Monthly Archive for September, 2010

The hoarding and collecting impulse is deep in the gamer heart, driving us to get that last achievement or finish out a dungeon, character, or game after it has stopped being fun. One tool I like for reducing my meatspace clutter is having an online distribution channel. As long as I can trust them to stay in business and available, an archive somewhere will hold my stuff. All the things that can happen to your physical copies no longer matter, from losing them in the move or house to soda and pet messes to figuring out how to read 3.5″ floppies these days. Someone out there, with better backup practices than me, will let me download a copy if I ever need them again.

The same applies to the Steam Cloud and my saved games. Horrible things happen to my computer more often than they happen to my Steam access.

I had not explored Battle.net before StarCraft II. They have a place to input your keys for Blizzard games. Conveniently, I still have every CD and every key; I am best situated to use the service because I do not need it (irony). But I do not need to bring my CDs to LAN parties “just in case.” I need this service for all my old games, so I can input a code and stop hoarding physical media, although I am likely to keep and protect my Master of Orion CD and manual forever.

: Zubon

Opportunistic actions are less precise and certain than specified goals and intentions, but they result in less mental effort, less inconvenience, and perhaps more interest.
— The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

This is a throw-away line that contains much, particularly in the “perhaps more interest.” He is talking about running errands and “oh, if you stop at the grocery store, could you pick up some plums?” but by now you should be familiar with the parallels between MMO quests and chores and errands.

“While I’m here” has long been the reason I get to bed late. Because we are finishing up this dungeon, oh maybe one more run to finish the achievement, and a resource node just respawned near the exit, and ooh is that a rare mob over there, and then I want to hit the vendor and the vault, and I can pick up another quest while I am here, and maybe I should process those crafting resources I picked up, and just two points to the next tier, and my plans ended before bedtime but it is now much later. A couple of those steps are embracing the illusion of scarcity, because you never know when you are going to find that rare spawn or when you are going to find such a good PUG, so gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

Opportunistic actions prevent the feeling of grinding. Even if you run through 20 of them, they are 20 unplanned opportunities to exploit. When you have a plan, you have a “to do” list, a set number of times to run the dungeon and earn badges or an expected 2% chance of getting that rare drop. You know what you are doing tonight, and it is just a matter of getting through it. “Getting through it” is not a mindset you want in your entertainment.

Of course, we are MMO players. Given events or public quests in random starting states, we will plan out grinds to make the night more efficient. You have these four events to complete to fill the bar and get the achievement, and you are really annoyed about needing to wait another 4:30 for the bandits to reset so you can get those wolves.

: Zubon

There’s been some recent activity at Undead Labs.  You might recall they are the newest MMO hotshots in town going to create a console-based zombie MMO.  The best thing is that Jeff Strain and Co. are taking a page right from their alma mater ArenaNet and creating some brilliant concept art right off the bat.  You can check out their art director’s post here, but one of the scariest, most haunting zombie pieces ever I just had to include after the break.  I seriously can’t believe it’s just concept art.

Continue reading ‘Undead Labs Ticking Along’