Some time ago, I took Everquest out for a trial run, but I never really got into it because the controls felt alien to me… I mean, pressing H to hail an NPC? Typing words to talk to an imaginary being through the internet? Preposterous, right?

I’d been conditioned by the Eq2/WoW-era RPG to demand an experience that was similar to itself, to the point that I’d never really given the first Everquest a proper run-through because of its naturally different style of play.

I want to rectify that due to my current situation. Right now, there are a couple of AAA free-to-play MMORPGs I’ve not tried, and with my current need to conserve my money, it seemed like a good idea to go and revisit Everquest, especially since I actually have quite a bit of Station Cash on my account that’s doing nothing there.

At the same time, I’ve set EVE Online on an 11-day training regimen, even though I have only four days left on my sub. Whether it trains past day four is beyond me, but at least I’ll have a better inkling of what my plans are when I come back.

In addition, I want to try another genre I’ve yet to actually experience: the superhero game. I’ve downloaded DC Universe Online for a run, and I’m going to make an ice character for use.

My SC will go more to Everquest, probably, mostly because DCUO doesn’t seem to have housiing. Hopefully, I’ll enjoy Everquest and DCUO and, perhaps, even a bit of LOTRO, even without spending for anything with more money than I’ve already invested.

At the very least, some new and old games will get their time in the spotlight.

My thanks to Kaozz of ECTMMO for reminding me of the Everquest F2P transition that’s happening.

This past weekend, I was firmly entrenched behind cover, shooting people with a sniper rifle that fired red lasers at my enemies.

No, I was not playing GI JOE: The Rise of Cobra: The Video Game. Instead, I was playing an Imperial Agent for Star Wars: The Old Republic’s final beta.

There were a variety of ways I could go about talking about the game, but then I realized there’s only one way I can really dissect my feelings regarding my time here on the beta. I want to talk about SWTOR in reference to another well-made game that is, at this point in time, technically superior to this game in many ways, but still feels less fun to me on a personal level that I can now explain after having played SWTOR’s beta.

I have always believed that stories are important, and I play video games to experience stories I would not be able to enjoy in my life otherwise. I began playing video games as a soloist, with RPGs as my main staple, and they’re still the type of games I generally like playing even if I rarely finish a story. I like to play video games by myself, but I hate the feeling of being alone.

Star Wars: The Old Republic addresses all those issues for me in a way that Rift, for all its impressive technical feats. never could.

I played Rift with one of the most solo-friendly builds around in an attempt to experience a world, but the world, for all its intriguing lore, felt empty on a sense of scale that I could not accept. Cities were not grand, the game world was a lone continent, and I knew in the back of my head that the quests I was doing were still variations of things I had done so many times before.

In comparison, SWTOR’s stories allow me unparalleled access into a universe that has a strong lore component and is loved by many. I visited parts of planets, earned my own starship, and felt the scale was much grander than that of Rift’s world.

SWTOR also has features that allow the story component to emphasize the paradox of playing alone without being alone. In Rift, the system allowed people to group together without necessarily interacting, so long as the rift gets sealed or the quest gets completed and everyone gets their loot. In SWTOR, I can group with people and share a story with them through the quest we’re on or the instance we’re in, and we can even discuss how we want to proceed in a moral decision as a group if we chose to do so as roleplayers (or we could just let the RNG decide through our rolls).  At the same time, there’s no penalty for not grouping other than missing out on easily outleveled content that provides another story among the many high-quality cutscenes and voiced content that’s already a part of the game.

As someone who tries to spread the word about respecting individual differences, I feel like I’ve been remiss in doing so. I know that, whether I did it in public or not, I mentally dismissed this game as a “WoW clone with voiceovers.”  or “Rift in Space with Cutscenes.” I’m happy to be proven wrong.

I will admit that SWTOR is still not perfect, and I will state for the record that I think it implements some things that I think WoW did as well in the past, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The thing is, if you take a page from a solid game like WoW or Rift and you add a feeling of purpose and a strong reason to pursue the actions you want to pursue, then you’re role playing all the same, and in this case, it makes me feel the dual nature of being a kid who loves RPGs and the 28-year old adult who likes company: SWTOR makes me feel happy to play and have purpose, and it makes me even more happy that I have like minded individuals to share the joy of the same stories with.

To end, perhaps something even more controversial needs to be said.

When I played SWTOR, I felt like I was playing a Single-Player RPG with Social MMO elements. Some people would take that as a justification that SWTOR is not an MMORPG. My take on it is simple: As long as the game has the RPG and the MMO in it, and the way it’s prepared is just right for an individual’s tastes, then it shouldn’t matter if it’s an MMORPG or something more akin to a Single Player RPG with MMO elements. They offer the same thing :fun. That said, I definitely had fun playing the SWTOR beta, and I look forward to trying out the Republic Trooper at launch.

Recently, I learned that I would need to find a new job in order to pay my bills and to fund the adventures I write about on this blog, as well as any site revamps I would have liked to have done.

I’m a bit miffed that, from a full-time job, my pay would be delegated to a per-article-when-needed status, but I can’t help that. The economy’s tough, and the project I was working on needed to get money to start properly. What I can change, however, is the feeling of helplessness I feel from being newly unemployed again (or perhaps underemployed).

I will be getting my final paycheck soon, and I want to make the most out of the time prior to Skyrim’s release by making sure I have enough money to purchase Skyrim without worries while engaging in games that interest me, writing about playing games, and finding a new job.

That said, I have readjusted my plan of action for the coming weeks.

I will temporarily halt my plans to have a custom website theme made for Games and Geekery.

I will take the yearlong cheaper hosting offer that was mentioned by @G33kg0dd3ss before

Prior to the release of 11/11/11, I will be job hunting, and I WILL find a job before Skyrim.

Instead of subscribing to EVE Online, I will resubscribe to World of Warcraft for one month. An explanation will follow below.

Upon finding a new job and receiving my first paycheck, I will subscribe to EVE Online and consider continuing a subscription to World of Warcraft. I may also play LOTRO during this time.

Now, I’m somewhat emotional at the moment, and the WoW thing is a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I decided to find something that allowed me to follow a storyline, however, themeparky, just so I could enjoy playing without stressing too much. EVE is a sandbox game where I have to make my own long-term decisions as to what to do or where to go, so there’s more pressure there to do well than in WoW. If I can find a casual guild on an Oceanic server, I’ll be set, and I won’t have to worry about enjoying myself for a month or so.

That said, I’m weighing my options regarding the job thing, but if you guys know of anyone looking for a video game news writer, I’m more than ready, willing, and able to apply.

Cheers!

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 received a legitimate from Blizzard today that I found to be very weird.

Blizzard is trying to win back customers with a seven-day pass to World of Warcraft for inactive subscriptions. There was just one problem: The name affixed to this email, which was connected to my World of Warcraft account, was “Marcia.”

Who is Marcia? I haven’t the foggiest.

What I can say is that I grew worried and checked my account immediately upon receiving the email. I found that it was still intact, with my authenticator keeping security tight, and that the email was legitimate since there was a notice below my account offering me seven free days to return to Azeroth.

That process took all of four minutes, and yet I still had no idea where this Marcia person came from.

To that end, I sent a ticket to Blizzard so that it could be investigated, and they got back to me in less than five hours. The result, according to the CS rep, was thus:

I reviewed your account, and it appears that your Battle.net account *is* under your actual name. The discrepancy is with your World of Warcraft account, which appears to be under Marcia’s name at one point. Since the email was automatically sent out, it just looks like a little mistake on our computer’s part.

Of course, I shot back a follow-up question asking if the name could be changed to my name just so everything’s properly represented, but I expect them to get back to me on Monday. Still, at least I now sort of think I know the name of the person who hacked my WoW account so many years ago (unless it’s an alias or someone else’s name, of course). Here’s to hoping none of my accounts ever get hacked again.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing - a "bad" game or simply not fun for a majority?

I was reading Beau Hindman’s latest Free for All column earlier and a thought occurred to me that I wanted to put in writing. In Hindman’s post, he was, in part, discussing how the free-to-play movement can be seen as the latest experiential phenomenon to take hold to the world of MMO gaming.

While free-to-play games have had a long-standing history in the realm of MMO titles available to the world, there’s been this stigma that a free-to-play MMO is is some sort of lesser being in the realm of gaming, that it is relegated to the realm of “inferior” products. We know now, through experiencing various MMO pricing models and hybrids of such models of payment, that high-quality and “less-than-high-quality” MMOs can be found in all points of the pricing spectrum.

Now, you may have noticed that I’ve placed quotation marks on some of the negative modifiers in the previous paragraph, and there’s a good reason for that. It all goes back to my personal belief that I, as an individual, have my own preferences and mindsets in life and I cannot truly say that one thing is absolutely abhorrent for everyone. Even the basic ideas of death and poverty or the basic emotions of joy and sadness are so wildly divergent in what they mean to people (such as in terms of what constitutes certain ideas, or what triggers an emotion).

As such, a corollary to my personal belief would be that the “bad” game does not exist. There are simply games that fewer people enjoy and games that a larger group of people enjoy. The sweeping generalizations that Syp recently talked about regarding gaming have to be taken out if we are to better understand why people can feel similar emotions when faced with completely different and possibly opposing stimuli.

For instance, let us take stock of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV and Trion Worlds’ Rift.

When I first installed Final Fantasy XIV on my computer, I played for four or five hours and pretty much left the game entirely because it did not capture my attention. Information on the game and its various activities was scarce, and if you were the type of gamer who honed his skills on World of Warcraft, the lack of question marks to indicate quest givers would drive you insane.

On the other hand, when I first heard of Rift and played the beta, I was also not thoroughly impressed, until launch grew closer and I realized it was essentially a highly polished and technically proficient game with an intriguing storyline. If you check my Rift articles here on Games and Geekery, you’ll notice I meander between thinking the game is “meh” and thinking the game is awesome for having tanks that can self-heal.

If you fast forward to last week though, you’ll notice I barely posted anything. The simple response to this is that Rift could not hold my attention and I was madly searching for a game to occupy my free time. On Saturday evening, I decided to play Final Fantasy XIV again on a whim. I created a new character, rolled on a new server, and looked for the old guild I was chatting with online about the game. I played FFXIV for, as it happens, 14  hours straight that day (a feat that only happened once previously when I went raiding in vanilla WoW).

This week, I was reading through other blogs, and Elementalistly’s entry on how he feels about Rift kind of got to me. It wasn’t that I was offended by his post. Quite the opposite really.

You see, I was beginning to feel the exact same thing he felt when it came to Rift, only I was experiencing what he was feeling with Final Fantasy XIV, the game Elementalistly and I once both found to be less than stellar.

When I compare the two games on a purely technical level, I find Rift to be a clear leader in terms of customer-centric accessibility and polish. Final Fantasy XIV is not perfect, and still remains free-to-play so long as Square Enix deems the game to be in a state that is below their standard of what a good game should be.

Despite this, however, I know that there are people like myself who currently feel about Final Fantasy XIV the same way that Elementalistly feels about Rift. We’re all having fun in the games our preferences and predilections lead us to, and it shouldn’t matter how much you play, how much you pay, or how off-beat your tastes are.

The important thing is that you are happy with what you’re doing, whether it’s when you’re playing an MMORPG, when you’re writing that fantasy novel masterpiece about the adventurous marmot with nunchaku, or when you’re enjoying Direct TV Specials in the comfort of your home.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdh7x3qc1EA]

Thanks to the Hunter of Hunter’s Insight for finding this clip on YouTube. I saw it two days ago and was hoping someone would come along and record it.

There is so much that can be said about this next bit of internet weirdness, but I suppose Syp sums up my reaction to the posted situation rather well with a facepalm.

In a nutshell, a WoW Player goes permanently deaf, and support from his guild deteriorates rather swiftly as the guild leader asks if the player can still use Vent. Player cannot use vent because he can’t hear, argument breaks out between him and GL, and player is kicked from the guild and put on ignore.

While I can understand why a rule exists for having a VOIP service as a prerequisite to raid, I would have thought there’d be outstanding exceptions to such a rule. It brings back the idea of the “spirit of the law” versus the “letter of the law.”

Following the letter of the law is all well and good, but if one doesn’t make concessions to the intended spirit to which a law was made, if there is no compassion for your fellow man in your judgment, then the law itself is as oppressive as a tyrant’s rule… or something to that effect.

I’m glad, at least, that the player has received words of support from people so that he doesn’t feel so down. Not everyone in WoW is a jerk, and this is certainly a good reminder of it.

December was a rather tumultuous month for me for a variety of reasons. In addition to school, I was looking for a new job and was constantly rebudgeting my money to compensate for a lack of willpower due to various personal events happening in my life.

For once, I gave a digital gift through Stargrace’s Secret Santa. I bought a copy of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and I’m hoping MMO Gamer Chick, the fine blogger who received my gift, enjoys the numerous hours of immeasurable terror it brings.

On the side of my personal purchases, I had an active sub to World of Warcraft. In addition to this, I bought Mount and Blade and its Warband “expansion.” I spent some money to alleviate some personal depression, but it ended up making me feel worse, so I actually went and purchased even more games to try and forget the guilt I was feeling, and my inability to say no to a good deal sort of killed my budget severely. MMO Gamer Chick, who happened to be my Secret Santa, also gave me her gift, which was a Steam copy of Borderlands, which I’ve played quite a bit.

As Christmas neared though, some unexpected gifts came in. People started giving me money, and I started saving it up, only to realize that I wanted even more games because of some rather intriguing deals and my own lack of Willpower. I purchased Just Cause 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Team Fortress 2 within the past two weeks. I also unsubbed to WoW, and replaced it with a sub to Darkfall in order to make an attempt to resurrect Blackrod LeDouche.

Finally, Longasc from Twitter enticed me to purchase Guild Wars with some healthy talking points on Twitter, and because of some luck on my end and some assistance from Ardua as well, Steam had the Trilogy on sale and the Eye of the North expansion was available on the NCSoft Store for 10 dollars. Total damage: a little over 35 dollars for the full package, once I finish installing the Guild Wars Trilogy.

Right now, I’m not sure if I’m really happy or not, but one thing I do know is that I’m loved, not only by my family, but also by the friends I have here at home and also those of you online who comment on my tweets or read my blog. To all of you, it means a lot.

To all of my friends online, I just want to say thank you, and Merry Christmas. Much love to all of you, and cheers!

It is unsettling to think that They Who Walk see themselves as our betters, that they think us all dead, or broken, or useless as rubble. What would perhaps unsettle them is this simple fact: we choose to let them believe such in order for us to observe and ruminate on the particulars of these people.

How can They Who Walk compare to our majesty, when they require sustenance to continue about their lives? How can these people think themselves our betters when the pain they know best is that of the body, whereas we know deeply the pain of the soul?

They fortify themselves with our bodies, infuse us with magic to further their dreams of power, and shoot us from guns in order to make men bleed. Where we come from, there is no need for such barbarity. We stand strong against the elements and have no need for petty things such as war, or famine, or strife. With us, there is only peace and the promise of greater knowledge with each passing day.

If They Who Walk were able to understand our thoughts they would know that, before any one of these men could call themselves cultured, we already carried on the development of the greatest culture of all time. OF ALL TIME! Our art is in the words of the soul, our knowledge is of worlds and stars, and our future is filled with immutable promise.

We are a culture of stone, and wings of death shall not deter us. We watch all the worlds, etching the tales of mankind into the Great Tablet from which all shall know in time. From dust we came, and to the dust shall we, each and every one of us, return.

~Excerpt from as etched by Kuugan Third-Name ~