Chris Algoo

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.

Tuesday works much better. In the intervening time between today and tomorrow (roughly 24 hours), you can answer this quiz. The article tomorrow will deal with each of the following in depth. So, please pick one or several…

Why do you game? (Game is a verb. It means “to play games”. Shakespeare isn’t the only one who can make stuff up.)

Challenge – I game to challenge myself. I enjoy achieving mastery over the game system or other players.

Social – I game to interact with / meet other people.

Experience – I enjoy games that take me on rides and create strong feelings.

Narrative – I game to watch a story unfold.

Roleplay – I game to play an internally-consistent, interesting character.

Growth – I enjoy watching my position (character, faction, country) grow in games.

Change – I enjoy creating change in the gameworld, or feeling as though I have.

Other – Please write what the Other is.

Tomorrow I’ll give an in-depth look into each of these styles. For the record, I see myself as a Narrative/Experience gamer with occasional bits of Roleplay (Fallout 3 really brought that out of me). If you’ve got some interesting “Others”, that would be awesome, as I’ll have more material for the post tomorrow.

Dave Cabrera is a good friend of mine. He’s also one of the most intelligent gamers I’ve met, able to talk at length about gaming on all levels. He’s got a blog, where he talks about anime, games, and the attached subculture with his conversationally funny writing style – it’s worth a look. I had a chat with him, and I thought it was so good that I wanted to share it with you guys.

Chris: What is art? (you probably know where I’m going)

Dave: I SURE DO

Dave: okay, here’s my point of view on it

Dave: the act of defining something as art is irrelevant

Dave: because what people say about art, as far as positive implications

Dave: is that it enriches our lives, teaches us lessons, makes us better people

Dave: because it carries meaning

Dave: but the meaning is subjective between people

Dave: but everything carries meaning. and that meaning changes from person to person

Dave: so we can’t define one object as art and another as not-art when they’re so wholly subjective

Chris: That’s true, some things can carry lots of meaning for some and be meaningless for others

Dave: ebert on videogames

Dave: the medium doesn’t work on the guy

Dave: he doesn’t really want them to work either

Chris: I’d bet large amounts of money that he isn’t giving it a chance

Dave: but in his own words

Chris: and that he’s sitting down with a preconception that “This is stupid”

Dave: film can enrich us and make better human beings out of us

Dave: to him this is a given

Dave: but at the birth of film

Dave: it was more a “oh my god look at this thing” show

Dave: and of course there were the moral decay people saying that this was bad for humanity

Chris: and other people saying it was worthless as an artistic medium

Dave: and when film was primitive, it was REALLY primitive

Dave: the biggest movie, for years and years running, at the start of film, was just a train robbery flick

Dave: like ten minutes long, as i recall

Dave: and at the end, the big special effects shot was that a robber pointed the gun AT THE AUDIENCE and SHOT THEM

Chris: Mind-blowing!

Dave: and we know it’s not like film can’t be trashy and disposable

Dave: it’s not anything about a medium that makes it inherently “more art”

Dave: and i’d argue that the trashy bullshit is art as much as things that are actually good are art

Dave: one is better than the other but still

Chris: If we’re talking about personal value and ideas taken away, we can’t even use words like “better”

Dave: yeah

Dave: quality is subjective

Chris: So, my second question would be – can games convey meaning?

Dave: sure

Dave: i think the big difference between a game and a film conveying meaning is that film has no barriers to entry

Dave: you can definitely sit down and watch the thing and see what’s there

Dave: you might not take it in or enjoy it but you have watched the movie

Dave: videogames have this whole language that a lot of people simply don’t know

Dave: like one of my friends, months ago, was bitching that this girl he was going out with couldn’t even jump over the first goomba in super mario brothers 1

Dave: and i’m like OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE

Dave: because it seems like the most obvious thing in the world to him but to everybody else it’s really kind of perplexing

Dave: “what the hell is this thing”

Dave: http://www.slate.com/id/2202262/?from=rss bahahaha

Dave: this article suggests that “fail” in the 4channer sense will eventually make it into the public lexicon

Dave: god he might be right

Chris: Oh, god

Chris: It’s so catchphrasey and vapid

Chris: …which I guess describes 4chan to a tee

Dave: slate knows what the “kids” are “into” these “days”

Chris: It’s Jell-o pudding pops, right? I think that’s what they’re in to

Dave: yes they love that stuff

Chris: I find it hard to believe that gaming is an arcane mystery – I played Super Mario Brothers at 3 (maybe 4?)

Chris: Then again, children’s brains are remarkably plastic

Chris: There must be a barrier to entry, because overcoming it is the reason that casual games are so successful

Dave: and mario works because people can jump over the goomba

Dave: and yeah, as children it’s very different

Dave: we’re much better as kids than we are as adults

Dave: the BRAINY GAMER had a post on his blog where he tried to show his artsy academic colleagues braid

Dave: and they were all completely stumped, despite WANTING to play

Dave: it was just a mechanical problem

Dave: like “what the hell do i do”

Chris: I can believe that – gamers have pathways in their brains that formed over years of playing

Dave: and we can pick up new schemes pretty easily

Chris: I suppose we’ve got a fundamental notion of video games

Chris: There are goals to strive for, there are threats to be avoided, and there is you

Dave: it might take ten more years before we have a generation that’s fundamentally familiar with games

Dave: videogames, rather

Chris: What do you mean? I think we’re that generation.

Dave: yeah you’re right. i should say a mainstream that is

Dave: a larger mainstream

Chris: Oh

Chris: I think that may never come to pass, though – casual games

Chris: Today’s generation is getting these really shallow experiences

Dave: true

Chris: If something doesn’t change, I think we might be the first and last generation of serious gamers

Dave: nah

Dave: there will always be a market

Dave: people take to something, for whatever reason

Dave: like before wow

Dave: loads of people who weren’t gamers would become hopelessly obsessed with everquest

Dave: for a lot of them it was their first videogame

Chris: That’s a good point

Chris: There’s also the issue that there are many different types of game

Chris: Like, a lot of people love that Progress Quest kind of gameplay and I can’t stand it

Chris: And I love action games and platformers, which many people don’t like

Chris: And I knew some people in highschool who would only play JRPGs. Placing all games under one umbrella is a bad idea, it seems

Dave: it seems that either extreme casual or progress quest are people’s favorite

Chris: Yeah, those have appeal

Chris: for some reason I don’t understand

Dave: well, they’re pretty simple and you’re immediately rewarded

Chris: I think that explains it

Chris: I think a good game to bridge the gap would be like an onion

Chris: In the beginning it’s simple, but gets more complex, building on previous lessons

Chris: Games try that, but even the first level is hard for a non-gamer

Dave: yeah, the problem is really that people even lose to the tutorial

Dave: it might be the hardware itself

Dave: hence the wii being so big

Chris: And then there’s social factors and stigmas. “Games are for those people.”

Dave: yeah

Dave: and that won’t really be overcome until people are all playing games

Dave: which they will be, sooner or later

—

And that’s the end of it. If you have a lot of games conversations, the above might not hold anything new for you. If you thought that one of us made a good point, or said something interesting, or were wrong, don’t hesitate to comment.

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.