim

Shower Thoughts Week will feature a week-long series of of posts discussing ideas about games after having thought about them while bathing.

Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR), and Saints Row: The Third are three games that are currently on my mind. The entertainment value of these three games is rather high, though these games share differing amounts of freedom and structure in their gameplay mechanics. I wanted to spend a few moments talking about my thoughts regarding these games from an “I’ve just had an extremely long thought experiment in the shower and am struggling to recollect my thoughts” sort of frame of mind.

A person’s need for freedom and structure is so closely intertwined to an individual’s personality that talking about freedom and structure in play is something that ought to be handled with a certain delicacy.

As human beings, we paradoxically delight in finding a singular purpose to drive us, yet wish freedom in choosing our path towards achieving a goal. As people who play games, we find ways to extend the reach of our minds beyond what we perceive to be possible, enough to slay dragons, fly ships in space, and freefall in a near endless drop while gunning down enemies with no regard for conventional reality. Combine the two and multiply them by the number of gamers in the world, and you have a staggeringly large permutation of people who want to be satisfied by playing a game, but by various means. Increase the stakes exponentially with shifting tastes in entertainment, and you have a logistical nightmare for a single mind to handle.

Game developers in this day and age have realized that striking that balance in gameplay that allows for a game to appeal to every gamer at every time is next to impossible. To remedy this, they have perfected the means by which a “large enough” number of gamers can find enjoyment from play long enough for the next DLC or content update to be released for them to further support their continued enjoyment, a trait especially noticeable in MMORPGs. Either they choose that method, or they reward a gamer for possessing obsessive or addictive behaviors that make them wish to continue playing a product beyond its ability to bring joy into a gamer’s life.

As current preoccupations of a lot of gamers out there in my circles, Skyrim, SWTOR, and Saint’s Row: The Third are examples of three games that, at least for the purposes of the thought experiment I had, attempt to combine freedom and structure in different ways.

Skyrim possesses a large, epic, and foreign world with supposedly infinite quests. What I think actually happens is that the game places players in a large world, gives them the tools and understanding for advancement, and gives them structure through quests and freedom to skip quests and change tactics to suit their changing needs. The game doesn’t necessarily “end,” but when you have run out of a strong purpose to play, the game ceases to hold the same allure until a new downloadable content pack is introduced that extends the experience of purpose.

SWTOR takes a different approach. Provided with (I believe) 17 planets to explore, the game focuses on providing players with purpose by focusing on a strong, fully-voiced story to mitigate the feeling of repetitiveness brought about by having only a limited number of quest types. Instead of saying, “This is a world, have at it,” SWTOR says, “This is your tale, experience it.”

Of the three games, Saints Row: The Third is perhaps the hardest to explain properly. Freedom and structure are more or less balanced here, with a supposedly large number of activities to experience and enjoy in a relatively smaller-scaled area (compared to the scale of a country and 17 planets) like a city. The difference is that this game instead gives you the equivalent of contemporary wish fulfillment by providing you with an exaggerated and amoral real-world scenario, as if the game is saying, “This world is your oyster, enjoy the experience.”

In each game, freedom and structure combine to allow many people to find a respite from the stressors of the world. Enjoying a game and sharing the experience in a healthy fashion, however you choose to do so, is the nature of play. One of the end results of this healthy play of games is the passage of time, and these three games all allow for the passage of time to happen with a sense of fulfillment and relaxation.

There is an issue, however, when we overthink the nature of play (Ironic that I’m overthinking the nature of play to get to a point, but such is life). When we obsess over an aspect of a game, whether it be min-maxing a character, or hardcore raiding, or ganking, we diminish the fun behind the play. When we chastise others for enjoying a particular game because we think their game is horrid or lesser than our own, we cheapen the nature of social interaction derived from playing.

It doesn’t matter how different one game is from another from a functional standpoint, as they all serve the same purpose of allowing us to go beyond ourselves and enjoy a new experience with others sharing in that same joy. We do the games we play a disservice by enjoying them in complete solitude and isolation, or worse yet, at the cost of another person’s enjoyment of his choices.

If there’s anything I’ve learned this evening from taking a shower and thinking about video games, it’s that the freedom of our lives and the structure we ascribe to it are meant to be tuned and balanced, and we should try to find that same balance when we interact with other people in our day-to-day, whether it be through games, Twitter, emails, or showering with them interactions in the physical world.

Right now, I’m relatively powerful, but I still have trouble killing dragons. I have shiny Dwarven armor, and steel armor everywhere else, and I have a home and hearth for my use.

One of the issues I’ve not grown accustomed to while being in Skyrim is the nature of unintended consequences and everlasting regret. In life, you sometimes make a decision to alter the course of someone else’s fate, for good or ill. The thing is, it’s hard to make recompense for doing so, and harder still when you realize that, by trying to do something good, you’ve gone down a darker path than you would have realized.

In my travels, I had heard about a young man named Aventus Aretino, whom people were saying was disturbed. I hesitate to call him a boy, as he is too far gone in vengeance to be called innocent, and too far hardened to be the type of child who plays in the streets of a simple town.

I sought him out and found him trying to perform a ritual that would summon a dark power to aid him in a simple matter. I stepped in to try to stop him, and was instead mistaken for the dark power he sought.

With hope in his eyes, Aventus begged me to slay the headmistress of the orphanage he was heading to at the end of a week. He said that the headmistress was a cruel woman, and hinted faintly at the abuse of orphaned children.

Dark as his methods were, and strange as his request was, I remained silent, which he took as acceptance of the task. I needed to clear my mind of the darkness, and investigate if his allegations were true.

Heading to the orphanage, I found myself plagued by the thought of a child so warped by sadness and longing that he would drive himself to such dark methods to find peace. I needed to know the truth and let the authorities know of the travesty being committed if it were true.

The orphanage was quaint, but serviceable and, unlike the headmistress, was warm enough for the task of caring for abandoned and orphaned children. When I entered the main room, I heard the headmistress berating the kids and telling them they were unloved and that no one would ever adopt them because she would stop any attempt to do so. It broke my heart to know that Aventus’ claims rang true.

I was about to step back outside when the assistant of the headmistress attempted to talk to me in an attempt to explain the aberrant behavior. I knew she didn’t believe what she was saying, and so I remained silent.

I looked for a constable in that dark night, but none would talk to me about the events I had seen. It was as if the world had abandoned these children for an unknown purpose, and I could not do anything other than choose the happiness of the children and of Aventus with the assistant headmistress or the life of Grelod the “Kind.”

I went back into the orphanage that same evening, sneaking past the sleeping children, and ultimately, sitting behind the headmistress for what seemed like an eternity. Perhaps the unknown purpose the world had left for these children was to take me down a path of sadness as well, but I didn’t know it then. All I knew then was righteous anger mixed with the need to weigh my actions.

In any realm, there is free will that, in hindsight, feels like an illusion. We are bound by our minds to follow the path laid before us by our conscience, and whether we flounder or not in attempting to follow it, that is our path as set by our selves, immutable except through the loss of memory.

I gave up the path of law for the path of righteousness, or so I would have myself believe. I froze Grelod the kind that same night as she slept. I left the house, with no one the wiser. My transgression, I knew, would not be realized by anyone. Only that she had drowned in her sleep, frozen and blackened all over from debilitating frostbite.

The end of Grelod the kind was swift and merciful, I forced myself to think, and no one would know, I reminded myself.

I went back to Whiterun, to my own home, in the light of the morning. A courier had left a message for me as I entered the house.

Someone knew. Someone had come to tell me that they knew, and no amount of sleep or meditation would allow me to forget that like Aventus, I too had begun my way down a dark path.

The life of an adventurer is filled with trials. With death stalking me at every turn, I find that a stalwart companion can be good to have.

My only issue is that for myself, the companions who tag along with me are the insatiable lust for killing and the ramblings of a mad god.

In my travels, I have acquired lycanthropic powers that augment my physical strength greatly, but force me to feed on those I have killed in order to maintain my strength and lust for blood. I will not reveal how I acquired such a thing, but it was not the happiest day of my life to have fur where my scales used to be.

Furthermore, investigating an issue for a troubled old man lead me to enter an alternate realm of being, where I had to test my wits in order to escape the inner reaches of the mind of a dead king who was being tormented by Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness.

Despite leaving the place unscathed physically, I find myself always coming back to that day, feeling a bit unnerved. Would the Prince of Madness come for me one day to lead me on his path?

For some reason, I could not think of a way to properly introduce Skyrim on to the blog, as its scope is as large as can be, with varying quests and capabilities being part of the equation of fun. I suppose I should start simply, then.

Meet Stillwater, my Argonian Jack-of-all-trades.After getting a stay of execution thanks to a dragon, he’s been doing all sorts of things to help the populace and terrorize the evildoers of the lands.

For starters, he’s… chopped wood, and frozen bunny rabbits and foxes for their carcasses. He’s also manipulated a set of relationships in Riverwood to allow a bard his comeuppance, because the bards I’ve met in this game tend to be a rather haughty lot. He’s mined, he’s dined, and he’s put swords to the grindstone for sharpening.

If that sounds rather boring, it probably is. It’s a testament, however, to the vastness of scope in the game, that one can do all those things, and still find time to kill dragons as the Dragonborn.

So far, nothing I’ve done has had far-reaching consequences for my game experience, though if there were far reaching consequences, I’d have this overwhelming tendency to research it in advance. For Skyrim though, I’ve found that some guides on enchanting that are most helpful, and I’ve only had to get help when I’m absolutely maddened by the nature of a quest.

Let’s end on a lighthearted note. Here’s an image of a dead foe who had his face caved in with an Ice Spike. Cheers.

The Keen and Graev Twitter account announces that there’s less than 23 hours to go before Skyrim unlocks on their Steam account.

My Steam account says there’s approximately 32-33 hours left before Skyrim unlocks.

Comparatively speaking, to get Skyrim potentially sooner than other folks, I confirmed with the local game shop about physical copies coming in. According to them, the physical copies would come in on 11/11/11 anyway by mid to late afternoon, which is approximately 24-26 hours from now. Add to that the fact that Skyrim pre-orders in my country get a nifty coffee mug that should be nothing like the FFXIV CE tumblers, and you have the makings of an excellent reason to buy physical, as long as you do your research.

To sum up,

1. Due to time zone issues, the Physical Copy of Skyrim will arrive earlier than the unlocking of the Steam version.

2. I save on bandwidth as I won’t be downloading the game.

3. Free Skyrim logo-emblazoned black coffee mug with my pre-order for the long-haul gaming session that’ll happen in the evening.

Advanced Happy Skyrim Day, my fellow gamers!

Despite the many merits of Minecraft, I dislike the current state it’s in because it’s too sandboxy for me. Without any clearly defined goals set for myself to push through, Minecraft’s effect wasn’t that strong on me. I ultimately get bored playing the game after less than 30 minutes.

That said, disliking the game doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what Minecraft’s effect on me was.

While it could be said that my first Indie game purchase was Torchlight (Torchlight is, in fact, the first game I ever purchased through Steam, and my second Steam-enabled game after The Last Remnant), Minecraft was what really brought independent game development to the forefront of my game-loving mind.

Minecraft’s popularity and media coverage made many gamers take notice of independent developers and their many offerings, whether it be a storekeeper’s RPG in the form of Recettear, a roguelike like Dungeons of Dredmor, or a FPSS (First Person Santiy Survival) thriller such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Indies these days allow for exceptional gameplay experiences that do not necessarily require a high price to enjoy. Indeed, with Humble Indie Bundles and Royal Bundles available to the public these days, getting into the groove of loving low-cost, high quality gaming is proving to be a steadily popular choice among the discerning gamers out in PC and Xbox 360-land.

Even now, Minecraft is probably the biggest example of what indie gaming is, but since there’s no formal definition for what an indie game is, I doubt it actually holds the title of biggest indie game in a person’s heart.

That game probably goes to whatever awesome game is out at the moment. It’s a fickle way of thinking, perhaps, but it also means there’s a lot of love to go around. While The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Saint’s Row: The Third are going to be the AAA hits I look forward to playing in the near future, it’s the indie games that’ll keep me company when the money is tight and gaming urge is strong.

Who knows? Minecraft may even get randomized quests for fun before 2012. At least, I hope it gives me a reason to play it again. I could use a good excuse.

Image Source

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend who wanted to understand the nature of online game purchases a little bit better. While I understand the general processes in my head without much trouble, explaining online games and microtransactions to a non-gamer is actually rather difficult.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave a friend without the requisite knowledge, of course. To that end, I’ve created this primer of sorts on microtransactions, using some of my own terminologies, for the sort of person who doesn’t really play games.

When we refer to commerce in this day and age, we usually think of the exchange of money or credit for good and services. In games, there is also commerce on numerous levels, with each sort of transaction allowing for different goods and services to those playing the game.

There are two sorts of transactions one would typically think of when it comes to games: the purchase transaction and the in-game transaction.

In a purchase transaction, a consumer who wishes to play a game, either through ownership of the game or acquisition of a license to use the game software, pays a fee (in cash or credit, online or in the real world) before he can acquire the means necessary to play that game.

With in-game transactions, we refer to the transactions within a game that allow a user to acquire items, equipment and services specific to that game. This necessitates paying a fee comprised of that game’s particular currency in order to complete the transaction. Whether it comes in the form of in-game gold, gil, zenny, or megabucks, these are simply virtual goods that, under specific circumstances, are not actually traded for any form of real-world currency.

Examples of purchase transactions include the use of Philippine Pesos or US Dollars to purchase a game like Diablo II. Using the currency within Diablo II, namely gold, to purchase weapons, armor, and potions is an example of an in-game transaction.

So far, this is all easy to understand, but complexity arises when we realize that there are other ways by which companies can earn revenue from games. There are a variety of ways in which games in this Internet-connected reality we live in can foster additional revenue, and that is mostly done through a set of transactions that are commonly known as microtransactions.

Unlike purchase transactions or in-game transactions, the word “microtransactions” is a blanket terminology referring to the use of real-world currency (again, either through cash or credit, though usually credit) to acquire goods, services, or additional game content for a game one is already playing, The term is known a microtransaction due to the current trend for microtransactions to generally, though not always, cost less than the price one would pay to acquire the game or continue to gain access to it.

If you remember the example earlier about using in-game gold to purchase weapons and armor in Diablo II, you’d expect in-game gold to have no real-world value. The truth, however, as a result of games growing increasingly more connected to the internet is that currency, goods, and services within a game can have a real-world monetary value assigned to them that can also be affected by market forces.

Many types of microtransactions exist at present due to the nature of games in this day and age, but for non-gamers (and probably concerned parents who don’t know how microtransactions work), an introduction on some of the broad types of microtransactions would be in order.

First off, there are direct microtransactions. These microtransactions are basically an exchange of real-world currency for a specific good or service within a game, or for additional content that is either locked away as a result of the game’s code (thus meaning you’ve paid real money for a key to unlock the additional content) or added to a game after that game’s release.

Direct microtransactions is really a broad term I’m using to refer to a wide-range of potential microtransaction types, but it simplifies the process simply because this sort of microtransaction describes the means by which one acquires a specific good or service while (usually) supporting the developers of a game or an entity connected to the company that developed the game being played.

An online role-playing game like World of Warcraft allows for the purchase of in-game pets, flying mounts, or character renaming services for a fee: this is a direct microtransaction. Most games on mobile devices such as the iPad that do not require a purchase transaction (and are thus touted as being free to download and begin playing) use direct microtransactions to unlock the full game and all its capabilities. Some games on personal computers and consoles (such as the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3) which have purchase transactions also get additional game content delivered through the console or computer’s connection to the Internet after launch, and these require the use of one-time credit card transactions (which are direct microtransactions) to download and play.

There is a second type of microtransaction that is a little easier to define, but a bit more difficult to peg in terms of its overall legitimacy as a microtransaction. These are what I’d define as currency microtransactions.These types of microtransactions are microtransactions in which a player would use real-world money to purchase the currency required to create an in-game transaction. Now, while in-game currency is also a form of virtual good, I’ve set it aside as its own microtransaction type due to how this particular form of virtual good can be used legitimately by certain game developers and unethically by certain companies.

Let me give an example of a both currency microtransaction types. Legitimate currency microtransactions occur in a free iOS game called Tiny Tower. While the game itself is free, the game allows players to use the credit cards connected to their iTunes account to purchase an in-game currency known as Tower Bux, which can be used to speed up the construction of an amenity in-game.These legitimate currency microtransactions are the main means by which the developer gains revenue from their game, allowing them to continue developing more games.

Unethical (a loaded word, but I lack a better word to replace it with) currency microtransactions are commonplace in certain massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as, again, World of Warcraft. Certain companies employ people to acquire the virtual currency of a game like World of Warcraft in order to sell the currency to players for real-world money. In some cases, these companies will try and gain access into people’s game accounts to take virtual currency away from other players in order to sell it online. Very little of this real-world money goes back into funding the development of the game, and the experience of play is somewhat diminished by the encroachment of gold sellers into the virtual space.

Non-gamers, including those responsible for children who are gamers, would do well to reflect upon the implications of microtransactions on real-world wallets. Younger gamers who do not pay attention or who do not understand what microtransactions are can fall prey to unintended purchasing sprees, often on the parental dime.

One well-known report among gaming circles is the story of one Brendan Jordan, who racked up a 1000-pound bill on the console service known as Xbox Live. There was nothing illegal about the purchases, and while the mother of Jordan wants the game companies to bear some responsibility for the mess, it can be argued that game consoles have protections in place to prevent minors from accessing purchase-based microtransaction services.

In any event, non-gamers and parents should be more mindful of what games these days can and can’t do, and what capabilities the technologies of today allow. Ultimately, this will keep misunderstanding at a minimum and proper parenting at the ready.

I was supposed to finish a post about quests in games, but I’ve been putting it off because I’m bothered by something I chose to do and want to stick to.

It’s simple really: for one month, I would play one free-to-play MMO for a maximum of 10 hours weekly and spend absolutely nothing on video games by completing single-player PC games I’ve yet to finish. There are primarily two reasons for doing this: the first is to gradually get used to not playing MMOs so that MMORPGs feel new and vibrant again, while the second is to save money as I’m dreadfully close to running on empty.

This started sometime last week when I began playing LOTRO again on the Landroval server and made my final purchase for a month: Brink for the PC.

Here’s what happened since then:

Instead of buying games, I bought other stuff. I purchased a Kindle version of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind, then grew so obsessed with reading it on my bed that I convinced myself that I HAD TO HAVE a tablet to read the Kindle book on. $360 later, I became a Samsung Galaxy Tab (which my parents shelled out for after I explained my case) owner.

I got a new job.

I forgot I had started a no-purchase order and tried to buy The Witcher 2, but checked with my bank and found out that I would go over my limit if I bought it online, and in dejected response I spent $55 on junk food and assorted goods (Tablet accessories, dinner at a restaurant by myself, and a massage at a spa) within the span of three hours after finding out I couldn’t buy the Witcher 2 with my e-credit card.

Any halfway sane person can see that there is something inherently askew right now with my self-control mechanisms. I realize it, but I am having difficulty maintaining the restraint necessary to keep myself from doing stupid things like the above, which not only cause me to spend on myself unnecessarily, but also cause my parents to accede to some half-baked whim on my end.

I think my MMO burnout is a sign of something worse: that I have gotten so burnt out with doing things normally that I’m obsessing over the rush I get from spending money and watching a download meter rise on Steam. It’s not the game that I want; rather, it’s the purchase behind a game or other object that gives me pleasure, and that’s a scary thought.

Times like these, I either need a counselor or a support group, and I’m not sure I can afford either at this rate.