Thought for the Day - Gemma Atkinson

An extended Thought for the Day, straight from the "where are they now?" file. And by "they", I mean her lovely jubblies, naturally.

Conan Watch #5

Nadine Velazquez

Still hanging in there, maintaining my traditionally slow and steady advance through the mid levels of the game. Pinged a whopping 56 today, but I'm starting to hit the content gaps that people have been whining about for months already.

Level 50 basically means advancing to the Eiglophian Mountains, but while arriving in previous hubs has meant a quest log chock-full of XP-tastic quests, they've turned out to be a bit thin on the ground here. In the lower valley you get the usual run-of-the-mill kill quests, fighting cannibals in the 51-52 range. So far so good. There are "Wanted Posters", essentially repeatable bounty hunts which are the same as Vanguard's "Missives", but which give a pitiful XP reward. It's not long until you run out of quests in the lower valley, and head up the hill. The odd thing is, the mobs suddenly jump to the 54-57 range, and then further up still they're 58-60+. It would be nice if there was more to do in the lower valley, to at least get you up to speed with the next section. Having to beat mobs and especially bosses with their associated adds 5+ levels above you gets old fast. And then when you're done with those mobs, you're still several levels short of the next destiny quest (60), and the subsequent hubs.

Adding new zones to provide extra content is, of course, a substantial undertaking. What's odd about the mountains is that while an alternative 50+ zone would be nice it wouldn't hurt to simply add a few more quest lines within the existing zone.

So now I'm at 56, the next quest in my log is to beat a 60 boss within a camp of level 60 Vanir, which is just slightly beyond what my poor Priestess is capable of. At least solo. But then if I coasted through it in a group, what next? I'd still be a few levels down on where I need to be to progress to the next zone.

Even before I hit the mountains, and after the relatively good Field of the Dead, I made a new Guardian to pass the time. She had a pretty fun time in Tortage, although it wasn't particularly exciting the second time round. I miss the multiple, varied starting zones Vanguard offers. Unfortunately I'm not that keen on the Guardian class itself, at least not so far. It seems strange that the primary tank class in the game has absolutely no self-heals or buffs so far. Naturally they can take a lot more punishment than a clothy healer, but it's all a bit one-way. No heals, not great DPS, it's all about getting and holding aggro which is fair enough, but in a game which is fairly solo-oriented before end-game it doesn't feel like a particularly rounded class. While I wish the Priest of Mitra was a better healer, the fact is it works pretty well as a solo class.

Anyway if I can't be bothered to push through the final stages of the mountains, I might head back to Conall's with the Guardian and see how it develops.

On the Subject of Criticism

Bianca Beauchamp

It's got to the point where people seem to fall over themselves in their attempts to appear dismissive and nonchalant when it comes to games these days. Every "new" game seems to trigger the same torrent of bandwagon-jumping yahoos attempting to impress each other with how "game X was much better, back in the day, but you wouldn't know about that because you're not as old-school as me".

It also seems like some noob has just discovered The Escapist, because there's been an avalanche of references to it recently, and to "Yahtzee" Croshaw's Zero Punctuation reviews in particular.
I haven't bothered to read many of The Escapists reviews and articles, mostly because the few I have read have been uniformly tired and derivative and written in the same stuck-up tone, where reviewers will refuse to acknowledge any positive aspect of any game that dares to offend their delicate, mature sensibilities with regard to it's themes, misogyny in particular. "Oh no, this female NPC has visible cleavage, this game is worthless and must never be played by anyone".

The Zero Punctuation reviews aren't so much in keeping with the overall tone of the site, rather it just seems to be hosted there as a cynical attempt by the site's management to score some traffic. Which isn't to say they're any better of course. They're relatively amusing the first couple of times you see them, in a sort of "hur hur hur he's speaking quickly and making lots of sarcastic comments and swearing hur hur" way. The problem is, besides having a fucking stupid nickname, his reviews are an absolute one-trick pony. Hilariously tearing something apart when it's quite obvious it's a genre in which he never had any interest to start with, at high speed so as not to bore the ADD kiddies and also to disguise the fact that his hilarious analogies are little more than a very weak Charlie Brooker imitation. And the fact that he's notorious for only ever liking Portal. I mean, fucking Portal? Yeah, that was fun for 5 minutes but even then the hilarious "black humour" was starting to wear thin. It's obvious he's someone who should stick to cerebral games like sudoku or crosswords or online IQ tests, and leave childish video games to people who might actually enjoy them.

And no, I haven't missed the irony of criticising someone who's only job seems to be to criticise things.

In AoC's case the bashing obviously has a lot to do with people who claimed the game would be revolutionary and effectively make every other MMO redundant, only to find themselves playing just another fantasy MMO. Those people now feel foolish, they feel betrayed, and they take it out on the game. And then they make the exact same mistake with Warhammer. It almost defies belief that these people could be so fucking short-sighted, but when the wrath of the disillusioned migrates from AoC's forums to WAR's, just as it migrated from Vanguard to AoC, the cycle will inevitably repeat once again. I almost feel sorry for WAR's developers because the shit-storm is approaching and there's nothing they can do to stop it.

For the record, right now I'm looking forward to Far Cry 2. The environments look impressively large and free, much more so than those in Crysis even they're not quite as richly rendered. The gameplay looks fairly standard, just an FPS with a few gimmicks like the flame-thrower and some faction nonsense bolted on. Naturally I have to be wary of the fact it's also being released on the 360 and PoS3, so look forward to big, chunky GUIs, slow-motion AI that gives you a chance to get a bite to eat while you're waiting for your character to turn using a gamepad's analogue stick, and extensive narrative hand-holding. The graphics are looking pretty sweet, though, and if it'll run on a console there's hope for it being fairly undemanding on a PC. Not that that will prevent an eruption of hate on forums around the world complaining that some idiot's five-year-old box won't run it at max detail on their 30" monitor. Or that the widescreen implentation is wrong, or that the online activation is intrusive and evil and the game should be boycotted at all costs as a result.

Ultimately, being tragically critical of everything is just the forum idiot's way of attempting to garner respect from his peers by claiming to have so much experience in gaming that they're in some sort of special, unique position to judge. The most common trick is to reference other games that the reader may not have played, either because the games are old or alternatively because they're not yet released and therefore only available to people "special" enough to be in the beta. By claiming that those games are superior, the author will attempt the double-whammy of both demeaning the game in question, and also belittling the other readers.
It's a worthless tactic, because in fact no one gives a shit whether the author lives or dies, let alone what beta they happen to be in. But it's becoming increasingly common to the point of ubiquity, regardless of game genre.

Perhaps optimism will become so rare that it will suddenly emerge as the new, cool outlook for people who have the nerve to break from the herd, and we'll see forums starting to spawn posts by people who aren't afraid to enjoy games for a change.

Thought for the Day - Busty Alli

All this talk about "mature content" can only mean one thing - Thought for the Day! Featuring the ever so lovely "Busty Alli". Read it and weep, Funcom.

On the Subject of Mature Content

Perla

One subject that keeps popping up amongst the waves of shit that pass for the AoC forums is mature content. AoC was always positioned as the "mature" MMO, featuring "mature" themes, profanity, gratuitous, bloody violence and nudity in keeping with the world described in the original Conan novels. Or at least so I'm told, because I've never read them.
In practice AoC has wimped out and become pretty much a generic fantasy MMO. Yeah, there are one or two "gruesome" fatalities for some classes but that loses it's novelty value pretty quickly. I've encountered a single topless (female) NPC, who has probably already been censored out of the game thanks to an overhaul of the dungeon she inhabited. There are whores, although it's all a bit tame and implied and ends up seeming more childish and immature than if they'd just been up front with it.
The Witcher featured mature content, but managed to appear a great deal more sophisticated than AoC largely by virtue of not trying to hide the fact. It was just there, taken for granted as an integral part of the game world. Whores were whores, you could shag them but you didn't have to. There was lots of swearing that was often so well written that it was actually funny. AoC's awkward, sniggering schoolboy approach pales by comparison. Perhaps it's better off gone altogether, but then without it there wouldn't be much left to the game.

In AoC's case there's an overwhelming suspicion that the taming of the content comes in preparation for the planned XBox release of the game. Because you wouldn't want to offend the poor little chiiiildren. Waaaaah! Who will look out for the poor little chiiiildren?
To hell with the fucking children. It's bad enough that so much mainstream media is already dumbed down so as not to offend all the religious shit-sticks and legions of fucking simpletons who infect society.

Of course it all comes down to money. They musn't offend anyone lest it alienates potential customers and compromises their target demographic. Never mind the fact that compromising the very foundations of the game will similarly offend many players. Ultimately people who find the notion of nudity or violence offensive aren't going to be playing AoC in the first place, so trying to cater to them will end up pleasing no one at all. And that's what is in danger of happening.

What makes me laugh (with contempt) is when the issue of mature content comes up on a computer game forum, with people understandably asking why there isn't more tits and arse, more swearing, more sexual themes, more outrageous blood and guts in games, especially when those games are built on an IP which featured all that and more. It's not the fact that the topic arises, or that people lament the lack of adult games designed for adults that makes me laugh. It's the inevitable rejoinder from some holier-than-though fuckwit chiming in with the token "you should grow up / get a life / get a girlfriend" response. You know what, fuck-face? It's a video game forum. You can't pretend to be some super-cool, aspirational role-model when it comes to "having a life" and frequent a video game forum. The fact that you're trying to appear superior to other peeople in such a context by citing your relationship credentials just comes across as desperate and pathetic.

If there's one thing you learn on the internet, it's that for better or worse, whatever you're into, you're not alone. Frankly if you don't like to look at a nice, plumptious pair of breasts then you must be dead inside. It doesn't matter if you're male or female. So there's no reason why there shouldn't be games made for people who like a bit of old-fashioned nudity. Or why people who appreciate a bit of good, old-fashioned swearing shouldn't be similarly accomodated.