So much for my plan to also write a post about WikiLeaks this week. It’s been too long since the last and I’d obviously need to write a very different kind of post, but also go through a lot of information to pick the most relevant few things and build it around them, and that’s work that doesn’t seem like it’s going to get done by itself. The longer I wait, the less likely it is that I’ll ever get back to writing about that, but truth be told it’s already starting to be unlikely. So I’ll delay it once again. Perhaps it will happen next week, but I’m not going to plan for it again because I know I probably won’t do it anyway.
At least I did manage to write the planned gaming post. Incidentally, it was probably the fastest serious non-personal post I ever wrote, only taking me about one hour instead of the usual two or three. Because of that, I was thinking to make today’s post about gaming as well. More specifically, I was thinking to write a second post on solitary character classes in MMORPGs, detailing my proposed system more since the issue is currently once again at the forefront of my mind. But I realized that I’d have quite a lot of work to do if I’m to go into the details of something like that, not to mention that I’d first need a clear starting point and don’t quite have one at this very moment, so it was unlikely to be something I could do even marginally well while rushing to finish on the last evening of the week.
As a result, you get this post, which is basically just another typical one thrown here on Sunday just because I want to keep posting two things every week. But, while I’m at it, let me also tell you that I did install Perfect World International again as well once Genesis was launched and, nearly two and a half years after I stopped playing, I still find the early parts of it to be quite entertaining and engaging. Unfortunately, I also still notice some of the issues I kept pestering the developers during the original open beta about, meaning that nobody cared to do anything about them and therefore that any input given about Forsaken World is likely to fall on equally deaf ears.
Either way, I’ll probably poke around Perfect World International for a while longer, at least to get some decent screenshots for my submission of Genesis on MobyGames, to verify something I kept wondering about last time and also to at least partially check to see if my Perfect World International Information Dump post is still accurate. But I’ll need to do it while starting over on Forsaken World, since they have changed their plans yet again and moved the open beta from March 23rd to March 9th, so the closed beta characters will get wiped in a few days and I’ll have some testing to do all over again. Which I’m actually quite content with, because I haven’t been advancing for the past few days anyway because of the rotten gameplay mechanics that this game has, which make it practically impossible to advance past level 25 on your own, so at least I’ll have something to play for a few more days, until I’ll hit that limit again and most likely give up for good.
If you look at the way characters look in fantasy games, and particularly in MMO games, you immediately notice that their gear seems designed to do pretty much anything but protect them! Now you may say that’s because it’s fantasy and anything goes, but I’m going to disagree. That excuse may work for fantasy art, where you have separate works that are mainly supposed to simply look good, but a game should make some sort of sense, even if it is fantasy, and as a result a character’s armor should look like it could actually protect them from blows instead of either just looking cool while getting in the way or, if the character is female, exposing certain physical assets in the best way possible!
The part about the female characters would spawn a whole discussion on its own when they are treated in that manner, as nothing more than sexual objects for straight male players to drool over, but I’ll probably leave it to others who are more directly affected by it to press the issue more thoroughly. What I will say right now, however, is that I do sometimes want to make a female character but the result tends to just be frustrating. Yes, I probably like some nice virtual boobs as much as the next guy, but on the one hand there’s something to be said about their size and general aspect and on the other, getting back to the purpose of this post, when I go into battle I want my character to actually look like a warrior who can take a few hits, not a camp follower wondering which side would it pay more to spread her legs for once it’s all over!
What game graphic designers need to understand is that a good game makes you at least really care about the characters you control, if not even identify yourself with them. And that goes even more for MMO games, because in those a character should be a representation of the player behind it. And I don’t think any of that is going to happen if said character looks like either a pompous fop or a prostitute or courtesan, even if a very classy one. Now of course gear should, if possible, look good as well, but it must look useful first and then, as the character obtains better and better items, the design should improve to incorporate elements meant to make it increasingly appealing, but only as long as it manages to still look useful even with them. Plus that I certainly think female characters can look good without being dressed as harlots as well…
When you have either characters that start by needing to prove themselves somehow or situations where all those who could possibly fight are quickly summoned to face a sudden and serious threat, which are the most common starting points of such games, the gear should reflect that. Level one armor should probably look more like what you saw Egyptians use when shit hit the fan in Tahrir Square, when they wore pots, garbage cans, plastic bottles wrapped in sticky tape or cardboard boxes stuffed with balls of paper as helmets, and pot lids or parts of car bodies as shields. Or like something I recall seeing in a comic some years ago, portraying just such a level one character with a barrel, with the top and bottom cut off and holes for the arms on the sides, acting as torso armor, some cans slid on the arms and a chamberpot worn as a helmet. And, of course, level one weapons should be equally makeshift and rudimentary.
Then, once the characters have proved their worth or the immediate threat is averted, as the case may be, and said characters are given some better gear to help them start taking the fight to the enemy, said gear should look like proper military gear but still be purely functional. You should see something that properly covers your body and gives you some degree of confidence that if you actually went into a battle wearing it you wouldn’t drop dead after the first hit. You shouldn’t see decorations, appendages on armor that would just get in the way or fancy robes that would just trip you up. And you most certainly shouldn’t see “armor” that exposes as much of the chest, and perhaps also abdomen, as possible! Yet those things are usually just what you do see in such games…
Once you get past that point and start making your way through the world, becoming stronger and stronger and performing glorious deed after glorious deed, the gear you’ll be able to find and equip should reflect that as well. It should stay functional, the armor clearly providing good protection for every part of your body and the weapons clearly being deadly but also reasonably easy, or at least possible, to wield, but purely aesthetic design elements should start being incorporated as well. Start with some nicer lines, some pretty colors, an emblem here or a pattern there, and then focus on improving this aspect more and more, ending up with some pieces that look utterly stunning but at the same time appear to remain very useful and efficient.
With this approach, players will actually notice the progression of their characters and it will all make sense. They will look like warriors, or whatever is appropriate for their chosen class, from the first moment to the last, but their deeds and their strength will be reflected in their appearance as time passes, with the stark contrast between their humble beginnings and their glorious apotheosis serving to enhance the feeling of accomplishment even more. They will look like the heroes who truly changed or, more often, saved the world instead of like the paramours or courtesans fighting for said heroes’ attention, and I’m applying this to male characters as well, though in a different way. It will create one more goal to work towards while at the same time making the whole work together even better. And, of course, going back to the other angle a part of this issue can be approached from, this should also make for plausible female characters the sight of which won’t offend a significant part of the women who could perhaps want to play them…
I’m currently taking a break from trying to get my vampire to level 20 as well, after doing so with my marksman yesterday, so I’ll take the opportunity and post this, if only because I need to post a second post this week and it’s Sunday evening already. I may later write a more detailed post about the game and, depending on how long I’ll keep playing it, a review as well, but don’t expect any of that before April because the open beta is only scheduled to hit towards the end of March and they still have plenty of work to do. Or at least I hope they’ll be doing that work and not leaving things as they are…
The plan for next week calls for getting my wizard to 20 as well and then struggling to get both of them to 30, leaving marksman to reach that point last, seeing as he’s on the PvP server and the new player protection expires at level 30, so I’ll abandon him at that point since I only made him there to see what those who play there are discussing and how they’re behaving. The rule is the same: Play more or less normally with the first character, then use the second to more thoroughly check out the issues noticed with the first, then experiment more unusual things with the third.
Otherwise, as far as the blog is concerned, I have a gaming post in mind that I hope I’ll manage to write next week. Forsaken World made it stare me right in the face, but it’s certainly a generic issue, not something mainly related to it. And I really should write another post about WikiLeaks as well, because that topic really doesn’t deserve being dropped like this. It won’t be along the lines of the previous series, but it should at least point out a few of the more important recent developments…
After the exact start time of closed beta stage four (or the open closed beta, as people are calling it, since everyone who has signed up for the beta can now play) of Forsaken World was only announced on the day it was supposed to start, there was a further delay of over four hours, apparently caused by a power failure at the wrongest possible time, according to them. As a result, the servers were finally up and running around 5:15 AM my time and I waited that long just to create my planned three characters, run around for a few minutes with each and take a few screenshots before finally going to bed around 6:30.
That wasn’t last night, but the one before. As a result, I then spent a part of yesterday taking my marksman and vampire for a good spin and noticing bugs, issues and potential improvements in order to post them. Then took my mage for a spin last night as well, continuing after I woke up today and posting some more issues. Really don’t like this part about being asked to post what you find on the forum instead of sending it to the support people, but I’ll try…
Still, so far I’m not impressed. Perfect World International was far more engaging early on back then. Granted that I played it in the open beta, so this is understandably in a rougher state right now, but I’m not talking about the bugs and issues. It’s simply the gameplay and the world that seem to leave a fair bit to be desired, despite the potential. Quite frankly, their idea to design their first game specifically meant for Western audiences seems to have resulted in the removal of many of the good elements that Perfect World International had and the addition of some pretty annoying ones from other current MMORPGs.
Either way, I basically didn’t play anything since the start of the year, so I’ll put a fair bit of time into this. If nothing else, I’ll just keep looking for issues and potential improvements and point them out. When you’re beta testing something it really helps if you’re a natural nitpicker, so I should be able to do well enough at that. Besides, back when I was testing Perfect World International they were saying I was doing a really good job. If they’ll take any note of what I say now as well or not is their problem.
But, between this, following the situation in Libya and the usual little bit of daily writing, you should expect me to write here even less. Or even less meaningful and perhaps shorter posts, because I’ll still struggle to at least write something twice per week, as usual. There will perhaps be some posts about Forsaken World or about gaming in general, and in fact I have one in mind already, but I can’t guarantee anything. I should at some point write some more about WikiLeaks as well, since I just dropped that issue a while ago and it really doesn’t deserve to be dropped, but right now I have no idea when…
I seem to be starting to recover from the ordeal I had to go through in order to write and send that open letter. Monday I more or less “wrote” it in my mind, but my body immediately told me that it won’t allow me to actually type it, knowing that I’d later need to send it, so I stopped at gathering the addresses I meant to send to. Still, that was bad enough on its own, resulting in at least three and a half hours of heart beating erratically. But that was only a small sample of what was yet to come, because on Tuesday I actually wrote and sent it, which resulted in at least seven hours of that, plus the expected serious and long-lasting panic attack felt in every other way as well. And then my heart seemed to be even worse on Wednesday, beating erratically for pretty much the entire day, though there was no more real reason for panic. But yesterday the problems only appeared again late in the evening, oddly enough right after exercising, though exercising tended to make it slightly better for a short while before, while today it’s been good so far. There will probably still be something later on, especially now that I mentioned it and thought about it like this, but I feared it won’t recover at all on its own after something like this.
Those fears were mainly caused by the fact that, while there had always been skipped beats, I didn’t have anything like this in some ten years, until around the end of last year when it first happened again. Panic attacks or high stress are one thing and I know how those go all too well, but these erratic heart beats and the feeling that it’ll stop beating if I stand still are quite another and hadn’t experienced it for more than a few minutes, at the very most, since I dropped out of school and that source of constant terror was removed from my life. But then it happened in December, as I said, and then once again last month, when I had dad rush me to a hospital only to be kept under observation for something like an hour and a half and told my heart’s just fine. Which meant that these days were following a pattern that signaled the return of this problem, so weren’t only panic attacks or regular reactions to stress that would go away as soon as the cause would go away. Of course, I fully expect the problem to return, perhaps with increased frequency, but the fact that I recovered at all from being in that state for so long is a good sign at least.
But enough about that. What matters is that I did my planned primary action for Global Population Speak Out this year. Doubt any of the recipients read it, or at least that any who weren’t already convinced did, but I don’t think words can accomplish anything when it comes to this issue anyway. The purpose of such actions can only be to try to encourage any others who already think the same but are afraid to speak out to follow suit, so the only hope is that perhaps the message reached one or two such people, though they’re extraordinarily rare, especially here.
On the other hand, even I am tempted to say that this and pretty much any other issue can wait a while longer right now, considering what’s going on in the Arab world. That’s the major story right now and it will likely continue to be the major story for quite some time, regardless of how it all turns out. What’s going on there truly is history in the making and the world should keep its eyes on the developments as much as possible, though right now there are so many things going on at once in so many different places that even the major news providers are struggling to keep up. Without the whole world observing and piling up the pressure, those governments are very likely to commit true atrocities instead of accepting the legitimate demands of the people, not to mention that, even if the revolutions would appear to end with the victory of the people, there’s a very high risk of them having a terrible outcome for the whole world if forces from outside those countries won’t make sure that religious fundamentalists and others who desire authoritarian regimes won’t take advantage of the situation and fill the resulting power vacuum.
But this is a personal post… For which reason I’ll stop now and jump straight to a dream I had this morning, one that once again seemed so real that it took me a while to realize it was only a dream after I woke up. It was obviously generated by the fact that I checked her Facebook profile again last night and noticed that she had listed that she’s now working in a library. As a result, my mind took that idea and ran away with it, taking me through various bookstores and libraries and even a house that was supposedly ours and had a room with bookcases covering all the walls. In the end, it took me to that bookstore that I first discovered with her and then rediscovered recently, but in the dream she was working there. At that point I’m pretty sure I woke up, but was very confused, my mind wandered for a while and at some point I fell back to sleep, the dream resuming pretty much from where it left off and having me wonder how could I get close to her until I just did. I passed behind her and she just grabbed on to my hand and squeezed it gently, at which point I woke up and was completely convinced that what I dreamed had really happened…
Can’t write more now. Meant to say one more thing, but I’m just gutted… That image is so real… Just have to say that I’m quite happy that she’s working in a library. It seems much more fitting and, quite simply, right. Especially compared to the fact that until some three years ago, when we last spoke, she had been working in a large clothing store, which was very disturbing for me.
