The Game Dame

I haven’t officially discontinued my WoW account, but I’ll probably do it this week. I realized after looking at SpartanUI that the lovin’ feeling is completely gone. A few months ago, I would’ve absolutely LOVED this UI. It’s clean, stylish, and out of the way. But now I look at it and I think two things:

1. It looks a heck of a lot like Aion’s UI. Wouldn’t surprise me if some add-on developers got some under-the-table “help” from Blizzard to combat the competition.
2. It made my skin crawl to think about playing the game again: leveling, button-pushing, doing dailies, putting up with pugs…

I just got this really depressed feeling like I have let my friends down by having zero interest in playing the game.

It is interesting learning about Aion, but I’m not sure about when I’ll go back to playing that either. It’s also very button-pushy. As in: push button one, wait for cooldown, push button 2, wait again, take a potion if necessary, flash heal, repeat.

The game I’m enjoying most right now is Fallout 3. It’s very immersive. It’s like BioShock meets Oblivion. I’m totally geeking out on it!

In my previous post I told you about character creation in Aion and today I’ll continue describing my experiences with the Aion UI in terms of how  it compares to WoW. (Click any image for gigantor version.)

Graphics

The graphics are nothing short of spectacular. The regular gameplay graphics are on par (and in some cases better) than WoW’s cut scenes. I delight in exploring to find new stunning sights and new critters. Sometimes I come around a new corner and just gasp at how amazing the view is.

Home cities

The home cities – there is only one per faction – are stunning and large, along the size of Orgrimmar. However, they are not very intuitively structured, unlike Undercity or Ironforge, but the maps are labeled so you’re never lost.

NPCs

Having said that, the NPCs leave a bit to be desired. I really can’t tell one from the other because they’re not very memorable. Also, there is only one throughline story on each faction (up to level 14 where I am) that has a recurring, vaguely interesting character. There are no Thrall/Jaina storylines, no Tirion Fordringers or Sylvanas’s (Sylvanae?).

Animations & emotes

Lastly, the character animations are entertaining. If it starts to rain and your character is standing still for a minute or so, she breaks out an umbrella-sized leaf over her head. If it’s snowing, she puts her hands up to marvel at the snowfall.

You only have about 10 basic emotes to start with – laugh, dance, greet, etc. There are more complex ones that you can buy from vendors, like a birthday song or a marriage proposal!

User interface

You can see that the UI looks extremely familiar, no? It’s a little cleaner and more compact and you can put it on the bottom or the top of the screen.

1) Standard HP/MP bars with one addition: DP. I think this stands for Daeva Points. (At level 10 you get your wings and you become a Daeva.) These build over time as you kill creatures. For every 1000 DP you get a special attack. You can save up to 4 attacks (4000 DP) or use them as you go along. Unfortunately, they take a LONG time to build up and they reset when you log off. I’ve played for as much as 2 hours and only JUST gotten to 1000 DP.

2) You get lots of attack bars: 2 sets of 4 each.

3) Your options menu and a monitor of your faction influence. Since I haven’t gotten to any PvP yet, I am not entirely sure what this meter shows. All I know is that you don’t build rep over time like you do in WoW, it’s a dynamic bar that moves during combat. Or something like that.

4) This is your flight timer. At first you get 60 seconds of flight time, longer if you glide once in a while.

5) Mini map, of course. By default it does NOT point North (the top of the map is wherever you are headed and changes accordingly), however you can change the settings to keep North at the top.

6) Optional quest tracker. This is very intuitive to use and stays out of the way, unlike WoW’s built in quest tracker & some add-ons I’ve used.

Map

The coolest thing about the map is that it has a second option. You can display it normally by pressing M, or you can display it as a transparent HUD, like the picture to the right. Very useful when you need to see more of a general direction than the mini-map shows.

Surprise! Bet you forgot you had me in your feed reader, amirite?? Well, you know I can’t hide from you for very long. It burrrrns!!

I received Aion for my birthday from my most wonderful husband and I’ve been playing it instead of WoW since it launched. (Well, technically, since the day AFTER it launched because the servers were foccacta on launch day. Must have borrowed Blizzard’s IT folks or somethin’. HA!) So, for all my WoW buddies, I decided I’d give you an overview of the game for the next several posts. [Note: click any picture for a super-large version of it with tasty detail!]

Summary impression of Aion

Holy cow am I having a ton of fun playing this game! It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s also a stunning new world with new kinds of creatures that don’t rely on fantasy clichés (no elfs or goblins). The gameplay is fun and exploring is entrancing. If it falls short so far – and I’ve only played to a max level of 13 – it’s in the areas of story and tutorials. But even those shortcomings are not overly bothersome and later I’ll explain why. I have not played any PvP, since I’m still in the starter zones. Once I get there, I’ll let you know if my opinion changes.

Starting an Aion character

The game is pronounced “eye-on,” not “ay-on.” It loads from the main NCSoft launcher, which can also launch Guild Wars, CoH/V, or any other NCSoft online games. Here we get to the biggest beef I have with the game: after you click “Aion” on the launcher, it takes about 5 minutes to load. That sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s not. I click it and then go load up the laundry or scoop the litter box and when I come back it’s usually STILL loading. It takes a crazy long time.

Then you get to the server selection screen. No, your eyes do not deceive you: that’s the ENTIRE list of servers available. Worldwide. When it says “High” population, they are NOT kidding around. I definitely recommend getting on one of the new servers because lag is a definite factor in the starting zones.

Then you choose your faction. I’ve pasted together the screenies above so you can compare the two worlds, but normally you only see one world at a time. That’s because you can only have one faction on each server, just like on a WoW PvP server (in Aion, all servers are PvP). I also added the green labels to the pictures so you know which is which.

Now let me explain what you’re looking at. The lore says that Aion was a god (or energy beam or whatever) that existed like a pole through the axis of the world and protected it. Then, a horrible event occurred called – wait for it – the CATACLYSM (no joke!) and it split the world in half. Imagine breaking an egg in half and holding one half above the other so there’s a space in the middle but it still forms an egg shape. That’s Aion’s world: still rotating, but ripped in half. (Why the god Aion couldn’t stop the cataclysm or even still exists is unknown to me as yet.) The bottom hemisphere is known as Elysia; the top is Asmodae (AZZ-mo-day). Since the planet rotates skewed on its axis, even more so than Earth, the light from the sun comes in at an angle and is only able to light the bottom half, Elysia, leaving Asmodae in permanent darkness.

That’s not as bad as it sounds. Asmodae in practice is actually quite light for game play purposes. (It’s not like Bioshock or the caves of Oblivion or anything.) You’d probably never know it was the “dark” half of the world if they didn’t tell you that. Think of it as Netherstorm. On the other hand, Elysia is very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed during the day, along the order of Elwyn Forest.

Classes

You have only 1 of 4 classes to choose from at first: Warrior, Scout, Mage, and Priest. The selection screen is cool because it shows you what the class looks like in max level-capped gear, so you know just how awesome you will look. (You look pretty cool at lower levels too, actually.)

Those classes do exactly what you think they do from their names. At level 10, each class breaks into 2 subclasses and you can only choose one.

There is only one main healing class in the game (Cleric) and there is only one tanking class (Templar). There are no hybrids (Chanter is the possible exception). Only one class has pets (Spiritmaster) and they are more like ghouls/minions than hunter pets. Here are your WoW equivalents:

Customization

Now you can go completely nuts. Customization is way beyond anything you can do in WoW. There are literally so many options that I don’t think there could possibly be two characters exactly alike in Aion. Lemme show you…

Above is your basic screen. (Note that the “Basic” tab on the right side is selected.) There are about 50 hairstyles per gender. You can see the color combinations.

And now I’m gonna blow your mind…

If you click the “Advanced” tab, you get sliders to monkey with every single aspect of your appearance. EVERYTHING. You even get to choose the type of voice your character has!

Keep in mind that those screenshots are ONLY of the appearance choices. I didn’t even show you the character size options. You can be as huge as a Tauren (and fat or skinny) or tinier than the smallest Gnome you’ve ever seen. You can even make your head large or small, regardless of body size.

More in this series!

In the next post, I’ll talk about entering the world, the graphics, and the gameplay, including the UI, combat, flight (you can fly at level 10!), and other goodies. With screencasts! ZOMG!

So, I’ve been gone from WoW because my monitor died. I’m now in the process of researching a new one. My question to you, dear readers (if there are any left out there), is this:

If you were a fabulous but affordable WoW monitor, which one would you be?

PS: The image on the left is one I’m considering:
LG – 23″ Widescreen Flat-Panel LCD HD Monitor

Date of goodbye post: March 30, 2009.

Date of “official” last post: April 8, 2009.

Now, look at BRK’s Achievements listed in the armory. The date of his most recent achievement is April 18, 2009. Also note that Argent Aspiration and Dual Talent Specialization could only be accomplished after the release of 3.1 which came out on April 14, 2009.

I say all this not to be critical; BRK’s life is his own and he owes us nothing by way of explanation. (One obvious explanation is that he gave his account to someone else, like one of his kids or a friend.) However, if it really is BRK himself, I bring it up to ask this question:

How addictive really is WoW?

It’s one thing to become bored with the game or to discover a new hobby to replace it (another game, a different activity, etc.). In those cases, I think addiction to the specific game of WoW is not very difficult to overcome. There are plenty of cases of people transferring their addictions (e.g., smokers or drinkers become overeaters).

However, it’s a completely different ballgame to quit something addictive when you have nothing to replace it. Now, I’m not saying that BRK or anyone else who quits WoW to spend time with their families doesn’t really love their families. Of course they do. And 99.99999% of the time, they love their families WAY more than they love WoW or even their WoW friends. But desire is not enough to overcome addiction, is it? It’s like saying in a marriage “all you need is love” when we know that’s a huge oversimplification and marriage really takes a lot of work and effort on top of the love. Plenty of people desire to quit smoking, narcotics, and alcohol, but cannot do it by willpower alone. Sometimes they can never do it at all, even with help. 

So my big questions are:

1. 1. Is WoW an addiction like the ones used in examples above? 
2. 2. Is gaming itself an addiction? 
3. 3. If no, then why is it so hard to quit, no matter what’s at stake (e.g., your marriage, your job)? 
4. 4. If yes, then how do we address this as gamers (whether we are at risk or our friends are) and as a community of concerned humans?

The other day I told you about some of the games I’ve been playing behind WoW’s back. Today I’ll continue outing these games by talking about three more that I downloaded from Xbox Live Arcade.

Lost Cities

This is a strategic card game that involves color and number matching. It’s very colorful and the music is soothing. It’s the kind of game I could really use — something relaxing and pretty that doesn’t stress me out or use too much of my brain. Status: Need more demo play to see if it’s worth buying. If I did buy this game, I would also want to upgrade to Xbox Gold so I could play against folks on Xbox Live.

Cloning Clyde

What a goofy, silly platformer! Clyde’s notes to himself are hilarious and the sheer absurdity of the game is good fun. I like the gimmick of being able to clone Clyde to do some stunts that you can’t do with the current Clyde. (Kinda like Batman’s different suits in LEGO Batman.) Just silly enough to make me laugh but not too silly that I get lost trying to figure out the gameplay. Its playfulness reminds me of Toe Jam & Earl, back in the day. Status: Still playing the demo with an eye toward buying it.  

Braid

At first I loved the visual style of this puzzle/platformer, but after only a few levels, I started to get frustrated by the puzzle-building and jumping mechanics. Status: Did not purchase. Might fiddle around some more with demo but I don’t really see myself purchasing this game.

If you’re curious about when I play these games, join me at Raptr or follow me on Twitter.

Eep! Raptr let it slip that I’ve been cheating on WoW by always Tweeting the Xbox360 games I’ve been playing.

If you don’t follow me on Twitter then all this might sound even crazier than the normal gibberish you get on this blog. But if you do follow me (and you’re welcome to do so), Raptr will send little updates throughout the day on the games I happen to be playing. (My gamertags, etc. can be found on Raptr if you want to follow along.) Not just that, of course. You also get (now what would you pay!) all the other boring tweet-prattlings that I can fit in 140 characters or less if you subscribe to my Twitter feed. You’ve been warned!

Okay, anyway, since Christmas, I’ve been having a blast playing a plethora of new games, each of which Raptr dutifully reports on Twitter. (But despite trying all these new games, I’ll have you know I still managed to get Slig to 80 and Solareclipse to 70. Pah!) What follows is by no means a formal review of these games, but rather just my first impressions.

Puzzle Quest

The sparkly goodness of jewely matching games + light role-play. You can cast spells to get rid of jewels on the board. The storyline is pretty cheesy and somewhat hard to follow, but choosing puzzles based on a map and foes with different spells from yours is a pretty cool enhancement to a puzzle game. Status: Purchased. Level 14 Knight character.

LEGO Batman

I actually gave this gift to my husband for Christmas. He really enjoyed the LEGO Star Wars games. For some reason I am enjoying Batman a whole lot more than Star Wars. Maybe it’s because the storylines are new to me, there are a ton of different powers you can try out with the suits, or that you get to play the villains. I suspect it’s all three! Status: Finished Mission 1 for Hero and am halfway through Mission 1 for Villain. 

Portal

Hubby, in turn, gave me The Orange Box for Christmas. What a fun collection of games! I love the guide’s voiceover as she “helps” you through the Portal experiments and the cerebral nature of the game. This is a pure first-person game but for some reason it doesn’t induce my simulator sickness. Status: Level 11. 

Half-Life 2

Wow! What an immediately immersive game! I never played any of the Half-Life games but throwing your character into his predicament with no backstory, leaving you the player to not only survive but figure out what’s going on made the game feel incredibly realistic to me. (Obviously, Bioshock owes a lot to this game.) I experienced a wide range of emotions, particularly in the beginning of the game. There are only two down sides for me. One, I like games that at least give you an option to solve problems through stealth rather than adrenaline-fueled shoot-outs. Two, I can’t play the game for more than about 30 minutes at a time because I get sim-sickness. Status: I’m only in Route Kanal because of the short play periods.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue availing you of my non-WoW game adventures with Lost Cities, Cloning Clyde, and Braid…

So my current headset, which came bundled with my computer, stinks. It’s not the sound or anything, it’s the comfort. Because the thing hangs off my ears instead of wrapping over the top of my head, my ears hurt after about 15 minutes. The headband is too short to put on top of your head even if you wanted to wear it “incorrectly.” Trust me, I hate this thing.

Anyone have suggestions for a nice comfortable headset/mic combo that they use while playing WoW?

Goodness knows why, but Bre and Fim have invited me to be on the Twisted Nether podcast tonight. *GULP!* I hope I don’t screw up a good thing they’ve got going there. I’m so nervous — they have featured all my favorite bloggers on there and I am certainly not one of my favorite bloggers so I’m baffled by their choice. And then there’s the fact that I have a cold so I’m going to sound like a cross between Kathleen Turner and Kermit the Frog. So that should be, you know, good times. Please join us! They promised to ask me a lot of interesting questions which should, interestingly, make me sound more interesting than I am. So that should be fun! Y’all come out and play with us, ‘k?

http://flickr.com/photos/pebblechen/

It’s been one year since my first Game Dame post. I originally started this blog when I was studying Game Design.* I started writing with the silly idea that if I blogged good and hard for six months, I might be able to finagle some kind of press credential for the GDC in San Francisco. I got a new job shortly thereafter and it became clear that my employer wasn’t going to give me the time off to attend the conference. Thus, I never ended up going to the GDC.

In the meantime, I noticed that there was a dearth of shaman coverage in the WoW universe so I started writing more about playing an elemental shaman, even though I have never considered myself an expert at either WoW or shamaning. One thing has lead to another and I have had the pleasure of meeting some pretty spectacular people on this-here blogspace. I even got two jobs out of it: at WoW Insider and, most recently, at The Examiner. As an anniversary exercise I thought I would sum up where The Game Dame has gone this past year and where I think it’s going in the future.

Retrospective

• 85,213 total hits
• 13,033 average hits per month (last 4 months)
• Only one regret: a post I wrote about seeing David Cook at a Dodgers game.
• Top posts:
  • How I Won the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Contest
  • How to Prevent Motion Sickness from Halo 3

Future

Although I’ve really enjoyed writing this blog, there are certainly days where I think about quitting it. Sometimes blogging in general can get you down. Not so much here on my own blog, where I feel pretty safe and generally supported. But when I write for other blogs, sometimes I lose my faith in humanity. I think that the anonymity of the internet brings out the worst in 80% of people. It’s those times where you’ll see me vent here and in my head I threaten to quit blogging altogether. 

But not today. I still have a lot of things to say that can’t be said through my other writing venues. In fact, I’m thinking of writing a book about all of it.

And for those of you who patiently read this entire post, here’s my new picture.

——
*Which I am no longer studying due to financial realities.