It isn’t common lately that I am “pushed” to write. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I am often quite content just sitting around and wasting my time. Lately, however, the issue of story in games has been knocking at my door. So why don’t I go ahead and jump on in?

I finished Mass Effect a while back. I most definitely enjoyed the game. I was a fan of the story and the methods in which it was told. It was because I enjoyed the storytelling that one specific example of “bleugh” jumped out at me.
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A short while ago I posted something I had written a long while ago. It went like this: “people who think might makes right are pretty much assholes.”

Since then, I’ve had an opportunity to call myself an asshole for doing just that.

When it comes to PvP, I thought of myself as a “nice guy.” I don’t attack other players unprovoked. I thought this meant my philosophy was, “don’t be a dick.” But that explanation didn’t quite cover my actions. You see, while I am definitely not a dick “because I can,” I most certainly AM a dick to people who choose to be a dick to me first. If you kill me for no reason, I absolutely will retaliate. If you kill me while I’m doing an escort quest or fighting mobs or weakened for some reason, I will retaliate three three fold. I happen to be a class that is especially suited for world PvP retaliation, and I happen to be a HUGE dick when I think people deserve it.

I was participating in a “Fishing Contest” that takes place in the game world. Winning the contest nets you a neat fishing pole (which I already have) or a neat trinket (which I don’t need). I wasn’t there to win. I was there because I wanted one of the rare fish you could only catch during the contest. I happen to know that this contest is generally ruthless, so I tried to fish off the beaten path. It didn’t work. A particularly well-geared shaman found me and started attacking me. I attacked back. I came to realize he had pretty nearly infinite mana, and my mediocre dps and inability to interrupt his heals sufficiently meant that I wasn’t going to be able to kill him. That’s fine, I told myself, as I swam to my escape. As I swam back to that area, however, I found him standing by the fishing pool but not fishing. He was “spotting” for his friend, who came up a bit later. His friend was trying to win the contest, and he aimed to help his friend win by attacking any other person fishing they came across. Well, that didn’t sit right with me, so I decided to do something about it. I decided that this guy would not successfully help his friend win the fishing contest. How did I do that? By casting a stun spell on his friend (which interrupted his fishing) and then swimming away (preventing them from following and killing me). I did this over and over for the next 20 minutes until someone else won the contest and these two left.

They messed with the wrong druid, ya know?

I’m a self righteous dick. I decide that you won’t win the fishing contest and then make it so; not because I am skilled enough to take on two people who outgear me, but because my class just happens to have the skills that make it possible for me to pull it off.

I’ve thought about it quite a bit recently and I can’t justify it as anything other than that “asshole philosophy” I mentioned earlier. No, I don’t apply the philosophy to people who don’t “deserve it” in my opinion (well… unless they’re friends with someone who does deserve it I guess), but I sure take advantage of such a philosophy whenever I get the chance. It’s sort of the basic reason I have fun on a PvP server, I like the feeling of power that comes along with punishing someone who I think is a jerk. It’s probably very similar to the feeling of power those jerks get when killing someone who is low on life fighting 3 mobs.

Sure I consider myself better than them, but we run on the same juice. Philosophically I’d say my original “don’t be a dick” philosophy still stands, it just has the rather “Punisher-esque” caveat that if someone is a dick to me or my friends, then I will turn their philosophy against them. I’m like a gentle giant who turns into a douche when you are mean :D

Damn you, Mass Effect. You were *so* awesome, but then this blemish had to appear right on your face. No, you’re not ruined, no you’re not ugly suddenly, but dammit, why couldn’t you have pulled this off better?

If you care not to have part of the plot of Mass Effect spoiled, do not read further!

Krogans are an alien race in ME that were genetically neutered. It’s a pretty big deal, you know, neutering an entire species. There is a krogan in your party. I’m trying to play a “good” character at the moment (Paragon, that is). I landed on a planet where we find out the main villain has… discovered a cure for the Genophage! Omgz! Except, for some reason, my character and all the other characters seem to think that using this cure on the Krogan population of the galaxy would somehow *also* mean the Krogans it is being used on now must somehow be left alone and remain part of the main villain’s army. That is to say, the argument goes like this:

Krogan Crew Member: We should use this cure to save my people!
Me: We can’t do that, idiot! Then Saren would have a huge ARMY!
Krogan: Well, okay. =(

My character, and all other characters, seem to believe that these krogans and the cure for the species should be destroyed, because otherwise… well I’m not sure *what* they think will happen. But killing the Saren-aligned krogans and using the cure to cure the rest of the krogans, for some reason, isn’t an option. =/

Yesterday I found myself wondering what I should spend my time doing. Going over my choices I told myself that right now is a good time to be interested in the things I’m interested in. I’ve a number of things with which to pass my time and thus keep those pesky non-work hours from being wasted. Let’s begin.

I am about three-quarters through Minion by L.A. Banks. I decided to read at least the first book in this series after stumbling upon a lexicon for this specific vampire universe. Why did the lexicon draw me in? Well, I’ve decided I’m going to use that as a segue into the next topic, so I’ll hit it after I talk briefly on the book itself.

In brief: elite vampire hunting squad who has a “special” member with them who is going through a really specific and special sort of puberty (she’s not a vampire, but definitely not vanilla human either).

The book is interesting. I’ve been very into deep characters as of late and as such this book put me off from the get go, as all the characters (as of right now) come across as rather cliche. This may change, but I am not holding out any specific hope. I was also taken aback by the sudden drop into the action. Without being a writer I can’t properly explain it, but I felt like the writer or publisher wanted the book to start as if it were an action movie (the book proper, that is, not the 2-3 “prologue” chapters dealing with the past). I start the book and am immediately along with the team on a hunt, hearing all the jargon and curses that go along with it. I’m not sure why this shocked me, but I was honestly expecting (and I guess hoping) for the book to build into the action. Maybe it was just the action coming right at me, or maybe it was something specific about the action I didn’t like. After the initial scene I managed to get into the flow of the book a bit better and I now find reading it more enjoyable. We’ll see how I feel after finishing it, though.

So, how did a lexicon alone pull me in? While reading that lexicon I appreciated that things were mapped out in a logical manner. Instead of “a list of vampire rules,” this was, “a list of vampire rules with explanations.” As a consumer of lore, I really like the idea that something is mapped out in a logical manner before hand. You know, to prevent inconsistencies and stuff.

SEGUE!

So, when it comes to reading rules, I’ve been playing around in Mass Effect this weekend. One feature in the game is the “codex,” which is just a collection of “lore” that you can read at any time. You know how a quest journal lets you ignore what the NPC is saying to you until you actually want to DO the quest? A codex lets you ignore lore until you are actually curious. I decided to read some of it today (I wanted to “clear out” the entries that were still marked unread). Doing that I often felt that I could’ve been reading from internal design notes directly. This is from a designer’s perspective–not a players–so in my opinion this was a good thing. I imagined this codex as existing prior to a quest writer implementing content. The quest writer would read this codex to get a feel for things and then use that as a starting point. Like that quest writer, a player can leaf over his codex and get an idea for things to come. I don’t know why that specific aspect caught my attention so much, but it felt “right” to me exposing the “rules” that designers live by to players as well. Of course, I have no idea if those notes were something scribbled down by a designer when implementing lore, or if they were painstakingly crafted after the fact. But the fact that they felt original is what pleased me.

The rest of the game happens to be amazing. Among the stuff I don’t pay much attention to: the environments are beautiful (the colors of the ship interior really feel spot on, for instance), the emotions present in the NPCs when speaking–even in non-humans–is subtle and works, the music is quite pleasing, the voice acting is great on average, and with very few exceptions the UI is something you don’t notice.

And the things I do pay attention to? The story is good so far. Yes, a little reminiscent of KOTOR, yes a little cliche at times, but strong and enjoyable nonetheless. The combat is like KOTOR with 70% less “clunkyness,” melded with a nice dose of Halo, and it definitely appeals to my play style. And the gameplay beyond the combat is wonderfully varied (and well paced to boot). Land on a planet, ride around in your “warthog” and shoot some things, get on foot to inspect a canister, play a really short puzzle game where winning feels like a prize and losing feels like no big deal, drive around some more, run into a compound with your crew and lay waste to some baddies, spend 20 minutes in your spaceship just scanning planets from afar hoping to find rare minerals… and then sit back and eat a burger while you read through the codex. And all that stuff I just mentioned? Polished to a high sheen. It works, and it works well (assuming we ignore crashes–I’ve learned to save often).

As an aside, I picked up Mass Effect from Fry’s. I paid 39 bucks for it. Fry’s is smart. They mark big games off the first week they’re out. If you’re into video games, and know releases, and pick up games when they first come out, you win by going to Fry’s and getting it cheaper than anywhere else. And Fry’s wins by knowing that you know to go there.

So how else have I been wasting my time? I just finished up season 4 of The Wire. I said above that I loved deep characters. This is one of The Wire’s strong points: an entire cast of flawed characters. Even the most heinous “bad guys” (and the most heinous “good guys,” for that matter) end up having some redeeming quality that endears them to you on some level. It feels good to pull for someone to push themselves just over a line and better themselves–even if that person isn’t real. Actually, probably especially if that person isn’t real, since they’ve been crafted specifically to make you want to pull for them.

Anyway, good times in time wasting.

While playing the demo for Bookwork Adventures I one-shot final boss using a single word beefed up with extra damage tiles. That word was Execute. It was awesome.

Remember all the apocalyptic premonitions of those who decried RMT? The businesses that wanted to save face always commented that, no, it would never be that bad.

But there were also the businesses that wanted it to be that bad, because they saw the huge potential for profit. Well, they got it.

Goodness. Here I am working crunchy hours and what is happening on the outside? Team Fortress 2 beta released, there are pre-order deals for Hellgate: London that allow entrance into an early beta there, and I’m aggressively awaiting a computer I ordered to be shipped out. This convergence of time-wasting activities (”aggressively waiting” for a computer is most certainly a huge time sink) is unfortunate for me, he who is stuck at work.

On the plus side, I’ve blogged for longer than my previous blog.