Clad or Scantily Clad?

One of the age old arguments between male and female gamers has always seemed to be about armor. Should female avatars be clad in heavy plate armor that barely allows for movement? Should she be swathed in so many layers of silk and cloth that she looks like a rag hag? The other option seems to be a very scantily clad lady running around in things that by all rights shouldn’t even be able to stay up. I have found very few games that come to a good medium on this subject. Why is it so hard to mix sexy and practical? There are several reasons supporting each side, and most of them are very valid.

Clad armor is said to be more realistic in its practicality, and I agree. The coverage of this armor type does offer quite a bit of functionality and realism.  More realistic armor also doesn’t seem to harbor a lot of the gravity defying qualities that the more scantily armor does. Some of the “more appropriate” get ups can actually be quite appealing. Not all of it is clunky, awkward and downright ugly (though most of it is). Some of it can actually be kind of pretty and aesthetically pleasing. The most important aspect of coverage though, seems to be immersion. Some people play RPG’s for role playing, go figure, and those people want to disappear into another world. Not every female playing a female character wants to be exploited, or so I have been told.

Scantily clad actually doesn’t have much going for it in the way of being believable per say; It does however have the most important thing I think, people love it. I’m always running into people who are playing a female character. I automatically assume that they are a female gamer (you would think that I had learned by now) they usually aren’t. Male gamers just like to look at the butt of their female avatar for hours on end, especially when she goes into stealth mode.  So why would they want to cover her up with tons of realistic armor? They don’t, and so the scantily clad armor is oh so popular because it is hot. It makes the character that wears it look sexy, and if you are paying good money to play a game, or even if you’re not, you are spending hours looking at your toon, and you want her to be pretty. I personally have spent hours and hours in every game I play looking for said gravity defying armor. This stuff shouldn’t even be able to stay on my character, let alone do any good, but I tell myself its still good armor because it’s enchanted. 

Now some games have come to a good compromise with sexy yet practical armor. I think that these armor sets are really well done, and should satisfy the conflict between the clad and scantily clad armor.

Personally though, it’s not my cup of tea and I will continue to grandeur myself with the illusions that enchantments will save me when the shit hits the fan. The only other feasible option is that game developers add one simple little button to the gear panel. Some games have already implemented the ability to wear costumes, this simply changes what other players see your character wearing. They could do the same for your armor, I wouldn't think that it would be too hard. Just give us an option between sexy armor and realistic armor so we can be done with this age old fight. K thx bye. What do you guys think?     

Cancel

River of Souls FAIL??

Rift’s new invasion event, River of Souls, was great at first. Running around Telara helping prevent the takeover of the Alsbeth troops was a lot of fun for the first week and a half. To be quite honest, I was really obsessive about trying to get the spectral horse mount to drop, it didn’t. As I became increasingly frustrated with my inability to collect this rare mount, other players became increasingly irritated at Trion’s postponement of the final two stages of this event. An announcement was made the day that phase two and three of the event were supposed to go live. The announcement stated that the launch of these final stages in Europe had not gone well, and that the patch was causing some stabilization issues. They had decided to halt the event’s progress and instead, extend the first phase for one week. I wasn’t bothered by the delay because as far as I was concerned, this just gave me more time to farm my new mount. However, a lot of people were upset because they had made arrangements to have the day off of work and other things. I admit that Trion could have made this announcement much sooner. Be that as it may, I spent the whole next week farming to no avail. One week later, everyone is excited for the final stages of the event, and the unlocking of our new raid. I, as well as many others, try logging into the game servers only to find a several hour wait in queue. What?! There hasn’t been a queue for my server since a week or two after launch! These final stages of the River of Souls were only scheduled to take a few hours at best, and now tons of people can’t even log in to participate! I found out later that the reason for the queue was due to a certain someone at Trion deciding that this weekend would be a great weekend to also have free to play trials. Smart, really smart. Let’s let thousands of people who aren’t paying to play this game clog up all the servers on the day of the most important event we have seen so that paying customers can’t even log in….. To say the least, people were furious. I got lucky and was able to log into my account after the server crashed and all of the queue were reset. The event only latest a half an hour at best, I can only assume this was because there were around 600 people in each zone. These mobs didn’t stand a chance.

Trion has made amends for this catastrophe though. In my opinion, anything other than the fiasco of releasing this event on a free to play weekend was to be expected. It is always a learning curve and I am confident that the next world event will go much smoother. I have no intention of canceling my account, and I don’t think that anyone else should either. Trion has gone above and beyond in customer service and I believe that Rift is still well worth playing.

I was also delighted to find this posting on the forums, just another example of the great customer service at Trion:

 River of Souls World Event Wrapup

When we set out to get this unveil event in front of you, it was all about some serious ambitions.
Great new types of content to unveil a brand new raid zone. Events that really push the edge of what's possible not just in Rift, but in any MMO of its kind. All within an incredibly rapid amount of time following launch.
In this case, while we did get to "what's possible" we didn't get to "solid gameplay for the entire game universe." The later phases of the event were too concentrated and time-compressed, which caused issues on a number of worlds. Ambition is important -- It's what keeps us improving day to day, week to week, month to month. But, it's equally important to know when you walked too close to the edge and got cut.

Between our previous experience with zone events and now with world events, we have a much better idea of the range we can create "fun" for at a mass scale in the future, and the steps we need to take to continue progressing the more solid gameplay experiences that only happen in RIFT. As I had posted earlier, our next world events will already be taking everything we learned, as well as all of your comments about the event, into account. Please do keep them coming -- I guarantee we're here reading them all, weekend or not. As developers, none of us are happy when anyone who chooses to spend their valuable time in our game feels like they got the short end of our aspirations. To that end, even if something goes great for some, when it doesn't go great for all, we're going to go out of our way to make it up in some way wherever we can. We're going to assume that if you are an active subscriber you were intending to participate in the final stages. 1) Operating on that assumption, later this week everyone will be receiving an in-game mail with the River of Souls Event Reward Pack containing:
Symbol of Purity – This item starts a quest you can complete to obtain

·         250 Otherworldly Sourcestone

·         1x - Purified Treasure Cache – Contains a random chance of obtaining one of the special world drop event rewards from the day of the event

o    Common – Grave Goods Bag -Unique 20 Slot Bag (NEW ITEM)

o    Uncommon - Shroud of Anti-Life – Lorn non combat Polymorph

o    Rare – Nimble Spectral Horse – 90% Speed Mount

o    Ultra Rare – Swift Spectral Warhorse – 110% Speed Mount

·         Shadetouched Weapon Cache – The starter item for the Rare Death weapon quests. You can choose whichever level appropriate one you'd like.

·         The following two Achievements, since not everyone who was (or wanted to be) present was able to obtain them.

o    Grim Hero

o    Grim Protector

2) The achievement for kneeling to Alsbeth will remain available in her incarnation inside the River of Souls.
3) Additionally, we're also going to continue the Otherworldly Sourcestone drops for the next few days, for those who haven't yet finished off their collections and would care to.
4) And since the question has come up quite a few times -- the ability to complete the quests from the Shadetouched Weapon Cache will continue, such that you're always able to finish them.
We do thank you for your patience with us during this first ever World Event. We know that patience isn't infinite. We do respect that fact greatly, and you have our word that we're listening and reacting smartly for the next round.
- Scott

Was this event a flop? No, I don’t think so, just a learning curve for everyone in Telara. Although I never did get my spectral horse =(

In honor of Skyrim

In honor of the new Elder Scrolls game releasing 11/11/11, I decided to break out an old staple. Oblivion. I wanted to see if the game was still as amazing as I remembered it being. Considering that I haven’t played this game in well over two years and I am a huge graphics snob, I wasn’t really expecting anything that great. I was very WRONG. This game is still fantastic and I am addicted all over again, I mean not sleeping for two days kind of addicted. I had forgotten the kinds of things that you can do in an amazing single player RPG. Bethesda just blows my mind with the amount of work and thought that they put into these games. I would love to see these in MMO format, but part of me knows that it would only cheapen the experience rather than enhance it. You just can’t get this kind of immersion anywhere else.

This was a quality game five years ago, with top of the line graphics and physics engines. While the graphics are no longer the greatest I have ever seen, they certainly aren’t the worst and they in no way damage this game for me. I usually have a problem playing games that don’t have great graphics because they also lack the content to keep me occupied. Not a problem in Oblivion. The graphics are still better than some games that I have tried in the past year claiming to have state of the art graphics engines, and the content completely makes up for any lack in graphics quality.

I am going to make a list of some of my favorite features for this game. Keep in mind that I have only been playing this game again for the past few weeks, and it has already shown that it is still definitely worth the while; a very hard thing to do for most games at five years running with little to no patching.

The first and most relevant thing that I would like to point out is that even though this game is five years old, it still has a MASSIVE online modifications community. I used to run fifty plus mods for WoW, but have found over some 10,000 available for Oblivion. This is an astonishing number for me, especially considering that the vast majority of these are unique. You normally have upwards of ten percent of game modifications being different versions of the same thing in my experience. With Oblivion or Morrowind it seems to be more like a two percent ratio of modifications being created for the exact same utility. The possibilities are limitless.  There are people out there creating a boat load of mount and quest content available to whomever takes the time to look. You could, in essence, completely beat this game and still have an unlimited number of player created expansion packs to add to the game. Each of these modifications adds a whole new level of depth. You could get a new mount, or companion pets, or you could also get an entirely new zone with tons of quests and a complete overhaul of the game’s graphics. To think that these additions are created by everyday fans of the game; people who have spent countless hours making the world of Oblivion their own place to live, relax and escape. Obviously this game has a lot to give. I have yet to see another game with a player base as devoted to making this world one in which they can create a whole new existence to call their own.

For example; I have found over 100 companion pets to collect, each of these are either combat pets or just vanity pets. I have also found whole new areas devoted to shops with new clothing and weapons. I could add a player created mansion to live in, but I still have to do a lengthy quest chain to acquire a key that allows me to call this abode my own. It is truly astonishing, the options that I have to choose from that present the very real possibility to play this game for years. You can also get mods that allow your player to hire and recruit companion npcs or entire parties of seven companions to help you on your journey through Cyrodiil.

This game has more than just mods available to make it great. The original content and game mechanics are still more than worth their salt. There are several different in game guilds that you can join and do quests for. These guilds are a lot different than guilds in MMO’s. They aren’t just groups of people to join and hang out with. These guilds, like the Mage Guild for example, are like factions. You do an initial act to get an invitation to the guild, and then you do tons of quests for them. After doing these quests, you will have gained reputation and standing in the guild based on the amount of work that you have put into it. The Assassin’s guild starts only after you have murdered someone and then gone to sleep in a safe place such as your personal house. How do you find out what is needed to activate these quests? You talk to the people who live in the world of Elder Scrolls. People in the game have rumors as well as quests to fill your brain with, allowing you to figure out how to accomplish what you would like without actually giving you all the answers. No one is there to hold your hand in Oblivion like they are in World of Warcraft. You do not get stagnate quest chains that are only there to help you level. Oblivion is to be played the way you want to play it.

Leveling in this game is really different as well. In order to level, you have to do things that will max out the attributes and abilities that you have picked out for yourself. Sneaking and stealing will level your sneak . Using your bow will level your marksmanship, and healing yourself will level your restoration and intelligence. Other things like jumping a lot, or just running around either in circles or around the world will level your athletics and acrobatics. Once a certain number of these attributes have attained enough points, you will level. Once you have leveled, you can choose to spend points in six other traits, such as agility and strength. Putting points into your strength will cause your character to be able to carry more, have more health, ect. The same applies with different effects for the other five traits. This essentially makes it so that your character becomes best at whatever you do the most. So you can in essence, level through the game just by exploring if you choose.

Different ways of killing people will also affect the way you play the game. You can head shot with your bow, or hack and slash with your sword and board, sure, but there are more interesting ways to kill here. There is pick pocketing in the game just like there is in several others I have played, although it is different here. You can not only take what someone has in their pockets, but you can also place things into theirs. You can murder the queen of a castle after you have stolen the key to the gates by slipping a poison apple into her food sack. Then just sit back and watch the fireworks as the town explodes into action a few hours later, trying to deal with the chaos that follows her demise. Another thing that I enjoy, is that once you have killed someone in the game, they stay dead. This is much unlike other RPG’s, and I think it really helps out with immersion. 

Last but not least is the player housing system. This system is by far the best that I have ever seen. You can not only purchase and mod several houses in the game for one character, but you can also decorate them to suit your tastes. By decorating, I don’t mean the kind of decorating that you will find in most games. I mean that you go to a vendor and purchase all of the furnishings for your home that are available to you. When you return to your house, everything will be in place already. This just gives you places to put things. You will have containers and tables and beds and all kinds of things that are stationary in your home. You can put things into the drawers and containers if you like, but I prefer to showcase all of the things that I have stolen, oops, I mean acquired. After you have decided what you want to store, and what you want to display, you simply drop everything on the floor in your living room and start placing things throughout your house. You can put stuff anywhere you like. There are no set limitations on where certain sized things have to be placed or how many items you can put out. Nothing like that has been put into place in order to limit your creativity. This is the best player housing I have seen all by itself, but when you look at the housing modifications that can be added to the game, you will come to understand that you could potentially play this game for years and only ever finish decorating all of your houses before you are done.

Now everyone knows that I am an MMORPG fan through and through. Yet Oblivion has made me question whether or not this is a good standing for me. I think not, I am sure that I will be paying much more attention to stand alone RPGs in the future. Good job Bethesda, I salute you.

Here are my two favorite mod websites for both Morrowind and Oblivion:

http://tesnexus.com/

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.list