Reason
Topic: Games

Lines formed for PS3. Somewhere, a criminal mind began to slowly churn, raw data dropping into the hopper, and the finished product rolling out of the cognitive assembly line like some cartoon idea forming.

It probably went kind of like this:

"Fact: there are people standing outside of stores, all waiting for the PS3 to be released.

Fact: they intend to purchase one.

Fact: the PS3 sale price predictions ranged from $400 to $650, so the people in line have to have at least that much money available, and possibly on them in cash.

Fact: criminals don't have a lot of integrity, or empathy for their fellow man. Many of them do, however, have guns."

Let's math this. 8 people in line times about $500 each, potentially, could net an armed robber/mugger $4,000 dollars, all at once and at the same place.

Did anyone really not see this coming? But I can't put all the blame on the criminals. Part of the blame has to go to the people crazy or dumb enough to stand in line out in the weather where anyone can walk up to them and rob them. Most of the blame does go to the criminal, but if you put your hand in an alligator's mouth, and it bites it off, that's pretty much going to reflect on your own thought process as well as the alligator's.

And what about Sony? Holy shit! Can't they make enough of these things to provide for the release date demand? Why can't they? They're freakin' Sony, for Gods' sakes! They own a tidy portion of the planet! I defy anyone out there that doesn't actively boycott Sony to wander around their house and not find a single item made by Sony. Sony claiming they can't keep up with the demand is like an avalanche apologizing for not having enough snow.

Have they been wanting something like this to happen? It's free publicity, right? And any publicity is good publicity, apparently. Now, I'm not a console gamer. I prefer my PC games. And when nVidia releases a new video card, they somehow manage to produce enough to meet demand. Nobody has to stand in line at the stores for a video card. But Sony, megacorporation, ubiquitous, pervading, more money than The Vatican, somehow cannot make enough consoles to meet demand. Who the Hells are they trying to kid?

First, they sell the consoles at an ungodly cost so that people in line will have lots of money on or available to them. Then they release very few of the consoles, in order to artificially increase demand to ensure they get their outrageous asking price. They may as well have handed guns to the thieves and pointed them at the potential customers, with instructions to "give 'em Hell."

I'm sure that if they were asked, they would say that they can't be held responsible for the illegal actions of a few criminal elements, and ultimately it's the criminals themselves that committed the crimes. And they're mostly correct.

Personally, I think the sharks are more likely to go to water that has been chummed; and Sony did a pretty good job of chumming the waters.

Video
Topic: Games
Un-freakin'-believable.

If you're wondering which game has better dancing between Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, then you need to watch this.

If you weren't wondering, you might think it's funny anyway.

Cleric
Topic: Games
I can't find my dice.

I think I know where they are, but it's ironic that I had to borrow my wife's dice, purchased a long while ago, but never used in a game. She had decided to observe.

It went about the way I expected it to go.

My character, starting as a cleric and prestiging into assassin, is a follower of a Chaotic Good deity. As a result, if anyone checks his alignment, he gives off an aura of Chaotic Good, even though that's not his own alignment. Clerics have built-in alignment masking. I think that's cool.

The people our party went to help were obstinate, stubborn, idiotic, and in every way fulfilled the stereotype of the back-hills farmer country bumpkins. Their problems were being caused by a pair of twins in the family that had gone bad. They resisted us, representatives of the all-powerful Church ruling their society in a theocratic world, in our attempts to investigate, to the point of anger at us when it was shown to them that their sons were the root of their problems.

There was nothing for it but to arrest everyone, take all from the land that could further our investigation, and then burn to the topsoil their crops, home, livestock, everything. This removed the blight from the land that was affecting them, showed them the error of their ways, and set them back on the path of Righteousness. In other words, we helped them in a way that only their church could help them. Our head priest was grateful to us, and applauded our efforts in assisting the farmer, who happened to be his brother, in such a thorough and attentive manner. No reward necessary; we're just doing our part for our faith.

It's the most fun I've ever had playing a Lawful Evil alignment, and certainly the most fun I've had playing a cleric.

Play
Topic: Games
I have a lot of EQ2 characters. The basic game gives you 5, but I have a subscription type that lets me have 10. And I have filled all 10 of those slots.

I like experimenting. I like trying different classes, and different crafting classes as well. I have a crafter for each kind of crafting, and 2 alchemists.* I have a cleric, and I have an assassin. I even have a cook.

What I don't have is a paladin, and I never will. Partly because I don't have any more slots available, but mostly because I can't stand the sanctimonious bastards.

Anyway.

Having 10 characters means I don't play all of them all the time. I have my favorites, but I use the others mainly for crafting purposes, or when I feel like I'm getting into a rut. As a result, I have no characters at level 60, even though I've been playing it since it was released. My highest level character is 40. I'm a "casual player," and feel no need to ruin my gaming experience by imposing artificial deadlines to reach a certain level by a certain time. I'm enjoying the game.

Eventually, I'll hit that high-end game. I'm nearly there with my assassin, the level 40. Meanwhile, I have enough stress at work, based on deadlines and time sensitive issues. I don't need that in my recreation as well.

And I've finally got the hang of the whole crafting thing. It's a lot more fun than I'd thought it would be, back in the beginning. I'm making nice things for my friends and family members now; all lower-end stuff, because none of my crafters have managed to get to higher levels as artisans. But stuff that's useful to their newer characters.

My point? You don't have to do a raid every other day and become a slave to your guild to enjoy the game. You don't have to search for the ultimate armor and skill combination, or rush to a level to have fun. It's a game. Relax. Enjoy it.

That, see, is why it's called "playing."

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*Alchemists make poison. My interests manifest themselves in odd places.

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Rules
Topic: Games
I used to play a game called Star Fleet Battles quite a bit. I really liked this game, and I still have all my stuff packed away somewhere. The rules were manifold, with a book thick as a dictionary. It didn't have to be, but it was in a 3 ring binder that was 3" thick. The reason for this? It changed.

Time would pass, and someone would decide, through tournaments and playtesting, that phasers did too much damage at a certain range. Or someone would find a way to abuse the mechanics in their favor. Once, just because there was a tournament to be held on April Fool's Day, a tiny rule was snuck in by a game developer, that said that on April 1 only, photon torpedoes were as accurate from across the board as they were from right next to the enemy ship; effectively making them deadly 3 seconds into the game, and making any ships without them sitting ducks to ships that had them. So far as I know, this rule is still active.

So, when the rules changed, rather than having a person draw lines in their game books as they scribbled out one rule and pasted in another, the game publisher* would publish and sell an addendum, reprinting the pages with changes on them. You'd take the old pages out of the binder, put the new pages in, and your rules would be tournament-ready!

Time passed, and games evolved. Trading card game rules change now and then, but their rules are so brief, they just have to put a tiny pamphlet in the expansion decks. That or they just print a whole new rule book for the expansion, with a note describing what changed.

Role playing games have gone through revisions, and they just sell a new rule book, marking it "Revised Edition." Dungeons and Dragons has had several incarnations, including the most recent Version 3 and Version 3.5 rules. Each time, a new book, 1 to 2 inches thick, was printed and sold for more than it needed to be sold, and people lined up to buy it.

Nowadays, they make strategy guides for computer role playing games. But the games change a lot... new content is added, old content is changed, and the strategy guides have to change too. Sometimes, an addendum is sold, which covers that expansion. Sometimes they just print a whole new guide, covering the entire game, with up-to-date information.

Recently, I was in a computer game store. I saw a binder that said, on the side, "City of Villains." It turns out that it was a strategy guide. But it sold the guide in a binder, with 3 holes punched in it, so you could just put any new addendum in the binder along with the old information, and make your changes like that... just like Star Fleet Battles did 20 years ago. There was a similar binder for World of Warcraft. Someone, somewhere, may have remembered the method, or perhaps they reinvented it. Regardless, I'm pleased to see the strategy guide people have made it possible to keep up with the ever-evolving games.

I may buy the guide for City of Villains. I hope they do the same thing for Everquest 2.

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*Amarillo Design Bureau

360
Topic: Games
A search on Ebay ranked from highest price to lowest price shows that the Xbox 360 Premium system is already selling for nearly 2 grand. It may be higher by the time you read this, but I'm writing this on Thanksgiving morning at 05:40, and 2 grand is the highest listed price. It's got no bids on it yet, mind you.

The highest actual bid for a system is $19,420.69 and I think it's more for the fact it comes with a T-shirt than anything else.

The lowest asking price I've seen only wants a penny. That's right; .01 of a dollar. It's a core system with no extra controllers or anything. Not even a T-shirt. It'll probably go for at least 600 dollars.

When I started this entry, there were 25,270 entries for Xbox 360. Granted, not all of them are for an actual system itself; some of them are for peripherals, games, or items tangentially associated with the console. But most of them are for the console itself. Narrowing the search to just the console comes up with 17,196 results.

Shipping is free on a lot of them. Some people, though, are going to not only profiteer the thing for all they can, they're also going to make the buyer pay for shipping. On the one hand, that seems pretty damned petty and cheap. On the other hand, if the person's willing to pay 2 grand for a game console that retails for a fifth of that, the extra thirty bucks for UPS Ground is hard to notice.

So let's see... it's got a proprietary operating system, self-contained non-modifiable hardware configuration, no ability to write to anything but a memory card, built-in interet capability, and will only interface with software written specifically for it. I approve of this. It has no keyboard, and no mouse, but I'm sure there's going to be an add-on for those peripherals. It's almost identical to another established home entertainment and productivity console.

Basically, it's a Mac. Give it iTunes, and you're there.

Sorry, Joe. I couldn't resist.

Eject
Topic: Games
Eject, Buckaroo! Eject!

I had almost believed that he was going to turn it around. I even posted an entry to that effect. I was optimistic and, dare I say, hopeful. Yea, though I walked in the valley of the shadow of scam artistry, I nearly believed it would be true.

Now, after auditing the books and digging around like a good CEO should, so he'd know what was going on with his company, Bachus has decided to protect his credibility and cut his losses as soon as possible. He's pursuing "other opportunities." That's corporate talk for "protecting himself" if he left, and "got canned" if it was involuntary on his part. Since he left, I'm pretty sure he decided that Infinium is a con game that got carried away with itself.

So is the Phantom vaporware again? Or should that be "is it still vaporware?" Or will the many people that Tim Roberts has dragged into his little "venture" tell him to pack sand, so that they can actually do something with the idea? If they do, will he sue them for his intellectual property, such that it is? Will the gaming community ever see the Phantom and its system?

These questions and more will be answered on our next stomach-churning episode of "The Phantom Saga." (Or, "From Here To Infinium." Take your pick.)

Turbine
Topic: Games
Now I remember.

I wanted to talk about Turbine Games.

They're located right here in Taxtopia (Massachusetts on the map, for some reason). They're responsible for Asheron's Call, a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG). I haven't played that one, but one of my co-workers keeps going back and forth from it to other games. He says he likes it. However, it has failed to garner the success and renown enjoyed by World of Warcraft or either incarnation of Ever Quest. They've taken a back seat to those other titles, and even if you're involved in MMOG's, you may have heard their name and thought "Who are they?"

That's going to change.

Because of this, and this.

Since anyone with any exposure to both Dungeons and Dragons and "Lord of the Rings" could tell that D&D was based on the Tolkien books, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that both would be introduced, eventually, as a MMOG. All the other MMOG's have a lot in common with the game and the books already. But that Turbine Games would get the license for both of them is kind of like if a little league football team played The Denver Broncos and managed a hat trick. It's like if the TV show "Saved By The Bell" had had better ratings and aired longer than M*A*S*H.

Okay, maybe not that extreme, but you get the idea.

The Lord of the Rings game is still in its early planning stages, but the D&D game is in public beta. Well, they call it public beta, but you apparently have to apply to get in. I have applied, but got no answer yet. You'll see some screen shots on their web site, though. The eye candy looks sweet.

It's supposed to adhere very strictly to the latest edition of the tabletop game, too (version 3.5). So if you can have a level 34 Halfling Shadow Dancer with a +5 Dagger of somethingorother blah blah blah, you can have one in the online game too. It looks like it's going to be great.

Unfortunately, Turbine won't be able to do anything about all the griefers that are attracted to MMOG's. You know, the people whose real lives are sad and pathetic, and they want to feel better by ruining someone else's good time. So it'll be kind of like a perpetual gaming convention, except that if the other players there don't shower, you won't know or care.

The platform is PC. Sorry Mac users. Although I respect you for sticking with your computing decision despite its lack of market support when compared to Windows platforms. No, really, I do. And hey... who could say anything bad about iTunes and iPods, right? And Everquest 2 has a Mac server now.*

I've been waiting for this one. I'm anxious about how they'll treat Lord of the Rings, but I'm willing to give that a fair shake too. We'll have to wait and see.

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*Yes, Joe, I'm rubbing it in. And since you introduced me to D&D by way of Welchkin, I think it's only fair.

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SOGA
Topic: Games
Everquest has been, many people believe, turning into World of Warcraft, little by little. It has borrowed mechanics from their competitor (just as their competitor has borrowed from EQ and EQ2). It has developed similar races too, but who hasn't? After all, how many different ways are there to say "Dark Elf?" How many different ways are there to be a dwarf or gnome?

And they have to play to the expectations of the audience, too. I'm reminded of the words of Alfred Molina, when describing his role as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2. He described the pressure of acting a known role to a very dedicated fan-base, who will destroy the actor for any perceived inconsistency with their perception of the character. "You can't do him gay with an Irish accent." he said.
And, in that same manner, you can't make an entire race of dark elves that likes flowers and puppy dogs.* The fan base isn't going to buy it, so they won't buy the game either. They have to have dark skin, pointy ears, and a serious mad-on for anything that walks in sunlight.

Somehow, in World of Warcraft, Night-Elves (as they're called) became good guys. They got away with it. They made a race of dark elves that like flowers and puppy dogs.** Who'd have thought it? And they gave them a very Anime appearance, too. The elongated ears, for one thing. The hair styles too.

EQ2 dark elves looked like elves with dark skin. Their ears looked like what you'd expect to see on Mr. Spock, and they were bad guys. They kept the expectation.

So, basically, despite their similar concepts, the dark elf races in World of Warcraft and EQ2 looked dissimilar, and were on opposite sides of the whole good/bad conflict. Yet both races were staggeringly popular. Sony Online Entertainment gave this some thought.

Enter SOGA. SOGA stands for "Sony Online - GAmania." Sony Online apparently partnered with Asian group Gamania in order to make the graphics of the game more popular in Asian cultures. The result was the Anime appearance of the new models, originally intended for those Asian markets. But they made them available for American markets too. They look very cool, I think.

The problem is that WoW created their Night Elf race models in a way that they were appealing to Asian markets as well. So there's a huge similarity.

It may not have been the intention, but EQ2 has made another step in the direction of WoW. And they'll be accused of it. Hells; it's the first thing I thought when I saw them. But here's the thing: you have far more customization with your character appearance in EQ2 than you do in WoW, despite the similarities. And they look damned good. Oh, there's a few things I don't like, but for the most part, it's a big improvement. But if you don't like the SOGA models, you can use the original EQ2 models anyway.

That way, you can keep track of which game you're playing.

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*Unless they like them baked for 2 hours at 350 degrees with a hint of lemon and garlic, and a few mushrooms.
**Unbaked.

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Infinium
Topic: Games
There's been a lot of controversy about Infinium's Phantom game console, starting with the article posted on HardOCP.com which cemented into the minds of gamers everywhere three very serious possibilities:
1- The phantom was vaporware (It's even called "phantom." Duh.)
2- Infinium's CEO was a crook and a liar.
3- Infinium Labs itself was a fictional company.

That's pretty much been my feelings. I haven't talked much about it, partly because I don't want to add to the free publicity Infinium gets from sheer controversy, and partly because I haven't taken it seriously. Also, I had my own credibility to think about.*

But now (well, a year and a half ago), Xbox technomage Kevin Bachus has joined Infinium, and is CEO, which lends credibility based on the fact he's actually been involved with the release of an actual product, and probably wants to maintain some kind of a reputation.

Furthermore, the Phantom console, which bears no resemblance now to its original appearance, has been demonstrated at an E3. They're talking about a ship date. They are offering specifics about service and pricing.

It is beginning to appear that they may actually have a product.

My take on this is that, perhaps, in the beginning, it was a scam of holy shit proportions. Tim Roberts has a less than savory business history, after all, and the information in the HardOCP article was not fiction. However, it's entirely possible that Roberts didn't want to go to jail. As a result, he may, just may, have begun to really try to develop a system, and a service. He needed help, he realized, and credibility. He called in a big gun. He called in Bachus. Bachus decided that, yes, it was a neat idea, and he'd start working on it, and now there's a future for The Phantom. Ironically, what may have been a huge scam at the expense of the entire gaming community, including the consumers, the financers, and the media, may turn into something great, even if only because Roberts doesn't like his cellmate telling him what nice eyes he has.

I hope it's not a lot of smoke and mirrors. I really do. To me, The Phantom as it is proposed is an excellent idea. It's a hybrid of the console and the PC. It has a keyboard, which I've always favored over a gamepad. It has a mouse. It plays PC games. It hooks up to a television. It downloads games. It's a small sized device, fitting easily on your entertainment system, with a keyboard on your lap and a mousing surface right underneath it. In short, it's a hardwired hardware system that can't be modified easily, and plays on your television.

It's not for me. I prefer the PC; why would I stop using my upgradeable desktop for a non-upgradeable system that does the same thing?

On the other hand, it's a great middle ground for a console gamer to take some steps toward PC gaming. I think console gamers will really appreciate this. Hells, it's even (reportedly) got ports for gamepads in case the user just has to have blisters on their thumbs. This could easily be the system that becomes the merge point for PC and console gamers. It has attractions for both gaming breeds, and seems to owe allegience to neither. True, the CEO is an Xbox developer. But that just means that he worked for Microsoft, who has been playing both fields since they released Xbox in the first place.

Will Phantom put the Unity back into Community? Only time will tell. I remain skeptical. Even if it is now a real system, there's still financing issues with which Infinium Labs is dealing. Between getting financial backing and payroll issue reporting discrepancies, they've got some rocky times ahead. Roberts has done a lot of damage to the company credibility, and it's harder to get backers when they think you're a crook. So even if the console is the best thing since Atari marketed the 2600, it may never see the light of day. That will only reinforce the belief that it's a scam, whether it is or not, and seriously damage the credibility of all involved with its development.

I find myself wanting this console to succeed. Not to get Roberts off the hook, or to protect the credibility of Bachus. But because it is a good idea, and it can work. The success of services such as iTunes shows that the market is ready to accept a pay-per-download service. The gaming community never has to leave their home to get the games onto the console. It's got the potential to be a great console system, and I really want it to be that, even if I never play it myself. And I probably wouldn't, because I have a computer. But thousands of others would. It could be the first system many new gamers try, allowing them to graduate to consoles, or PCs, or just simply play both.

This might be a weakness, though. Console gamers may shun it for its PC similarities, and PC gamers (like me) may shun it because they already have a system that does everything the Phantom reportedly does. Its unifying qualities may be its own downfall.

But if it makes it into just one living room, nobody goes to jail. Not for this, anyway. And, more importantly (although probably not more importantly for Roberts), it will have broken ground and done something unique in the gaming world. I hope it works out for them.

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*You gotta start some time.

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