yeah it's eric's blog

Starcraft, the name conjures memories of my teenage years. I remember everyday coming back from school I’d jump on and have a ‘quick’ game of Starcraft. This ‘quick’ game then turned to hours. And this was all back in the day, using 56k to connect do battle.net and play games often with lag – but I didn’t care – because the game was so immersive. I loved that game, it was really something beyond it’s years, and many people agreed that it was very worthy of being game of the year, perhaps RTS game of the decade.  It dethroned Westwood/EA Games (or whatever they are called now) and soon Blizzard was synonymous with RTS – amongst the titles of  Warcraft. While games came and left through my life, I would have spent a good chunk of 7 or 8 years playing Starcraft on Battle.net – I shudder to think what else I could have done during this time.

So it’s no surprise that I would jump straight onto the new game as soon as I could. Starcraft 2. It’s good. I’ve mostly jumped onto the online mode and played a few games with friends – a system which seems a little backwards with this new iteration of Battle.net. Gone are the days of IRC styled channels in which you would join to talk and meet people, a chaotic lobby filled with people coming in a out. Instead the interface requires you to actually know people to join them to your friends contacts, which means either allowing facebook integration so you can add friends, or giving out your username/number which is generated when you create your character. After a match, you’re unable to /w a random player you where with, or reorganise a game with them. It’s a very different model and I’m not sure I like this so much, but then again this could be one of the counters in place to stop boosting. I still miss the irc-esque system, I had this hangout channel; #legit and spent my time there from the Diablo days and always played with the same circle of people whom of which I don’t know of anymore – the curse of aging and moving on with life.

Everything else is perfect.  The gameplay, the graphics, the single player, the matchmaking (which is probably the best feature) and the listing of games (no longer do UMS maps have a million map list as all games are instanced from one map name and only the map name appears on your list). This is probably going to be game of the year, not only because of the hype but it really is a polished game with the Blizzard seal of perfection. What’s even more surprising is that once I’ve connected my Battle.net account with my Facebook, it will detect other people with the game to add them to friends – I’m finding that a lot of my friends are super-secretive about their Starcraft playing.

The game is only 69 dollars, and you will definitely get 69 dollars out of it. I think I’ll be playing this years after release especially awaiting the two next expansions which will add new strategic and game-play elements.

I’ve started a new druid.

The expansion Cataclysm announced that some of the old world of Azeroth were going to change, Thousand Needles was going to flood, the Barrens split in half, and chaos all around.

The first time I played WOW was when it came out and still quite young and fledging MMO. November 2004. At the time I didn’t really follow anything about WOW and my mate from university was talking about this game. I had not actually played anything MMO or subscription based – the idea of paying per month was so foreign but now it’s the norm.

I’m going to write a little bit about my history of WOW, a love hate relationship.

So going back to November 2004, me and two mates, I will call them nm54 and iop (they’ll know who they are) decided to give it a go. I’m pretty open minded to try new things, and I love RPGS so why not. We had to order it from the States, all copies in Australia were gone. So we waited 2 days to have them delivered expressed, and quickly got together and decided what we wanted to play, who we wanted to play, it was all very very new and exciting. At the end I decided to go NE Hunter, nm54 went… actually I forgot what he went but I think it was a Mage, and iop went Human Paladin. Our server was Dragonmaw. I remember the start well, because we all wanted to start off together so I watched iop take his human paladin from Elywin Forest(remember at the time we had NO knowledge of the game, we were following a dodgy guide online called thottbot), down through to the mountains to get to the Wetlands (where I watched him constantly die to dragonmaw orcs) until he got to Menethil Harbour… the long way, falling down through mountains. I think in the end there was at least 15 deaths. Anyways, we started off together but I got addicted hard. I ended up joining this guild called NeX, and meeting a couple who were playing together from NZ (dwarf paladin named silverthorn and  and NE warrior named Mephit – whose profiles I can’t find on armory).  I ended up abandoning my real life friends for this online friends. I was playing maybe 12 or more hours a day. I stopped going to work, and broke up with my girlfriend at the time. This thing had a hold over me, and it was really an experience that I had never seen or had before. This was a game with so many addictive qualities. Remembering that this game was very new, I hit the level cap 60 in about 2 weeks. I was among the first Hunters on the Alliance side and one of the pioneering players in beast mastery (and beat probably our best paladin at the time Rainz 1v1) – paladins were double 3 time overpowered in terms of survivability against other classes at the time, but damage was very poor.  Hunters were great for damage, but had little survivability, so I went beast mastery to get the healing benefit from my pet attacks. Long story short, I mastered the game both in PvE and PvP at the time. There wasn’t actually much end content, which was disheartening, because the journey to the end was the so much fun but the destination wasn’t.

The world back then was a harsh place. Money was very precious, the economy not inflated like it is now. Mounts were something you earned at level 40 for 100 G, which I paid off at level 50. There was no PvP system, you just killed the other faction because it was ingrained that they were your enemy. Actually most of the fun times of PvP were in this era – no honour system, no BG or world PvP. We just raided Crossroads because those horde bastards raided Astranaar. It felt more lore than ever. That was the world we lived in. There was less flight paths, and no content in most areas; memory serves me that Dustwallow Marsh, Winterspring, Swamp of Sorrows, Blasted Lands, Deadwind Pass, Azshara basically had nothing (except for gold farmers in Azshara). Silithus wasn’t even born yet. To find a Thorium vein was a cause of celebration. The added dungeon Maraudon was pretty much the most exciting thing in life, ever. In short; the game was not designed for casual players at all.

End game was boring. After doing Scholo and Strath, UBRS and LBRS, and getting the Dungeon Set 1 then getting them 2 was the most epic thing ever. Purple items? Only GODLY people had them. So I left wow at this point to get my shit back together, I think maybe it was Feb or March 2005, going back to uni, getting another job. Life had to resume. In fact, I remember deleting Azufre because I was quite unhappy with the Hunters in the game (they were very good at soloing, I did about 40 levels straight without really instance running or group quests, and soloed many elite level quests). And defected to the Horde. I think I came back for a month because another mate from uni was starting up, so I decided to play with him, but that feeling wasn’t the same.

So I took a break from WoW. I think it was maybe… a 6 month or so break. October 2005 was when we (nm54, iop and I) got back into WoW. What caused this event? New Oceanic Servers. At the time I think I had some shitty part time job, I don’t remember, and uni was 2nd year so still awesomely easy, so getting back into old habits was easy. I waited at home, to the MINUTE that the server was open. Frostmourne it was called. One of the first Oceanic PvP servers. My character was Scroats, UD warrior. nm54 was UD priest (and to this day is still being played – survived the longest of all of us) and iop was a mage. iop’s brother also played and he was an UD rogue. We formed a guild called “The Third Arm of Justice”. It was probably my golden age of WoW. We were smashing the server, one of the earliest guilds with 330 strong members. We were leveling fast. It was my first time as guild leader, and things were running smoothly. That was, until we were hitting 60′s. Honour system and BG were introduced by then. It was the old honour system of ranks. So I was interested in PvP content and was always playing BG, and other members were power leveling to get to end game PvE content. And this is where it all broke apart, the guild was becoming unmanageable and internal conflicts started to work against having so many members. We did have a strong hardcore member base, but our casual members were falling way behind, more than 30 levels behind and when they form the majority of the guild, it is problematic for the PvE side. After many arguments online, and in-real life, I called it a day. I gave leadership to someone else (Spazzy if I remember), and the PvE guys (I remember the main cause of the PvE split was Ironbark, iop and his brother) went to do something else. I gave my account to a friend because he didn’t want to pay for a copy of the game and I wasn’t really interested in going back to guild drama – my love of WoW diminished soon after the Golden Age. Things got so intense, that I’ve actually lost contact with iop in real life. Yeah, WoW… it’s serious business.

I have trouble remembering anything after the Golden Age. I know these events happened. The guy I gave my account to, he died in a crash car. He was a total dickbag and possibly deserved what he got, he was driving 220 down a one way street and crashed into a pole – didn’t hurt anyone but himself). I returned to my account to find that all my guys were deleted. So I had to start again. There’s a small gap here I don’t remember, but the next stage I remember was TBC release.

The expansion released in Jan 2007 and I started a BE Mage (Rzionr on Dreamaul). It wasn’t too bad, leveling up to level cap 70. Did some end game content, I think at the time Karazhan was all the rage. But again, WoW got a bit boring and I was coming and going when I felt like it. Not sure what nm54 did, I think he was coming and going as well, but I do know he still retains his character from the golden age.

The next expansion released in Nov 2008. I started a Tauren DK, and it was cool. The new phasing technology was pretty cool. The game got very casual friendly, the world was changing with not only new areas and dungeons, but ideas. BG and World PVP were implemented alongside Arena for those commited, PvE became very serious business. nm54 stayed pretty committed to his character and played it pretty much through during TFT campaign, whereas I just came back to see new content and play new things until I got bored. iop? no idea if he saw TBC or TFT.

So where am I now? I went back to Alliance as of 25th April 2010. Why? Well, I’m keen to see the Gnomeregan events and the take back of the city. I want to be a part of that. And I wanted to see the old Alliance world before Azeroth got destroyed by Cataclysm. And it’s quite cathartic to do the same quests I did in 2004, and getting used to the idea that I’m no longer horde. What did I miss most? Ironforge. Best city in the game. Level 31 NE Druid.

Here’s a short list of things I remember most in the 6 years I’ve been playing WoW:

1. nm54, iop and I started in Auberdine together. we had a LAN ‘party’ together when we first got the game to play it together. (NE hunter on Dragonmaw)
2. raiding Crossroads and defending Astranaar constantly. For NO reason.
3. doing Maraudon for the first time with NeX, but then I felt really guilt for leaving them halfway because I had to go somewhere (so I lied about it and said I had to see a friend in hospital, lol)
4. finding my first crimson whelp in Badlands (which is always a contest between nm54 and I for every character we make – I don’t know why, it’s just tradition)
5. discovering Winterspring for the first time and finding no one there at all on my server. It felt like I was the only person in the game and discovered something new
6. dueling with Rainz and camping horde with him in Ungoro Crater
7. deleting Azufre, and closing my chapter with Alliance
8. leveling with Dreggen (Tauren Shaman on Dragonmaw) for maybe a month? Not long
9. start of oceanic server – running to get a guild charter, than going around early game areas like a preacher
10. doing a LOT of battlegrounds with scroats (UD Warrior on Frostmourne) and nm54 by my side healing
11. farming stupid amount of rep with thorium brotherhood in searing gorge? I remember just being stuck underground in lava areas for hours killing spiny dinosaur guys
12. guild drama leading to me to disband
13. return with rzionr (BE Mage) discovering outlands – pretty uneventful except for the Sunstrider Isles event and doing dailies for like a month to unlock new stuff
14. return with breadknife  (Tauren DK) discovering outlands again (different path) to finally see it all, and doing Northend
15. return with hyggeligt (Ne Druid) and going back to my alliance roots, reopening that closed chapter.

Heavy Rain is a remarkable piece of entertainment. It is of the video game genre but plays more like an interactive movie, and this is the direction where I see games are heading to. The net profits of video gamers are higher than film, production costs cheaper; there is no need to paid exorbitant amounts of money for actors unless you really feel the need to have a famous voice actor, motion capture or live sequences featuring said actors.

In a previous articles I mentioned that because of the ability of this medium to allow for player interaction, there’s no longer authoritative control on the characters. The way characters are built in a film is to the vision that the writer or director has, whereas in the video game players ARE the characters can able to form decisions that is outside of the vision of the writer/director. This is a bit of a mind fuck to get around, an example would better suit the explanation…

<Spoiler> In Heavy Rain, you play as the role of Ethan Mars, whose son has been kidnapped and held hostage in an unknown location. The written character Ethan Mars is one whose only purpose is to save his son, in which he is put to Trials. Without giving too much away, in each trial to have the option of backing out and being a coward. If this was a film, Ethan Mars would never give up, and do every trial. In a video game setting, it is the player who has the ability to choose whether to go on and do the task or give up.

Now, I played the game in the direction that the writer wanted to. I did the trials. Of course some decisions were very hard to make (especially trial 3 and 4). I feel though, that the ability to choose decisions and the way that the options were presented further enhanced my connection and emotional feelings to the character. It is because of this connection I felt more rewarded as I progressed through the game. The last time where I felt this emotionally close to a character in video game was losing Aeris/Aerith in Final Fantasy VII.

<Spoilers> Back to Heavy Rain, another instance of possible out of character event is Ethan Mar’s romantic connection to Madison (another character in the game which you also get to play). Some would argue that Ethan Mar’s only focus in the game is to save his son, and he would never waste time being romantically linked and having sex with Madison and thus wasting time. However, I felt that because I played Ethan and Madison for so long in the game, I created my own tension between the two characters and when the option of falling in love was there, it was a necessary action. This decision was based on my performance and emotional connection in the game, and thus rewarded.

Heavy Rain will pave the way for more games of this calibre to have the opportunity to be produced. Action/Shooter games will become more than just Action/Shooter games, developers will need to develop the characters, and create stronger emotional attachment and give players a sense of happiness, or loss depending on the outcome. Games like Gears of War will always be popular for the casual, shooter fanatic fans, but I predict that there will be an increase in games with strong character development, storyline and cause/effect scenarios.

Whilst the ending of Heavy Rain wasn’t as good as I had hoped, it’s certainly a step into a brighter future of gaming.