SEAK players are usually very interested in the the 'total experience' of a virtual world--meeting other people and finding the unique places within it. They don't care much for PVP or levelling, but meeting up with online friends to see new parts of the world is usually fun and exciting.

Take the MMORPG Bartle Test yourself and copy/paste your results into the comments of this article. =)

The questionnaire is based on a design by Richard Bartle, famous for also creating the world's first MUD in 1978.

Here it is, my first tattoo. A purple Space Invader.

I have a Space Invader on my hand!!

Pain and I spent yesterday at the Vancouver Tattoo Convention. We wandered around, oggling the various punks, goths, bikers and preppies getting tattoos, plus we spent mucho time flipping through sample photos at the various booths. Some were incredibly impressive, others were not. There was a huge amount of variety and some artists from pretty far away (the scrawny gothish/punkish UK tattoo artists were rather cute).

After perusing the floor, we took a break outside to get some fresh air and discuss which artists we'd get to do our tattoos. Both of our designs were simple and small and we agreed that it would be almost silly to take up the time of some of the uber talented artists, so we'd just look for a booth that wasn't too busy and where the artists seemed friendly enough. Most friendly seemed to be a booth from Saskatoon and another from Colorado. Pain liked the idea of getting tats from non-local artists, because this wasn't exactly big followup work. When we went back the Saskatoon booth was busy, so the Colorado folks (Guilty By Association, no website unfortunately) were it.

It was a good choice, the artist (Tia Hughbanks) did a great job on Pain's heart over her heart and gave us a cheap combo deal. When I said I wanted a Space Invader on my hand, Tia got very excited and suggested in the future I get a Sinistar tattoo as well, which made me laugh because of course Sinistar was an option in my head already. She also was very enthusiastic at my plans of getting some Joust artwork done later on down the road, maybe I'll actually visit Colorado to get it done.

The tattoo, like most, isn't absolutely perfect. I'd planned on solid black, but after she outlined the transfer I said that the blue/purple was rather striking. She said I could switch to purple then, although she hadn't been super careful with the outline because she figured with solid black she could touch up. Of course, if I didn't like the purple or the slight variety in the lines I could always get it filled with black later, so I went for it. I'm very pleased with it and Pain says that with one eye slightly wider than the other my Space Invader has character and I'm inclined to agree.

I'm very pleased overall, I'll definitely get more tattoos. This almost feels like not much of one because it's so small and it really doesn't seem permanent at all, even though it is, because it looks like I took a felt marker to myself, heheh.

As for the experience, the pain was almost nothing, nowhere near the amount that my branding was, even though I got the tattoo on a more sensitive skin area. I think I could easily manage a large tattoo, which is good because I have several pieces planned.

Dammit.

Chris: "You should try Puzzle Quest."
Rog: "Okay."

Now I'm questioning my core beliefs that videogames are not a true addiction.

PvP is cheap by design. Without the campers in Quake and the snipers in Counterstrike these games wouldn't have been as much fun as they were. That damned sniper might pick me off six times in a row, but nothing was quite as satisfying as finally lobbing a grenade into his position. It felt like complete payback.

I find Tactical PvP so much more satisfying than systematic. Tactical implies opportunity. Opportunity implies advantage. Advantage is inherently unbalanced / cheap.

Can we handle costly PvP? Perma-death is a sad reminder of real life and you can only remove a player from the field for so long, if it's Last Man Standing then it better be a short round. Looting items from players isn't popular either, especially if it stops the player from jumping right back into the fray.

PvP is about action, non-stop. That's what we want right? To feel like we're in the middle of a rollercoaster blockbuster action flic where it never stops. Go ahead and die, take a loss, but pop back up and keep going. You can kick a man, but you can't keep him down.

But when you take the cost completely out of PvP, if you remove any progression and bring it down to the basic elements of skill and pride, players start to demand balance. Is a fair fight what we really want? Here's the central argument in a recent post crying for class nerfs:

Isn't that what you're asking for? Perfectly balanced classes / characters would average out to everyone dying exactly 50% of the time. If you're concerning yourself with your rate of wins/losses, half the time is horrible, isn't it? You want to win, to come out on top.

PvP has terrible odds, period. Statistically, the only way someone can get ahead is while more players fall behind. So winning can't be about the odds, otherwise a whole lot of players are left unsatisfied. Accomplishments need to be given out either in small doses, or larger tasks that progress and accumulate more than the losses. It can't be zero sum.

In my mind, I feel the trick isn't to balance everyone as equals, but instead allow suitable means of challenge and revenge. Lob that grenade right back!

I've been as guilty as any doom and gloomer over the noticeable downtrend of the PC gaming market in the past few years, but there's no doubt to me that PC games are about to make a comeback.

Hello Spore, Left4Dead and Dragon Age. There are significant PC games on the horizon. The MMORPG market has exploded, thanks to WoW's high subscriber rate and I believe WAR will hit big and expand this even further. Plus digital distribution is finally poised to push brick-and-mortars into irrelevance.

The question is how much Microsoft will continue to botch it up and will Apple grow some PC gaming balls to take advantage of the missteps of Vista + DirectX 10?

Apple's PC marketshare is on the rise again. They've got some gaming fanbois despite themselves, thanks to Blizzard's stubbornness to give triple-A quality to their treasured platform. If they just tried a little, they could capitalize on the discomfort PC gamers are feeling from Microsoft's squeeze to push Windows Live.

Apple needs to do what Microsoft did once-upon-a-time and support PC game developers in a big way, flat out cater to them. This isn't Apple's strong suit, I think they like absolute control even more than the Redmond giant, but if they're going to do it, they should skip their usual tendencies and wrest the steering wheel away now before Microsoft realizes what they've screwed up.

They just need to convince one man really: Gabe Newell. He may not like Apple much, but he's an opportunist too. Partner with Valve, let them take the reins of a new gaming initiative for the Mac. If Apple was smart they'd realize these are the PC gaming savvy guys, they're the ones that get stuff done.

If Apple doesn't clue in quick, they'll still trickle in more marketshare, but they'll be missing out on an opportunity to grab the whole shebang while it's sitting right on the table being neglected.

Hardcore and Casual don't exist, at least not in the ways the words have been applied lately.

There are the informed and the uninformed.

Be careful when you woo the uninformed masses that you don't just sell them shiny new things. Uninformed doesn't mean stupid, you can only hawk baubles for so long. The Mii-toos of the music game genre are one example of paste sold as precious jewels.

Don't repeat 1983.

The craze for anything with pixels left a jaded mass-market in its wake and for decades afterwards the videogame industry struggled for relevance. The buzz is that we've arrived? We've been here before.

Am I trying to be an alarmist? Maybe just a bit, although some ringing in executive ears won't stop this sort of thing. I can only hope they keep up the greater creative effort rather than standing at the base of the money-tree and collecting the dollars that fall. E3's opening pitches this year are not a good sign.

There have been some great examples in recent years of delivering solid gameplay to the masses, but the next wave seems tired.

Update: Looks like the usual fare, website relaunch and trailers.

  ·  ·  ·

BioWare is set to announce something big for Dragon Age tomorrow. It's close to E3, so who knows, this could be just a release date coupled with a trailer and whatnot. Or perhaps they've decided to make a console version for what was originally intended as a PC-only game. Or it may be connected to Dr. Ray's comments about on-going content downloads.

Dragon Age was one of the games BioWare started developing a few years back as their original property games, like Mass Effect. I was pretty thrilled at the idea, because as much as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR were fantastic, they were all set in licensed universes and the guys at BioWare are more than creative enough to come up with some damn inventive stuff on their own.

Dragon Age is set in their own unique medieval fantasy world.

When a guildmate mentioned it (thanks Xystian), the idea of a Dragon Age MMORPG put a huge grin on my face.

I'm not starting any rumours, so don't get excited, I don't think that's actually going to happen. BioWare couldn't be developing Dragon Age secretly as an MMO all this time, could they? It does have a 5 year development cycle, but BioWare doesn't develop quick games anyway. It can't be, because it's expected to be party-based tactical combat, right? Well it's very unlikely, because they've also said it won't have the ability to do persistent server stuff like Neverwinter did.

Ahhh but I can dream that the BioWare MMORPG won't be a space opera, especially not Star Wars. For at least a few hours, I'm going to pretend it'll be a sword and sorcery romp.    =)

Maybe they'll consider an MMORPG sequel set in the Dragon Age world. I'm gonna start begging now.