Mystic Worlds

Gaming is Entertainment - Kinect is Full of Win

With the exception of my son and I, our family is casual gaming.  The only hardcore or serious gaming that has taken place is our MMO experiences.  My nephew, who is a frequent visitor, has done the console thing with my son, playing Halo and EA sports titles.  Aside from all the females playing The Sims – every iteration and incarnation off and on, nothing reigned like MMOs.  The recent addition of a new console, XBox 360, has gotten my girls, brother, sister and other non-gamers into the mix.  As I posted recently, we're playing Red Dead Redemption, which is the first time I've ever seen my sister pick-up a game controller.  My daughter is obsessing over Fable II and Halo: ODST has finally been opened.

They're playing enough now that commercials about E3 caught their attention.  After I finished working for the day we sat down together looking for coverage and highlights.  We ran across the Kinect demonstrations and my house was electrified.  Their voices became loud and boisterous, their movements eager and animated.  They can't wait to get their hands on Kinect and the games that captured their imagination.  Like the Wii changed the gaming demographic and WOW the MMO audience, I think motion is going to redefine what we call games.  Those who consider themselves hardcore gamers might not be happy but I sure as hell am.

Snorting Red Dead Redemption: Early Impressions

The 360 and Red Dead Redemption (RDR) have scored a one-two knockout so far in our house.  This has the unexpected side effect of arguing for face time with the console.  Fable II is getting some love from my daughter who already owns a house, several rental properties, is married and started a family.  I guess you can take The Sims out of the console drive but you can’t take it out of the player.  Right now no one is all that interested in Halo 3: ODST.

I like western movies well enough but to date, fantasy has been my preferred genre for gaming.  The only sci-fi MMOs I’ve played are EVE Online and a very brief stint in Star Trek Online.  I would jump all over an opportunity to play a quality Steampunk game but barring that, fantasy is home.  It’s not just the fantasy environment that’s a draw.  Using magic is equally as compelling and usually a necessary component.  I’m also not into playing single-player RPGs.  Purchasing RDR was a stretch on many levels.

We’ve played console games before.  We, is mostly my kids.  I’ve only dabbled in them.  Back then we didn’t have them hooked up to high definition television.  Seeing RDR rendered in high def is jaw dropping when you consider it’s just a video game.  The graphic style, tone and rendering immediately suck you into the Wild West.  The ambiance is dead on.  I haven’t had the chance to play as often as I would have liked.  The bodies were queued up all weekend as my sister, nephews and friends came by to check out the new setup while we BBQ’d and relaxed outside in between turns.

New WOW Account Scam Making the Rounds

Remember that you should NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES follow a link from an email to Blizzard's Account Services!!!! If you're not sure the email is legit and want to check on your account, go directly to worldofwarcraft.com and use those links to access Account Management type services.  Better yet, go once (like now) and save yourself a bookmark to Account Services and Battlenet directly, to avoid the painfully slow loading of the official WOW site.  I grit my teeth anytime I have to go there myself.

I received an email a couple of days ago supposedly from Blizzard but it contained so many spelling errors as to be laughable. I couldn't resist replying that they should first use a spell-checker and then drop dead.

Today I received the same email but it was immediately flagged as spam. I couldn't resist taking a peak.  The spelling mistakes had been corrected but like who are you idiots trying to fool??? The first email was so hilariously bad yet you corrected it and sent it back out to the same list??

I really hope people mature enough to be paying for a WOW account are wise enough by now, not to click links in an email that will send you somewhere asking for a log-in name and password. Consider yourself warned, that the destination URL looks pretty darn authentic but it ain't!

Outside my PC MMO Box into Console Gaming

Two things inspired me to give MMOs a rest and step outside my PC gaming comfort zone into consoles.  First was an email from Sister Julie, asking advice on which game she might consider next for a breath of fresh air.  I didn't have any happy wisdom or insight to share, having been bereft of a long term MMO home myself for a very long time.  Second was catching up with Gary Gannon's Game Breaker podcast on his Game Breaker TV website.  At first, listening to Gary made me long for the old days.  Back then Brent was doing his CNN of gaming news, MOG Army their weekly show of shenanigans, I was in love with WOW, my son and I were raiding in a wonderful guild on Illidan and knuckling our way up the PVP honor rankings.  Well those days have come and gone and I've spent a lot of time wandering since.

After I got over my burst of nostalgic longing, I became increasingly more interested in the console games being discussed.  We have a Wii but it's primarily used for Wii Fit and playing family-oriented boardgames.  We had an XBOX, which might as well have been called the Halo console, since that's about the only time it was used.  Several months back, I donated our XBOX to a charity event seeking to raise funds for a summer program for low income children.  Listening to Gary discuss the immersion and strong story arcs in the newer generation of console games, made me decide to step outside of my, "I only play PC games and MMOs" mindset.  After all, that insistence was getting me very far these days.

I didn't think twice about which console to buy.  This is an XBOX household, especially with Halo Reach coming in the fall.  Oh and, The Sims 3 for the XBOX is arriving later this year too so 360 it is!  My first choice for games were to purchase the sequels to old favorites.  Fable II and Halo 3 went into the shopping basket.  Then I grabbed something I never would have considered a year ago, Red Dead Redemption.  I like westerns - movies.  The positive reviews and buzz about Red Dead had piqued my curiosity enough to give it a try.  There was one satisfying feeling when I purchased those three games.  I pay for the box and then I'm done.  I won't feel compelled to get my money's worth each month.  I've never cared about the cost of MMO subscriptions in the past.  But I've felt a lot of waste in box purchases and subscriptions the past few years, that it felt refreshing to know this was the only required cost and obligation for each game.  *shrug*

I wanted to buy a whodunit game too.  My youngest daughter is heavily into the crime dramas and we loved playing Clue with my nephew.  The only things I ran across however, were horror or spooky, which neither of us enjoy.  Can anyone recommend a sleuth title that's not gory?  We've hosted a couple of Murder Mystery dinners.  Something along those lines would be quite delicious as a family gaming night.  All MMO subscriptions have been canceled for the summer while we see what the XBOX 360 Fairy has to offer.

F2P = more forgiving expectations & patience = playing things I wouldn't keep subscribed

I won't be among the first flock of gamers trying out the new F2P model for Lord of the Rings Online.  There was just a bit too much that I didn't enjoy.  However, I'm all for more payment options in the MMORPG space and say, "Hurray, for Turbine!" 

The games I'd run to more readily would be EverQuest2, Warhammer Online or Age of Conan.  In EQ2 and AOC, my enjoyment lasted long enough for me to reach the high 30s.  In WAR, I'm only 3.5 levels from max.  For AOC and WAR, I hit the notorious grind zones that many complained about and I didn't have the steam to just push through something that should be fun.  If I didn't have to pay each month, I could have tackled it bit by bit without feeling compelled to make the dollars worth it or feeling as though I was wasting my money.

In EQ2's case, I can only take that particular style of questing in spurts.  And it's mostly due to not wanting to keep a subscription if I'd only play here and there throughout the month, that keeps me unsubscribe.  There are days when I do think of playing but not enough to go re-subscribe.  Had Sony's most recent pricing option been a set number of hours versus requiring them to be consumed in consecutive days, I'd have been all in.

I think moves like this will help games that are becoming too top heavy or stagnant.  One of the great things about the consistent momentum in WOW is that anyone starting a new characters is never short of company.  I hope this model works out well for Turbine.  If it does, it will encourage other companies to give it a try. I don't remember on whose comment thread or who the commenter was but holy bejebus, if this works for Turbine, is there any chance of AC2 resurrecting under the same banner?

All that said, F2P doesn't mean I'd play any ole thing.  My leisure time holds a significant value.

LOTRO goes F2P - This might get me to try it again.

As reported on Massively, Lord of the Rings Online, is going free to play.  LOTRO is one of the few games where my initial gaming experience was so lackluster that I've never bothered trying the game again.  I've played many MMOs that I've left after a few months of playing for one reason or another.  However, if I found certain elements really good or was able to connect with that game on some level that was very entertaining, I can look past my core dislikes and re-subscribe off and on.

I'm not a fan of EQ2's old style questing where the questing is WAY over there and the player cities and towns are over here.  For me it makes questing feel very disconnected from the virtual world experience - like it is just a side activity.  I find myself wondering as my avatar, why I need to care about what these creatures are doing WAY OVER THERE, in an area that's clearly uninhabited, that I need to repeatedly go there and kill stuff.  I’m a huge fan of there being player towns and/or outposts in the questing zones.  Not for the convenience but for making the questing relevant to me as a denizen of this place, by having settlements near the action.