Our Invisible War – Battlefields

The lands around his mountain home were scorched, desolate, and flat. Trenches scarred the earth. Gutted pillboxes with crumbling walls and abandoned machine gun nests haphazardly littered the terrain. The ground was pockmarked, ravaged by the occasional barrage of artillery fire. High above, the clouds drifted through the sky like glaciers, plowing through the sea of blue with ponderous grace. Ragged streams of golden light fell down from the cracks between the clouds upon the fighting below.

Though he was far away, Niles could still make out the destruction occurring below him. He stood and heard the air shriek with in pain at the howling fury of the artillery. He stood and watched as the earth roared and belched, sending fountains of debris and unfortunate soldiers high into the air. Farther off into the horizon, flashes of light erupted briefly, almost whimsically, like so many fireflies. Nearer to him were countless smaller bursts of lights. There was no pattern to their light show, only chaos and a garbled symphony of cries, tremors, and gunfire.

He never knew what to call what he saw occurring below him. He never knew what to call the madness below though he was a part of it himself. So he continued to watch with a kind of fascination one reserves for train wrecks and other man-made disasters.

Sometimes he felt like he was on a desolate beach with a vast wasteland at his back. He sat on the immaculate white sand and watched the waves beat the vast ocean into froth and foam. There amidst the barren windswept sand, the overwhelming overcast sky, he could be free to unburden himself to the air and water. His hopes, frustrations, anguish, desire, all could be cast exuberantly into the water with reckless passion. Yet the ocean would only swallow them all with barely a ripple and continue its melancholy roar. No matter how much he would give to the ocean, the ocean would continue singing its dirge to him until he was a mere husk. It would erode him away until he was a blade of grass among entire golden field, merely swaying wherever that sighing dismay exhaled. Sitting there, on the cool sand with the breeze blowing sharply and tenderly around him, the endless roar filling his eyes and ears.

Slowly, he felt the fascination ebb away from his body with each crash of the artillery. Weariness entered the gap of his lost interest. The fatigue slipped past his skin and quickly saturated his flesh. Almost at once, he was struck by the biting cold rushing around him and through the hollow cavities of his body. Niles let a hand cover his eyes. That same hand was soon supporting his head from falling forward. Another roar shook the air and he closed his eyes as his hands moved to cover his ears. But the ground underneath him still trembled, and the shrieking in the air passed through his hands effortlessly. He let his head fall forward and his hands grabbed at his hair fiercely. Gently, he let his hair sift between his fingers, caressing locks of hair between fingertips. His hands ran through his hair slowly. But gradually, the pace of his hands grew more frenzied. Fingers morphed into claws and Niles began to paw at his scalp. His right hand however, slowed down. Once again, it went back to caressing locks of hair. This continued for some time, one hand tearing at his scalp, while the other was at peace. Then both hands stopped. Delicately, with trembling care, both hands clutched at the silken onyx strands. His hands did not tug or feel, but instead grasped and held, as if that multitude of hopelessly thin strands could be his anchor.

Instance vs Non-Instanced Dungeons

Let’s begin with some definitions for those who are not in the know.

An instanced dungeon is a dungeon where the player and those in his group have their own special version of the dungeon. It’s the same dungeon that everyone else gets, they just have one “instance” of it to themselves. An appropriate metaphor would be someone reserving a room at a restaurant. They still get the same menu and food that everyone else gets, its just that the experience is contained so that they can only interact with each other and the waiters.

A non-instanced dungeon is a dungeon that is open to everyone. Multiple groups can be in a non-instanced dungeon. There is competition to kill certain monsters etc. Think of it like a buffet where everyone can shovel as much food on their plate as they like, but they have to compete with other people. There is an unlimited amount of food, but it takes time for more portions to be cooked (metaphor for monster spawns).

So which format is better? Well, if the results from a MMORPG.com poll are any sort of barometer, then I would say that a majority is indifferent as long as it’s well done:

What are your opinions on instancing?

04/19/2006

4

9204

It’s great! 16.0%

Depends on how it’s used. 61.9%

I’m indifferent 7.0%

I hate it. 15.0%

Why are most players indifferent? I would argue that most players appreciate the fact that either format offers something worthwhile.

A non-instanced dungeon might offer a more social experience, along with the feel that the player is truly in a world by having to compete with other players. This format suffers however, from a lack of narrative focus, and offers frustration in the form having to compete with other players\groups for that one special monster spawn in order to gain the loot. This also leads to problems of people “camping” spawn points, in other words, waiting for the monster to appear and killing it so that no one else can get the potential loot.

An instanced dungeon offers a tighter narrative experience, minus the frustration of spawn campers preventing players of getting good drops. It lacks however, the social experience of the non-instanced dungeon. Furthermore, load times and such decrease from the immersive factor of players feeling like they are in a world. The benefit of a “seamless” world should not be underestimated.

In my opinion, these two formats have not been utilized to their full extent. My main critique is this:

Instanced and non-instanced dungeons are very similar in their feel. When it comes to dungeon architecture, pacing, monster pathing, scripting etc. there is little that distinguishes a non-instanced dungeon from an instanced one except for the fact that one is more secluded then the other.

To go back to using metaphors, I liken a instanced dungeon to a roller-coaster and a non-instanced dungeon to a sandbox. An instanced dungeon in my mind, should focus on creating a tight narrative experience that is unfeasible in a non-instanced dungeon. Likewise, a non-instanced dungeon should focus on creating a more non-linear experience and take advantage of the free-form feel that the format offers.

Here’s an example of what I have in mind:

The Great Train Robbery (Instanced):

Players must rob a train of a crate of goods. The crate is guarded not only under lock and key, but it is also hidden somewhere on the train. On top of that, it is guarded by a small compliment of police. The players have a time limit before the authorities start arriving. As time progresses beyond that time limit, more and more police arrive and the players must escape on before they are caught.

A House with a History (Non-Instanced):

The owner of a large estate has passed away under mysterious circumstances. Players are asked to investigate the cause of the man’s death by his family. The entire estate is open for the players the peruse, monsters do not get difficult as players explore further into the mansion (in other words, progression should not feel linear). Rather, when players discover certain areas will the true horrors of the house be revealed. Hidden trapdoors, a overgrown garden, and a maze-like library are examples of areas within the mansion.

The point of these two examples is to create a dungeon experiences that fully embraces the inherent strengths of the format they are created in. There is no real reason why say, an instanced dungeon could embrace a more free-form approach or a non-instanced dungeon use more scripting. It is my opinion however, that the two formats have inherent properties that lend themselves to one more then the other.

If you, the reader, have not noticed already, I find the entire PvE experience in most MMOs to be sorely lacking in focus. More on this topic at a later date.

Games for Social Change

My reaction? These developers make me angry.

Look, it’s all well and noble that people want to change the world for the better. But heavy handed attempts with games like “Darfur Is Dying” and “United Nations’ Food Force” is not the way to go. People play games to have fun first and foremost, not to get preached to. And giving people electric shocks so they can experience pain and anguish is just plain silly in my mind.

I think some of this desire to make games more “accepted” is to make perceptions of the industry more prestigious. After all, games aren’t “taken seriously” by most old media critics, and I think this burns many developers who want this kind of prestige for their medium. I also suspect some of them are pushing a social agenda. PeaceMaker for example gives players who get the highest score a Noble Peace Prize, while the lowest gets a War Criminal rating.

Take for instance this entry from the blog of Asi Burak, Executive Producer of PeaceMaker, a game about the Palestinian\Isreali conflict:

For one thing, I can’t understand why a meaningful game like “PeaceMaker” is automatically labeled as an “educational simulation”. Yes, it may be a great tool in the classroom, but why not beyond that? PeaceMaker should be treated as a non-fiction book, a graphic novel (eg “Maus”) or a social impact documentary (eg “An Inconvenient Truth”). These are consumed by the mainstream. Yes, they are informative and serious but thanks to the maturity of the medium they became part of our leisure time. People watch TV news and learn about the world. No one calls this an “educational experience”. I really hope that video games will soon achieve the same level of maturity and acceptance so we can really break the boundaries of “fun and shallow”.

This is the wrong approach in my mind. You will not enhance the acceptability and seriousness of games if people are not willing to play the game in the first place. The gameplay experience must become more refined and accessible before games like this can achieve the kind of prestige Asi Burak wishes. And quite frankly, what little is shown about the game itself is unimpressive on a design standpoint. Why should someone play this game over say, World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, or Oblivion?

Are games juvenile? To some degree I would agree with this. By why does “fun” have be associated with “shallow”? Is the profound necessarily a solemn and grave thing?

One last observation: everything I’ve read so far reminds me of post-modernist artists and their emphasis on the “message” over the technique. Which is abhorrent in my mind.

Tracing My Mind Under Stress

I’m sitting in packed lecture room listening to the professor talking about the Ancient Greeks and their views on economics when I decide to check the time. After all, I have a class on the other side of campus I need to get to at 5:00 pm. I shift some things around in my pocket and pull out my cellphone.

It’s 5:10 pm. The professor is still talking as if the world inside my mind isn’t about to shatter with the possibility that the class ends at 5:30 pm. Which means that I’ll be half an hour late to my next class. The class which coincidentally, is meeting for the first time, and the instructor will be handing out CCNs (Course Control Numbers, used by UCB students to enroll in classes) on a first come first serve basis.

Still a faint light at the end of the tunnel. Could be that this is some kind of freakish mistake. I turn to my friend and ask, “Does this class end at 5:30 pm?”

“Yup.”

So the end of the tunnel is actually on fire. Good times.

At this point, I’m trying to make sure my brain doesn’t go full-bore into the whole “behind enemy lines” mentality.

I tell myself that the class I need to go to lasts from 5:00 to 6:30pm. I’m still good. I can still make it on time and get my CCN. The other part of my brain has something much more different to say:

Are you stupid? This is the first class meeting. What exactly is he going to talk about for an hour and a half? More then likely he’s going to pass out the numbers and then have everyone leave early. This isn’t a serious class. We need to use a backup plan.

At this point, I realize that I didn’t set up a single back up plan because I had thought my schedule was rock solid. Furthermore, I had gotten on the reserved list to get into the class, so I thought I was safe.

We have no backup plan? THERE’S NO CHOPPER?! CHARLIE IS IN THE MOTHERF$$#%#^% TREES MAN!

It went downhill from there.

I get out of class, run over where my next class was supposed to meet, only to find everyone but one person gone. Turns out the instructor dismissed class early. Still a chance to go on the wait list though.

As I walk home by the pale orange light in the sky, my thoughts are frantically diagramming:

NEED (13 units)

CURRENT (12 units)

IF Drop Class (12 units)

THEN Get another Self-Paced Study Course. (Learn C?) (13 units)

OTHERWISE Get another DeCal (13-14 units)

BUT Get another Self-Paced Study Course and Fail Java? (12 units)

THEN Get another Decal (13-14 units)

OTHERWISE Error: Very Bad Situation. Do not contemplate.

BUT All DeCals full by time fail? (12 units)

THEN Error: Very Bad Situation. Do not contemplate.

OTHERWISE Contemplate Ritual Suicide

By the time I get home, my mind feels like its in a table vise. Didn’t even feel like eating though I hadn’t eaten in nearly eight hours or so. Went DeCal hunting. Found a DeCal that teaches UNIX. And the CCNs are posted. And the DeCal isn’t full. And I’m more interested in UNIX then the DeCal I had a reserved spot in.

Hallelujah.

Funny how things work out.

Our Invisible War Will Never Change

The title of this post, and the tagline of this blog, was a line taken from a story I never finished back in my senior year at High School. It also happens to be the line that spawned the story.

The story was supposed to be about a world caught up in eternal warfare, with factions constantly vying for dominance in a scarred and broken land. While there are lands that are still fertile and green with life, much of the landmass of the world is nothing but one big graveyard.

Sounds hopeful so far right?

The plot follows the life of a young lieutenant serving under a brutal and demaning leader. He obeys questionable orders. He betrays his friends and comrades to further the military goals of his leader. Whether it be coordinating the ousting and execution of his superiors or staging false attacks on cities, he performs his orders with extreme proficiency.

By his actions, he is a monster. The character knows this fully, and he has only one defense for what he does. “The ends justify the means”. And when asked what prevents him from deviating from his supposedly benevolent goal and fully becoming damned, he only responds by saying, “My will”.

Yet only on the surface was the story ever supposed to be about physical warfare. Instead, I had meant the entire world and the events that occured to be a metaphor for the other kind of warfare I saw. Clashes between political ideologies, religious beliefs, cultures, etc.

More on this later, I’ll finish by quoting the opening that I had written:

“The battle lines were drawn far before we were born. They are still drawn today, running over past lines with shameless abandon. They intersect, run parallel, or skirt each other with disdainful, forgetful snobbery. But the lines are temporary, for enemies are eternal. And we are all forced to fight with a quiet desperation lurking in all our hearts. We gloss it over with optimism, mask it with determination, and hide it behind fury. But despite all our efforts, we all feel the same tranquil bittersweet hopelessness. For our invisible war never changes. New weapons will be invented; different factions shall evolve out of their forebears. But our invisible war will never change.”

Emotional Gaming Experiences

Sometimes I feel like I can count them on one hand.

By emotional, I mean cry. And in a sad way. Not in a I’m-so-frustrated-that-I-want-to-hurl-the-keyboard-out-the-window way.

As far as I can tell, few games be they console or PC, have the ability to have the player have a strong emotional investment in the characters and story he is playing in. There are a few notables such as the oftenmentioned Final Fantasy VII, but these exceptions are few and far in between.

So what could be the reasons for this?

1) Poorly written story

This one is a fair no-brainer. Most games have stories that read like a cheap b-movie. Check that. More like a really cheap tv movie. Characters are one-dimensional, plot is often as processed as a McDonald’s hamburger, and the dialogue sounds like something a grade schooler wrote.

Many would argue that a good story is not needed in a game. Because, y’know, it’s a game! Go read a book if you want a story! L2P RP NUBTARD!!11!!1!1! LOLZ1

It certainly doesn’t help either that a story is not usually even concieved of until the code for the game itself is mostly done. As far as I can tell, this is SOP for most developers.

2) “Only certain genres need it”

I call bullhockey on this one. While a good story is traditionally associated with adventure games and RPGs, there is no reason why other genres could benefit from them (except maybe sports games, but who knows?). For example, the story to Half-Life 2 only helped the overall immersion and did not detract from anything.

3) Boys and Men mainly play and make games

Everyone knows that men are soulless, emotionless automatons that love keeping their feelings locked up! All they like is violence and shooting people in the head and f******* the corpse! Okay, I jest. What they actually prefer to do is skullf******** the corpse.

4) Games are a form of media that is more interactive. The developer does not have the kind of control the artist\novelist has\needs in creating atmosphere.

Another bullhockey reason. Though it would certainly help if developers would stop thinking that it would necessarily help if they did hire a novelist or screenwriter to improve the story. Just like a book doesn’t port well to a movie, the same issues apply in trying to transmogrify other forms of media into games. It’s hard for people who don’t play\make games to really understand this. Empirically as well, novelist on story does not necessarily equal success. Two words: Advent Rising.

Really, I do not see the reason why stories in games should have such a low priority. Stories have a universal appeal that transcend culture and time. The gaming experience can only be enhanced by placing more focus on this overlooked aspect of games.

Selling Newspapers for College (o rly?)

EDIT: I just remembered something interesting. It was $15 for a trial to the Oakland Tribune and $10 for the SF Chronicle. I however declined to sign up for the SF Chronicle. This was before I realized that he had handed me a form to sign up for said newspaper. But as I moved to throw away said form, he asked to keep it. When I asked why, he said that he had already bought said subscription (I’m a little hazy on the exact wording here) and that he needed the points for the college money. He instructed me to fill in the box that I had paid him in cash. All he asked was that I give him the form. I wouldn’t have to give him any money. I’m still trying to work that one out in my head.

Door bell rang today and I opened to be greeted by a teenager with a clipboard. Though he was clearly a minority of some sort and spoke with a slight accent, this did not stop him from unleashing a sales pitch at a speed that would do an auctioneer proud.

He spoke of college and the need to pay for his tuition. Proferring the clipboard for my inspection, he claimed that he needed sell newspaper subscriptions for “points” and would in return, gain $500 for college if he managed to reach 500 points. I could cancel the subscription at any point and time and recieve my money back, but he claimed that should I cancel the subscription trial before a certain amount of time, he would not get his points. And no points meant no college money.

To be honest, his pity plea touched me. I do value education highly, and so I respect people for trying to overcome adversity to attain it. Yet, I found myself suspicious. Something just did not feel right about the entire pitch. Perhaps it was because he was pushing the sale especially hard. Or perhaps it was because I didn’t like the feel of his eyes or the overly “pity me” line. But pushing my intuition aside for a moment, here is what I found strange in a more concrete fashion:

1) No paperwork detailing the exact details of said program

2) No website to find said program

In the end, I still have him part of what he asked for ($15 instead of the full $25), but mainly out of curiousity then any real belief that the money would actually be used for what he claimed. I did some searching on Google for several minutes and came up with a piece that confirms my suspicions and opens some new questions:

Soliciting Newspaper Sales with Pity Pleas? -

“California Newspaper Sales & Marketing, the largest contractor hired by both the Chronicle and Mercury News to sell subscriptions, and a major contractor responsible for the Stanford area, says that they do not look for any particular profile when hiring these students, as long as the students are doing well in school. Most of the students, they say, have a stable family life and a potential future — as long as they can obtain the money to pay for school.

…

That claim is anything but the truth. In reality, there is no guarantee the money the students earn will go towards a college education. The students do not receive scholarships; they receive money that can be spent on anything — not just a college education. The students are paid by check on a regular basis, just like any other part-time job. If they are older than 18, they receive the check directly. Otherwise, the check goes to their parents.”

This automatically raises two questions in my mind:

1) How widespread is this practice? Does this occur in other states? (My guess is yes)

2) How much money are these students actually making?

Final Thought:  Newspapers must be really hard up these days to have to resort to this kind of advertising.

 

 

OC Remix

After reading what I just posted, I just realized how melodramatic I can sound when I put my mind to it. So in order to prove then I’m a bit more multi-dimensional, I direct your attention to here:

OCRemix – This website is dedicated to arranging video and computer game music. Our mission is to prove that this music is not disposable or merely background, but is as intricate, innovative, and lasting as any other form.

So yeah, I’m a huge nerd. Deal. =P

In all honesty though, there are some stellar tracks here that have genuine merit. Or in other words: this site pwns you.

Some tracks that I reccomend:

Terranigma: Reviving Zue

Terranigma: Blue

Chrono Trigger: 600 AD in Piano

Street Fighter 2: Guile(R.A.H.mix)

Final Fantasy 6: Squaresoft Variation

Mega Man 2: Airman WindShear

That’s all for now. Navigate the site by the letters at the top right. Enjoy!

-GW

Here I go again

Reading what I wrote in the past always makes me cringe.

Let me clarify. Back in High School, I spent much of my free time at school writing. If the day was nice, there was a bench in full view of the sky, framed by flowers and vines that I favored. Otherwise, I tended to prefer the library for the gentle quiet it offered.

Back in those days, I had alot more passion for writing then I do now. It was something that made me happy in the sense of fulfillment, rather then a sense of joy. Because quite frankly, there was little joy in writing back in those days. More often then not, the bell would ring and I would be staring glumly at page scarred with cross-outs and x’s. I never found it easy, it was always a struggle to express what I wanted.

I’m not sure why I was ever excited about it back then to be honest. I never finished most of the things I wrote due to sheer frustration. Characters never came alive to me, I only saw the inner monologues in my head transcribed to paper. And I always had the terrible and furtive doubt that I only wrote because I won awards for it. Never because I truly enjoyed it.

Today, I look back at what I wrote in the past, and I’m always dissatisfied.

And yet, I always come back to writing one way or another. Go figure.

-GW

We’re Live!

More to come at a later date.