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Back when Guild Wars came out, gamers made a huge deal about its lack of grinding (its lack of a monthly fee was also occasionally discussed). This hype didn’t allow it to defeat WoW, but nothing seems capable of felling that dragon. While nothing really changed in MMO World, it did highlight something – people thought of grinding as a problem, and that eliminating said problem is a step forward.

Grinding, in addition to something you do on the dance floor or with unprocessed wheat, is a pejorative term for overly repetitive and un-fun actions in gaming. Say, killing a hundred slimes in Dragon Warrior to save up for that sweet suit of Full Plate, or doing Battlegrounds over and over to gain Honor. The essence of grinding is doing (ACTION) over and over for an unreasonable amount of time until (THING) happens. When it gets bad it can take hours of repetition to gain a single level/piece of equipment/puffy pirate shirt. Note that killing stuff to gain XP is not grinding in and of itself – it has to be extremely repetitive and deeply boring before you can call it that. Some games can actually make leveling fun.

To be fair, there are arguments in favor of grinding. The first is an issue of pacing – if you start the game with everything unlocked, you have nothing to play for. A slow gain of power throughout the game keeps it fresh by giving the player new abilities every so often. Time between new abilities also gives the player a chance to learn how to use them to their fullest – imagine being dropped headfirst into a game that starts with ten different abilities. Grinding can also be good storytelling – the best way to convey that a character is growing in the story is to have him actually grow and become capable. The other argument is, well, routine is nice sometimes. It’s comforting to do a repetitive task until your mind goes elsewhere to contemplate the nature of the cosmos. Like a nightly cup of hot chocolate, a repetitive task can be a pleasant tradition of sorts.

World of Warcraft stands poised at the center of the casual/hardcore MMO divide.  Opponents say that the game is too easy, and that getting to endgame is far too quick. Proponents of the game say that eighteen-hour boss fights are stupid. See, there are punishing, brutal games, and people are ok with that – it actually adds to the charm. Death is a great way to illustrate this – let’s say you die (in a game! in a game.) Prince of Persia has you respawning seconds later, exactly where you were before your untimely demise. WoW makes you take a walk or pay a bit of money every time you die. FF11 conjures a spectral hand to punch you in the kidneys. FF11 is more grindy than most games, exacting a fee of many hours from its players in exchange for items. Death actually causes a loss of experience, causing the player to lose hours of work. In my opinion, somebody should have been shot for that decision, but that’s a valid game design decision for many players, and here’s why. In our hypothetical Game A, there’s no reason to avoid death, since there is no punishment for it. This means that survival isn’t an issue, and that there is no fear of dying. Compare that to a visceral experience like FF11, where a death can cost you valuable hours of your life. In that game, you’re gonna give it everything you’ve got to make damn sure that you’re not going anywhere. These situations create real (simulated) danger, a risk of losing something. Pupils dilate, palms shimmer with sweat and adrenalin begins to flow. This might be the purest way of tapping into the gamer’s flight-or-fight reflex ever devised. Other games do it too, of course. My friend got hugely into Shiren the Wanderer, a Roguelike that severely punishes dying by taking all of your unstored items and gold. Diablo II’s Hardcore mode deletes your character when you die once.

There’s a relationship between the two, of course. The more you grind, the more time you’ve invested into your gear/character. If you’re playing a punishing game with high grind, death really hurts. Basically, to figure out how hard a game is going to be, multiply its Grind Value by its Punishment Value. The higher the result, the more difficult/exhilarating/annoying the game. This even accounts for hypothetical games with light grinding but ridiculous punishments for death, or vice versa. There are no numbers, of course, but this is a good guideline for how “intense” a game will be.

The Gears image, WoW Skills image and the Dead Queen image (which is delightful) are all licensed according to Creative Commons.

One of my goals in life is to eat at every restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, a strip of real estate north of Times Square packed with tasty food. I think I’ve eaten at six or so by now. Eatery was last Friday’s meal, an odd combination of homey American food and international fare. Rather, a Western conception of international fare, with standbys such as Spring rolls and Quesadillas and Roti, probably added in the Fusion cuisine rush that seems to afflict so many restaurants.

I requested a custom drink – it consisted of Vanilla Vodka, Bailey’s Irish Cream and Godiva Chocolate Liqueur. I saw it a while ago on Food Network, it was a cocktail serve in Boston meant to evoke the taste of a Boston Creme Pie. While it didn’t do that, it was delicious – even the waiter said so. If Eatery starts serving it, you can thank me for that.

The food was tasty and filling, although it could have used some more salt and pepper. My friends and I ordered a range of foods, so I got to try Chicken Paillard, Atlantic Salmon, French Fries and some other stuff. They were all well-executed if unoriginal, which I suppose describes Eatery rather well.

I’m about 11,000 words into my novel, a Loads and Loads of Characters story written in Third Person Present (which is fairly rebellious as far as writing goes). I don’t quite know what’s going on (I’m not going to plan. I have nothing against outliners, but it’s not for me), but it’s shaping up quite nicely. It seems that I produce about 500 words a day, which is fine – at this rate, I’ll write my desired 100,000 by, say, next June or so. I just got a new toy for writing on the go, an Alphasmart Dana, which is essentially a keyboard with nothing else attached except the tiniest of screens so you can see what you’re writing.

This Friday, I went with my coworkers to Smith’s Bar, a manly sports sort of place with rugby on the screen and large men with mustaches. We then went around to the various lounges of Hell’s Kitchen, but we were rather early, and the only ones there. Hell’s Kitchen lounges all have a certain cool atmosphere, a hip modernity that’s only helped by the copious neon lighting. That was fun, but I had to cut that short, because it was somebody’s birthday dinner.

Walking from 44th and 10th to 32nd and 4th took us to Todai, a Japanese buffet. The food wasn’t that great, but there’s no way I can pass up a quality pun like this post’s title. There was unlimited sushi of all shapes and sizes, hot food and a crepestation, which is not the title of Sony’s next console. There, you can fill a fresh crepe with chocolate, cream and a variety of fruit, the heat of the crepe melting everything together into two bites of ecstasy.

This Sunday was a Barcade LoveSac tag-team combo event. Barcade is a neat gaming-themed bar in Williamsburg, and Lovesac is a maker of bean bag chairs. They slapped the word “Gamer” onto one of their chairs, a decision which is hopefully driving some Gamer business their way. The day was for speedruns, which is when a player tries to finish a level as quickly as possible. There was Contra, Super Mario Bros, and some other, less awesome games (like Super Mario Kart). It took me a couple tries to even score in Contra, since getting a Game Over midway means you didn’t complete the level. After several deaths (I was able to beat the entirety of Contra as a boy, what happened?), I placed a respectable time of 1:40. The person running the event told me that the top time was 1:30, which was fine by me. By the way, beers with the word chocolate in their name don’t actually contain any chocolate. I know, I was surprised too.

There’s something magical about Fridays. Colors are brighter, food tastes better, and the air is sweet with possibility. My friends and I had plans to go to a wine bar, but it’s the sort of wine bar that needs a reservation one week in advance. Another time, Otto.With our plans in disarray, we were forced to reconsider the night’s entertainment, and we were all in the mood for some alcohol. We all came to the same idea at roughly the same time – we would go Bar Hopping (a pub crawl, for you English readers). Bar Hopping is an ancient tradition going back to the dawn of man, where a group of nomads would go from place to place, sampling the different meads and ales in different towns. (The previous claim has not been researched and are probably false.)

The plan – eat some food, then go bar hopping. We ate at a delightful Sushi place on 1st avenue that I wish I could name, because it’s one of my favorite places ever. All of the rolls are half price (salmon roll for 2.50? I’ll take 3), and you can get a pitcher of Sapporo for nine dollars. Nine Dollars. My friends and I ate extremely well and split two big pitchers of tasty Japanese beer. The best part of the experience, even though the meal was no slouch, was the fried ice cream at the end. This is by far the best fried ice cream I have ever eaten, and I’ve had… let’s say 3. In most other servings, the ice cream is coated in a thin, crunchy coating and fried. Here, we have a core of soft ice cream coated by a layer of cake coated again by a crunchy layer, and fried. It has one of my favorite dessert elements, the play of warm cake against cold ice cream. The overall effect is not unlike ambrosia, and I ate it wondering when Apollo would come down with new robes befitting a god.

As we got up from our seats, we all received a simultaneous revelation; walking is hard when you’re full of sushi, Sapporo and fried ice cream. We walked from 1st avenue to 2nd, merrily singing Jam Project tunes to nobody in particular. We popped into a fairly generic bar with three beers on tap and a Big Buck Hunter machine, and promptly popped out. As we left, we noticed a sign across the street. It was… well, you can see for yourself. It had a mystic quality, compelling us to enter. We had to climb a long staircase to enter the bar, like pilgrims on a holy quest.

The bar was very, very crowded when we entered, and there were no fans anywhere on the ceiling. It was hard to breathe. I had Baltika 3, a lager bottled in St. Petersburg (Dave, a Guinness drinker, had Baltika 4). My friend Leon told us that there were 8 Baltikas, each darker and heavier than the last.I’m wondering where I can get the secret 9th Baltika that will teach me the meaning of life.

Eventually, we made it to the end of the space and had a seat. There were windows here, allowing the tiniest bits of air into the bar. The place was festooned (that’s right, festooned) with Russian paraphenelia, such as a faux-Soviet flag and Russian Winnie-the-Pooh. Leon (who is Russian) saw objects from his childhood on the walls, so it seems the decorator has succeeded in giving the place a Russian feel. It’s also very red.

Satisfied, we walked onward into the night. We entered a loud club, and promptly left – I was fine with the noise, but some of my friends weren’t and it wouldn’t be very nice of me to subject them to loud, obnoxious techno. After several blocks, we arrived at a charming Irish Pub. I had Smithwick’s, a dark amber beer that seemed legitimately Irish. We got comfortable booth seats and got to look at a large-screen TV showing awesome commercials (online degrees for cheap!) and a basketball game. The atmosphere was warm, rich, heavy with dark wood, and very friendly.

We walked south, and noticed that we were walking across Mott St. “Mott St?” we said to ourselves, “isn’t that where our teahouse and Chinatown Fair is?”. Arthur and I turned left and walked down Mott, while Leon and Dave went home. After some time, we arrived at the comfortable old teahouse with its charming tan bricks, quiet atmosphere and delicious bubble tea. It’s a great final stop on a bar crawl, a quiet place to catch your breath before heading home. We met up with our friends who didn’t go Bar Hopping with us, and we all left sometime after 1. A great night.

Can someone help me remember the name of that awesome sushi place? If you’ve been to any of the bars we’ve been to, let me know what you thought of them (reader participation!). I’m going to write something like this every Friday, since Fridays are great days for adventure. I might even go back in time someday and describe my trip to Barcade, or the night I couldn’t handle the spiciness of Jambalaya, if anyone wants to read about that.

This concert comes right on the heels of an absolutely kickass show by Kamelot and Edguy, so it had a lot to live up to. The event began with a long line, which was a result of thorough searches of your pockets and bags at the gate. When I say thorough, I mean it – he didn’t even buy me a drink first! I entered, took a seat (Nokia Theater has soft, comfy theater seats. Nokia theater is wonderful) and waited. The club played a mix of music while we waited, drawing heavily from classic metal bands Metallica and Iron Maiden. At one point, they played Frantic, from the universally loved album St. Anger (St. Anger is not universally loved.) This caused the audience to boo and groan, and it caused me to laugh, because the song was hilariously bad. On the other hand, opening band “Savior from California” was just bad. They had generic guitar riffs, generic basslines, generic drumming and a singer tonelessly shouting into the mic. I try my best to give everything the benefit of the doubt, but there was nothing redeeming about this band, and I was quite happy when they left. There must be a law that says awesome shows need to be tempered by terrible opening acts.

Next was Into Eternity, a band that I sort-of-like. They do put out an impressive amount of energy live (although they’re no Edguy), and they’ve got the most versatile singer I’ve ever seen. This singer (who’s name I do not know) has about a million different styles he can work in, and they all sound good. He can do death metal, black metal, low clean, high clean, squeaky falsetto, and I think I detected a hint of screamo. The really amazing thing is when he blends them in one phrase, beginning a line with a sung note and ending it with a harsh scream, or transitioning from a growl into a clear high note in the same breath. This is an ability that makes this band very interesting, and I wonder why I haven’t seen it elsewhere.

At one point, the guitarist had the stage to himself, and used that time to play a masturbatory solo, reminding me again why I hate shred for shred’s sake. Shred is music community shorthand for playing the guitar incredibly fast. A lot of the time, speed is the only thing these solos have – otherwise, they’re boring runs up and down a scale, or they’re the guitarist’s old practice exercises sped up. For example, see all of Dragonforce’s guitar solos. I like that you can play notes really fast and really precisely, but I wish you would use that talent to make music. The singer called attention to this, calling it wankery, which drawn-out shred solos usually turn into. Bad shred solos are mindless expressions of technical skill and dexterity, with nothing musically interesting in that flurry of notes. There is nothing more masturbatory than playing a ton of notes and not doing anything with them.

After Into Eternity, I saw something that amazed me. The sound guys came on to check the drums, the guitars, making sure that everything worked and was connected properly. But then they did the amazing thing – they began to play. The drummer played some bouncy rhythms on the toms, and the guitarist gave us some generic-yet-nice electric riffage. These were the sound guys! I wish every club would have somebody come on stage and entertain us between the major acts. We’re here to see live music, and some of your technicians must be musicians, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken a job at a music club. All you have to do is throw these guys on stage and let them do what comes naturally. The fans will thank you.

For me, Iced Earth is a lot like Edguy. I don’t listen to them often, because they’re not that interesting for the most part. However, their music is pumped with energy and make me really want to headbang, dance and generally move. This is why I love live music, it’s an energy that surrounds you and fills you. It comes from the performers, it comes from the crowd, and it comes from immense waves of sound bombarding your body, making its presence known in the rattling of your bones (you should wear earplugs to metal shows.) It’s hard to get this particular experience anywhere else, so I recommend you go to a good live music show if you never have.

Overall, the show was fun and forgettable, and pales in comparison to the glorious concert I attended yesterday. Unless something awesome comes up, this will be my last concert for 2008. I‘ve seen plenty of great bands this year, and I‘m really looking forward to what I‘ll see in ‘09. By the way, I don’t hate fast guitar playing. I love fast, interesting solos that take the listener for a ride or tell a good story. I just hate fast guitar playing that has nothing else going for it but speed.

I hear that there was an opening act, Arctic somethingorother, and that they were pretty good. I didn’t know that they were playing, because their name wasn’t printed on the ticket. I was busy eating a broiled eel that was airshipped in from Japan. It turns out I don’t like eel, no matter where it comes from. So, I only saw two of the three bands at BB King’s tonight, but that’s okay – those two bands were Kamelot and Edguy.

Edguy’s my favorite band that I don’t listen to. They always put on an awesome show, and it’s because of this energy that everyone in that band positively reeks of. They’ve all got such joyous expressions on, and they’re all so happy to be there that you have no choice but to be happy with them. I’m not an Edguy fan, but they played all the songs I like. I don’t find any of their songs memorable, but they’re all action packed and really solid – a great band to see live. Their front man Tobias Sammet dances, jives, and expends his boundless energy getting the crowd moving. He did a few audience participation games, and there’s one that I especially remember, because he did it before.

He divides the crowd into left and right, and tells each half to make some noise when he points at them. He sets up a rivalry between left and right, making each side want to out-loud the other. Right then, I thought that this was pretty silly, doesn’t the audience know that he’s playing with them? I answered my own question, as people have a tendency to do – people want to be taken on rides, if the driver is skilled enough. We love charisma, which explains lots of world events, and I’ll stop here before I invoke Godwin’s Law on my concert review. If there’s one thing that heavy metal crowds are good at, it’s making noise. Tobias points left, then right, then left, moving faster and faster as the stereo sounds get more frenzied. Soon, the game is over, the audience had a great time, and we’re all ready for the next song. I can’t think of a more apt description for an Edguy show than that.

Have a listen, I think you’ll find why I like this band’s live show so much.

I listen to Kamelot quite a lot. I’d place them in the top five metal acts of all time, and a large part of the metal fandom would agree with me. Their works are rich, textured and emotional, and usually quite a bit melancholy. Everyone is a master of whatever instrument they play, and they have an ear for great composition. Even considering all this, the best part of the band is by far their singer, Roy Khan.

There was a part of the concert where Khan steps backstage, and the other musicians do a group instrumental. This was eye-opening for me. If the other members of Kamelot didn’t have Khan, they’d be – dare I say – boring. Thankfully, they do, and Kamelot gets to be a marvelously interesting band. His is a supremely expressive voice, full of warmth and range and texture. When he breaks into a tearful high note from one of his resonant bottom tones, it’s enough to make the coldest of us weep.

I’m training to be a lead singer, and I look at frontmen with a careful eye when I go to shows, eager to absorb a lesson or two. The Kamelot/Edguy show was a master class, showcasing two radically different styles of lead that are both very effective. Where Tobias Sammet is bright, grinning and in-your-face, Roy Khan is dark, reserved and pulled-in. You can tell this from the amount of motion – Sammet is constantly moving, dancing and jumping, while Khan is much more still, rooting himself to a spot for long stretches. When Khan does move, he has a beguilingly liquid quality, and his whole performance has an intriguing undertone. Khan’s audience participation games are, of course, different from Sammet’s. He sings a musical phrase, and points the microphone to the audience, bidding them follow. Sammet did this as well, of course – it’s a staple of good frontmanning. Of course, when Sammet’s phrases are short and energetic, Khan’s phrases are drawn-out and subdued. I find it immensely interesting that both of these approaches resonate with the audience, as the two couldn’t be any more different.

Here’s a clip of a live Kamelot performance. In the middle, you’ll notice the “call and response” audience participation game.

All in all, it was a killer show, and a great study in contrast. Tomorrow, I’ll be seeing Iced Earth.

http://chrisalgoo.com/Move_Beta.exe

The core gameplay is present, but the awesome polish will come later. Basically, everytime the player does something, a random electronica sound will play. The player will be effectively creating a soundtrack while playing the game, and it’s gonna be really cool. Problem is, I develop on a Vista laptop, so I can’t hear anything.

Game’s still fun, just awfully quiet. I suggest you listen to this music while you play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2omWeiZdKs

Thoughts? Comments?

Also, thanks to Ashley and co for making this easy-to-use-and-powerful game engine. This is definitely my gamedev platform of choice. I’ll keep you posted here, dear reader.

Running with the Devil…. Kings

I’ve been into the metal since high school, and I’ve never seen a combination of words more suited to be a metal band name than Devil Kings. It was pretty well-recieved…. well, it wasn’t hated. Besides, I had Gamefly, so I could return it in a day if I didn’t like it (as it turns out, I returned it in a day, after beating it).

What is Devil Kings? It’s the American adaptation of what seems to be a Japanese game about the Japanese warring-states period, or something. Instead of a historical pretense, Devil Kings creates an imaginary landscape of magic and war. Oda Nobunaga becomes the Devil King, which is much easier to repeat while headbanging and flashing the horns (incidentally, he’s the guy with the Spawn cape in the above picture). It plays like…. well, ever played a Dynasty Warriors game past the original? It plays like that. For those of you that never experienced DW2-6, it goes something like this.

Tactician: We need to take this city, and we’re only gonna send you. You’ll cut through and make it happen, right?
Warrior: There’s thousands of enemies out there! Do you expect me to kill all of them?
Tactician: Here’s a sword. The sharp part goes into the… multitude of soldiers out for your blood. Have fun!

You’re a guy, and there is a teeming mass of other guys for you to kill until you win. The enemies are faceless and nameless (mostly, there are heroes with names floating above their heads), and collapse handily when you cut them with sharp things. Generally, your character swings in wide arcs, allowing you to kill at least 10 cannon fodder men with every swing. It’s mindless twitch gameplay, and it is fun, at least for a little while.

Anyway, Devil Kings is that, with a supernatural gimmick. The hot-blooded young guy actually has fire powers, the evil guy with scary mustache can beat people up with his Cape that He’s Probably Borrowing from Spawn, and the lightning-themed guy can use his powers to bring his enemies to a shocking conclusion. Get it? Because lightning is…. never mind. The game revolves around you killing more and more guys, getting power ups that allow you to kill more and more guys. I usually use that language to make fun of MMOs (eventually moving on to some sort of treadmill metaphor), but it’s deeply rewarding on some level to swing a sword once and have it send 20 poor souls to the Great Beyond, watching your kill count rise in the lower-right corner of the screen. The single player is mercifully short, which prevented me from getting bored of it. I was able to beat it in one sitting (I didn’t actually complete the game, which would have involved beating it with everyone), and I can say that I beat it because the game showed me the credits, so there.

I invite you to watch the following cutscene.

It will teach you three things about this game.

1. It is english-dubbed. That’s a huge plus for me, and tends to be a minus for people who aren’t me. This game has a bit of acting, so you can see here if it won’t stab your ear drums to listen to it.
2. Look at the self-righteous youtube comments from a variety of people who are deeply offended about a video game’s take on Japanese history. This, and similar, might be the rationale for repackaging it as a wholly fictional fantasy game for American audiences. That, and the new name they chose is f***ing metal.
3. A guy drives a spear into the ground, and uses it to flip both himself and the horse he’s on. You’re seriously doing yourself a huge disservice if you don’t watch the video.

In conclusion, it’s a fun romp that you’ll get tired of quickly. Rent it, enjoy it, and never look back. Games like this make me happy to be a Gamefly subscriber.

Devil Kings
Rent it.