Online Gaming Resources

I came across this site a couple months ago, and overall I like it: http://fabletop.com/  Simple, easy to use, great for quick pick-up games.  Biggest problem is there is very little you can do to customize the system to suit your tastes.  The system in place is good, not saying otherwise, but it makes playtesting my own system on the site rather difficult.  Also, though there were a small number of people running games when I first joined, the site seems to be languishing right now, possibly due to a lack of GMs.  If you already have a playerbase to bring to the site, not so much an issue, but it can be hard (as a player) to find a game when you're available to play.

So I also came across this site: http://roll20.net/   Not quite as simple and certainly not as quick and easy to set up a game, but the customization is much more universal.  Dice are customizable, and I can actually use my own system on the site.  Plus, the option of voice and video chat between players is a nice touch.  I played around with it a lot tonight, and I'll probably end up using it to run games soon.  It seems vastly more populated than Fabletop, though that's less of a concern for me there since I'll be playtesting my own system.

On a side note, I may need to tweak the bonuses for weapon skills.  It looks as though I may have been a wee bit generous.

City of Heroes: Freedom

Surprisingly, the in-game graphics are not far off from the box art.

City of Heroes is a MMOG based on the premise of comic book style superheroes, with adjoining City of Villains filling out the other side of the gallery, and the recent Going Rogue expansion portraying an alternate dimension with a few more shades of grey.

I've played this game off and on for a few years now. Thanks to my alt-itis, I don't tend to get very far with any single character, but this game almost encourages that by having one of the best, most variable character creators I've seen. From mixing and matching power sets to designing the appearance in much more detail than I've seen possible elsewhere, you really get the chance to personalize each character. Heck, there are times I've wanted to resubscribe just to fiddle around with the costume designer!

So I should probably be happy for the upcoming change to the game's business model, following in the footsteps of other games that have switched to the "Free to Play" format. Despite the company's reassurances, though, I still have my doubts.

Part of it, I suppose, stems from the sense of elitism one gets from being part of a game that requires a subscription to play. The $15 per month charge keeps the "riff-raff" out, as it were. But there's a not-so-snobby truth to this as well, because as anyone who's played both a subscription and a F2P (Free to Play) game knows, F2P is notorious for the number of griefers, spammers, goldbots, farmers, and otherwise irritating players not as prevalent in a subscription-based game.

This ties in, somewhat, with the points I made back here, too. The unofficial RP server on CoH is Virtue, and it already has a full load during peak hours. The people who have been playing there for years have already well-established their characters and supergroups (player-run guilds) on the server, but may end up being muscled out because the server is too full for more players once it's open to everyone. The company states that a new server is in the works that will be open only to Premium Subscription members (basically, the people who don't stop paying even once it's F2P), but why should the people who have already established their characters and supergroups be, essentially, required to start over somewhere else? Especially since they'll be competing with similarly-displaced players from the other servers as well, making it likely that this new server will be just as full and lagged as Virtue is now.

But, the costume creator will be free to play around with at last. That's gotta count for something, eh?

Softrope RPG Soundscape Producer

I happened on this site through Obsidian Portal a couple days ago, and just got around to playing with it today. So far I'm very happy with it. It allows a good deal of control over what sounds are playing and when, allowing randomized tracks and looping, as well as fade-outs (though no fade-ins, strangely). The biggest problem is that it's still in Beta, and there is no manual, but it's fairly user-friendly.

I get a kick out of putting stuff like this together, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to put together environmental sounds or soundtracks for their games, though it's definitely more intensive than hitting random play on a CD player. Also, it does not come prepackaged with sounds or music, so you'll have to hunt around your existing files or find some online.

And I love the origin of their name.

This post brought to you by the numbers 7 and 15

Absence is a bloody liar. A heart will grow fonder even in close proximity. But apparently while I wasn't looking, I got tagged for a blogger award, in the same post by Cap'n Kyrie that tagged Hyperbole and a Half. Allie is freaking awesome, and I love her humor and insight, and I feel terribly out-of-place getting any award she received.

Now, I'm flattered Cap'n, but I'm sorry. I just can't accept this award. Not because I feel I'm outclassed by the company it keeps, but because I just simply don't know fifteen other bloggers. That means I can't follow the rules of the award, and so I must refuse. That, and I'm pretty sure the ones I do know have already been tapped for it, so I'm actually preventing an infinite loop that could crash the internet... or not, since Demotivational Posters have already divided by zero.

But, I will go ahead and tell seven things about myself:
1) I do not have a PhD in Horribleness. I am working on a BA in Sociology, though. Working on semester two of my first year, through online courses, and I made the Dean's List last semester, so go me.

I do have a pretty good evil laugh, though.

2) I get really, really focused. If I'm working on something, I will try to hammer out each and every bit of minutiae I can long past the point at which it really matters, and react poorly when interrupted, even by the call of nature.
2a) I absolutely love and adore and cherish my wife, and am grateful for her patience with me.

3) My favorite X-Man is Nightcrawler, and has been since I was a little kid. I may not have a lot in common with him from a religious standpoint, but I've never been one to let religious differences stand in the way of a good friendship.

Blue or not, the man has skills and looks great in tights.

4) I used to be a Final Fantasy Fanatic. I own every Final Fantasy game released in the US, up to X-2, but I only ever finished one of them (X, so that I'd know where X-2 was picking up from). I'm convinced that this is because I didn't want the game to end, because that meant the fantasy was over. I didn't get into Final Fantasy XI Online because I didn't really have a disposable income and was, at least at that point, very against the idea of paying subscription fees for games, especially since I was already heavily involved in a free-to-play MUD. By the time FFXII came out, October 11 of 2006, I was busy starting a fantasy of my own, making arrangements for my wedding at the end of the month. I don't even know how many they've made since then. Take that, LegendaryFrog.

5) I am better at carpentry than the previous owners of my house, who apparently (according to a sign left in the shed when we moved in) ran a contracting business. I've learned more about power tools, floor supports, and fitting square boards into not-square rooms in the past few years than I ever did in high school. Guess I should have taken shop class after all. Maybe the vocational aptitude test I took back in elementary school was right when it said I was most suited to become an interior decorator.

6) I know more about computer troubleshooting than my best friend, who was trained as a CAD Technician by ITT. Seriously. I've debugged his computers multiple times, and even installed a new power supply for him because, while he may know how to use CAD programs, he has no clue when it comes to opening up the case of his tower. And here I thought I only really knew enough to get myself into trouble.

7) I play guitar. Acoustic, not electric, and not what I would consider well, but better than I can play the piano (which isn't that hard, since I know about 3 tunes on the piano and they're all from video games). I picked it up in high school, and have mostly used it as a means of enhancing my vocal performances with a few chords thrown in. Somewhat recently, though, my limited guitar skills landed me a position in an established group that travels the Renaissance Faire circuit (and other venues). Again, go me.

And that's my seven factoids. We now return you to your regularly scheduled, non-updating blog.

Experience Points and Level Ranks

In the MMORPG Dungeons and Dragons Online, the experience points required to level were altered (increased) from the 3rd edition rules that the game is based on. This was a good move for them, because an online game isn't limited to how often a group of people can gather around a single table, and the internet has already seen how singularly dedicated people can be to level-grind in games. If it used the original table, either the rewards given for quests would need to be seriously reduced, or people would face no real challenge in getting to the current maximum level of 20.

To give an idea of the difference between the two experience tables, the original 3rd Edition requires 190,000 experience to get to 20th level. DDO requires 1.9 million, ten times as much.

Even in an online setting, however, this amount of experience between levels can be daunting, so DDO breaks each level up into five ranks. Each rank you achieve (that isn't a level-up) gives you one enhancement point, to be used to purchase minor abilities and provide a way to further customize your character's skillset. I think that some of these abilities are pretty neat, and will probably be looking for a way to incorporate some of this into my game.

I don't think adopting their experience chart is the right path for me to go, however, since live games are few and far enough between already. I'm all for making each level gained feel like an epic accomplishment, but I think I'd end up discouraging people. So if I want to add this, I'd need to figure out some other way of distributing ranks or enhancement points.

Responsibility and Me

The past couple of years, I've noticed a trend in my behavior with games. It is not a new behavior for me, but is one that I'd suppressed for several years and now has a new reason behind it.

My first forays into online gaming were with MUDs. I searched through hundreds of them, trying to find one that seemed worthwhile, and eventually settled in a Roleplay-required place that wasn't too different from what I had become accustomed to, gameplay-wise. I created a vast number of characters but could never seem to stick to one for long. I kept coming up with concepts for characters, creating them, and then letting them falter and languish when my concept or idea failed to come to fruition quickly enough, or when I got too bored with level-grinding. After all, it's a game. Why should I spend too much time devoting actual work-like energy into it? Finally, I decided I was tired of the cycle, and made up my mind to create a "throw-away" character, one that I wouldn't care one way or another what happened with. No predestined goals, no background, no real concept, but I promised myself I'd make it to the maximum level. I even used a random name generator, so I wouldn't assign the character any hidden meaning or goals that way.

This "throw-away" still exists. I have been playing him for over eight years now. For over three of those years, he was a key governmental figure in one of the game's kingdoms. I gave my all to that game, that faux-government, to make the in-game environment feel as real as I could, to give the people who worked with me a real sense of connection and achievement. I held the position for longer than any other character, and even when real life took precedence with moving, finding and maintaining a job, and marriage, I did my best to remain accessible to those who depended on me in the game, albeit by messages rather than direct contact. Three days after my forced retirement, due to my "increased absence", everything I worked on was tossed out.

It's taken me years, but I'm finally coming to terms with some of my disappointment and bitterness (this site, which I came across recently, has helped). I've sought solace in other games, but I never seem to stay satisfied with one for very long. None have the depth I'd felt in the MUD, despite the beauty of graphics and the potential for RP, the latter of which I find to be severely lacking in most cases. And in all cases, I've intentionally avoided any duty or responsibility that anyone has tried to assign to me. After all, it's a game. Why should I bother putting too much energy into something that will, ultimately, have no effect on real life? Especially since any work I do will likely end up being undone once I'm no longer there to sustain it.

Games are (supposed to be) fun

As games of all sorts have advanced, they've also gotten more complicated. There's more to remember, more to do, different tactics or combinations to learn. Some recent video games I've seen have tried to revert to a simpler layout, or to make things more intuitive for the player, but that only makes things more complicated for the programmers, not to mention the fact that what's intuitive for one person may be completely foreign to someone else. And, of course, what's intuitive anymore? Now that we've all become so used to the non-intuitiveness of previous video games, have they replaced our instinctual coordination?

As they've advanced, there's also been a bigger push for video games that allow you to play with other people. But we've gone beyond adding a second controller, or taking turns to see who can get the better score. We have to all play at the same time, and be able to cooperate with (or attack) each other. But we don't always have access to a circle of friends that can come over and play with the console, now that we've bought the eight controller adapter and six extra controllers, not to mention the money to invest in all that hardware to begin with. So we've acquiesced to the fate of the friendless or isolated, and play online with strangers we've never met in the hopes they won't make us feel too inferior.

I have a wonderful new computer, thanks to my darling and beautiful wife. It was a birthday present this year. However, there's not much either of us can do about our internet connection, and if the baby knows what to do, he's not talking. We live just outside the city limits, so we don't have access to the cable or DSL the city provides. There's a DSL extension which would reach us, but it's full, and has been for a year with no expectation of vacancy. So we have two options: dial-up or satellite. I almost wonder if we should have stuck with dial-up. We're supposed to have 1MB/s download speeds, but we're lucky if we reach a tenth of that. Which makes online gaming rather lag-filled at best.

Despite this, we do our best to enjoy the games we play. Both my wife and I were avid game players before we got together, and that isn't likely to change. We've done City of Heroes/Villians, Neverwinter Nights, Age of Mythology/Empires, and a number of free MMO(RP?)Gs including Flyff, Runescape, and most recently Mabinogi.

It can be something of a hardship, at times, to play. I can see other characters perform skills at speeds that were engineered to astound, while I move in relative slow-motion. Others can shoot their arrows three times or more before I can manage one shot. Magical skills are another difficulty. The ice bolt skill, for example, allows you to shoot five bolts in rapid succession. I can maybe get in two shots before the enemy has reached and hit me. The healing skill, another rapid succession spell, I can heal once, maybe twice, before another character has expended all their charges. The majority of tactics which are in common practice with the playerbase are impossible for my wife and I to use, simply because our connection speed is too slow, something which we try to explain (with varying levels of success) to those we group with, so as not to have them think we're not trying to pull our own weight.

Sometimes, frustration over our plight builds, usually in me, and I become more stressed by playing the game, something which was intended as a means of releasing tension and having fun, than I would have by, say, reflooring our living room (not an arbitrary comparison, as I have very recent experience to draw from). Yet I continue to play. Am I drawn by the fun that I'm having despite the poor connection? By the fun that can potentially exist in the game, if things were going as they should? Or am I just a sucker for the shiny graphics?

Then I come across someone, in-game, who spends the better part of an hour complaining about how bored they are, and asking if someone can come revive their character, because they don't want to respawn back at the last town and have to walk all the way back. They ended up, eventually, taking a greater hit to their experience points by reviving on-the-spot, rather than having to make the trek across... two screen transitions? And they're still bored.

If you're bored with the game, it obviously isn't fulfilling its purpose, and you should stop playing. I might get frustrated, but at least I'm never bored.