May the farce be with you

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Every so often, in SW:TOR, my character will do something that results in an increase in light/dark side points, or an increase in approval from a companion.    What is it about these points that I find so appealing?   Of course, there are gains to be had.  I believe that an increase in approval with a companion helps with crafting, and light or dark side points allow you to buy particular items from a vendor.    Which isn’t actually terribly exciting.   I think those gains just give me an excuse to keep trying to make those points flash up.

I’m trying to role play my character, but have found it difficult to get to grips with her motivation.   In beta, my sith inquisitor was dark side and that was fun.   This time, well, I was intrigued to see how a light side inquisitor would play out.   And I know from experience that I’m drawn to the light.  I knew I would find it difficult to consistently make dark side choices.

Sometimes the light side choices work better than I expected, and aren’t necessarily “good”.  I can imagine a more evil person might choose the light side choice of keeping a captive alive to torture or to bargain with, rather than killing them instantly and spoiling all the fun.    However, as there’s no advantage to being “grey” (wouldn’t it be “purple”?) I feel I have to consistently pick those light side choices and somehow make them fit to my character rather than vice versa.   Which means that my character is evolving through her choices.

When I’ve played other Bioware games, I’ve always felt I can justify doing or saying something out of character just to win approval.  It might be more important to that character to win a companion’s approval at that point than to choose the more “right” answer.   I’ve particularly felt this with romance companions.   After all, in the first flush of romance, I think many people might be influenced by their partners into choices and modify their words and actions slightly.

The ability to switch out companions makes things even easier to manipulate.  I’ve sometimes done a quest with one character, then switched to another to hand it in, just in case there are approval points to be gained.

Which means the whole thing becoming a bit of a farce (OK, I did just want to use that title for the post, and couldn’t think of another one.   Next week, I’ll probably think of something farce-related to write about SW:TOR and will really regret using the title on this one).    Picking light side options even if they sound ridiculous, being childishly rebellious to win approval, switching companions whenever I start a conversation …   The inappropriate light side options are rather fun, though, particularly when spoken in my inquisitor’s sarcastic voice.

May the farce be with you

The loneliness of the less typical gamer

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Long time, no post.   Like most people, I’ve been playing SW:TOR in my (limited) free time.

I say “like most people”, but I probably mean, “like most people in my guild” or “like many MMO players”.    I’m in a situation where I don’t know anyone in real life who plays SW:TOR (apart from my son, and the guild member whom I’ve met in real life).   I hardly know of anyone in real life who has heard of SW:TOR.

Such is the loneliness of the older gamer.  I very occasionally mention my gaming to friends my age, but there’s nothing to discuss unless they play.   I think they’re mildly amused at me pretending to be a gnome or whatever in my free time, but there’s nothing to discuss unless they’re gamers too.  Which they’re not.

Even on the internet (never mind real life!), older female gamers don’t have much of a presence.    I can only think of one in my guild, and she’s not playing SW:TOR.   I’ve had a look for blogs or forums, but haven’t found much – it’s easy enough to find female bloggers, but older female bloggers?  And I don’t mean older than 25.  I mean around my generation or up.  Teenage or older kids, wearing varifocals, remember everything (leggings, dry hair shampoo, Thatchermania, all the older-than-me singers making comebacks, the story referenced in this post title) first time round, etc.   We exist, but we seem to be largely invisible.

There are websites, forums and blogs about “girl” gamers.   I know that I don’t have to be under 18 to be referred to as a girl, but still, I can’t seem to think of myself as a girl gamer.  To be fair to those who do use “girl”, they aren’t exactly spoiled for choice.   What should we be called, if our sex is to be identified?  Lady gamers?  Women gamers?  Female gamers?   All of those names come with baggage.   I’d go for “women” myself, but apart from anything else, I’d lose the alliteration of girl gamers.

And when I’ve read about girl gamer issues, a lot of it seems to be about being “hit on” by guys, something which doesn’t seem to be a problem for me.  (Why not, eh?  Do they know that I’m somebody’s mum?  Can they sense it?).   (Not that that’s the only issue.  I’ve been reading some interesting stuff about sexism in SW:TOR, something I feel I’m not far enough into the game to make judgment on at the moment).  I don’t even have much in common with the women who are juggling (not literally) small children and gaming, although I can sympathise.  I’m past the small child stage, and on to the picking up from girlfriend’s (my son’s, not mine) stage.

So what are my specific, older female gamer issues?   I suppose that it’s balancing game time, but in a different way.   My son goes to bed at the same time as me so I no longer have a couple of clear hours in the evening.   I’m in a household which has a certain level of noise right up until bedtime, so using Mumble, Vent, etc., is problematic.    I’m having to budget for my son’s education and my own pension, so money is limited.  I have health problems that I didn’t have to deal with when I was younger and that can sometimes affect my gaming (I’m convinced that my many medications don’t help!).   My eyesight isn’t what it used to be and my varifocals don’t seem to be designed for looking at a computer screen.

These aren’t moans, but just issues that I don’t seem to have in common with other people.   The main issue is simply that I’m on my own.  I can’t talk to my friends about my gaming because it would be boring and they wouldn’t understand.   They don’t seem to feel the urge to game and I don’t understand that!     It’s not loneliness as such, because I don’t feel lonely, but maybe aloneness.  Solitariness.   But with the feeling that there are others like me out there.  I just haven’t met them yet.

The loneliness of the less typical gamer

The class choice dilemma

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For a long time I’ve been trying to decide which class to play in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  And the decision-making has flagged up, yet again, one of the dilemmas in playing MMOs.   I’ll be playing what is a group game, but for the great majority of the time I’ll be playing it solo.

My ideal class in a group is one which has a clearly defined role, is useful and wanted in groups, and isn’t too hard to play.   My ideal solo class is one which is tough, fast, fun and versatile.  The difficulty doesn’t matter too much as I’m only letting myself down if I get it wrong.

In groups I love playing (in order of appeal):

  1. a straightforward tank
  2. a straightforward healer (I’m OK at healing, but bad at doing healing along with something else)
  3. a support class, with crowd control and tricks
  4. ranged dps
  5. melee dps

Solo, in order of preference, I like to play:

  1. First equal, hybrid classes and pet classes.   I love to be able to self-heal and to have a pet act as tank/support
  2. Ranged dps
  3. Melee dps
  4. Healer
  5. Tank

Of course, it depends on the game.   I’ve put tank at the bottom of my solo list because I got so bored grinding my guardian through LOTRO.  Never again.  Meanwhile, I’m sure my WoW paladin tank would have been fun solo.   But then, I see a paladin as more of a hybrid.

I was very excited about Rift because the classes were so customisable.  Given my choices above, a rogue was ideal.   I could tank or do a bit of healing in instances, along with the ranged dps (and melee dps if I wanted a change).   I could just switch to play whatever role was missing in the group.  Solo, I had my choice of pets.

Although I still think the Rift class system is great, in practice, it didn’t work the way I’d hoped.  Changing spec was like learning a whole new class.  I tried soloing with the riftstalker (tanking) tree, but I couldn’t get to grips with it, and wouldn’t have had the confidence to try it in a group.  And when I did instances with my guild, we always had a tank, so there was no need.

Now, I’ve been trying to work out a ranking system for the different classes, to help me decide.  For instance, I could give points to a class that can tank, because that’s my number one choice in a group.   However, I suspect that the reality is that I’m not going to tank.   There are others in my guild who might like to tank, and have more time to commit and are, frankly, better at it.  And I could give points for a pet class, but in a way, I feel that all the classes will be pet classes because of their companions.    Then I thought that perhaps the most important aspect was versatility: the ability to try out different roles and change when I find the one that suits.   But from what I gather, at some point with any class I would have to specialise and would lose that versatility.

What I’d planned to do, in this post, was work out a formula which took account of the advantages of each class for me as a group and solo player, and decide, through a points system, which was the optimum choice.  But I know that it’s not going to go like that.  I know that Bounty Hunter would probably win.  And yet, I’m not particularly drawn to Bounty Hunter, even though I think it looks fun.

In the end, I’m probably going to decide on the basis of less quantifiable things.   Things like the look of the character, the voice acting, the starting story, the companions. For instance, I’d like to play an Imperial Agent simply because I like playing less popular classes.  And “Bounty Hunter” just doesn’t sound as good as “Sith Inquisitor”, does it?

I haven’t been playing the beta, so it’s only now that the NDA has been lifted that I’m starting to get more of a feel for the different classes.  But even things like talent calculators don’t get me to the nitty-gritty of “Will I love this class?”.  It’s a gut feeling, and I think I can only find out by playing.

And the solo/group dilemma?   Two things.   First, because I will be solo so much of the time, it’s probably best for me to find what I love playing solo and then adapt to make that work well in a group.  Roll on dual specs.   Second, I have a cat who likes to walk on the keyboard, catch my mouse and sit in front of the monitor.  Whatever class I play, I’m going to be a liability in a group.   As a mum, I’ve been used to working game time around a child’s sleep times.  To my consternation, it turns out that cat sleep times are not quite so predictable.   Cats are like children in one way, though.   They are able to sense when you’re doing something engrossing that doesn’t involve them and then do their best to be the centre of your world again.

The class choice dilemma

What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over

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It’s an old saying, and apparently applies equally as well to the denizens of Skyrim as it does to their real life counterparts.

Although I have had fun moving things and bodies about to create hilarious scenarios, it hadn’t occured to me to take such practical advantage of the ability to move apparently useless objects.

But would it work in real life?  Next time you want to leave work early, try putting the wastepaper bin over the boss’s head.  Go on, I dare you.   I double dare you.

What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over

Zombies and giant spiders.

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This has become a Skyrim household.  My son and I play side by side, me on the PC, him on the Xbox360, both trying not to watch each other’s game too much in case we get spoilers.   I’m a spell-casting Breton, he’s a shield-bashing Nord.  For more than half the time, we seem to be doing different quests, which makes it interesting.  He has explored the south-west of the map.  I’ve explored the north-east.  Both of us have been trying to avoid spoilers during this first playthrough.   There has been the odd slipup, particularly when he said “I wish  you hadn’t told me that the Companions are (spoiler!)”, and I said “I didn’t know that the Companions were (spoiler!)!”

Anyway, zombies and giant spiders.  Is it just me?  I don’t have anything against the idea of them as a one-off enemy.   At some point, a giant spider must have seemed a really cool and original idea.   That must have been some time ago.   Tolkien’s time perhaps.

Zombies also have a history that goes back before video games.  According to wikipedia, they have appeared in fiction since 1929 and in films since 1932 (and long before that in folklore).   It’s natural that they would make an appearance in a video game at some point.

But why are giant spiders and zombies in so many games?  It doesn’t matter if the theme is fantasy or sci-fi, those old spiders and zombies seem to find their way in one way or another.

The trouble with giant spiders, is that they are just very, very big spiders.  I can understand that if somebody finds small spiders scary, big ones would be terrifying.   But I happily share my house with the small variety, and am lucky enough to live in a part of the world where they’re unlikely to harm me.  I don’t feel that I get the intended sense of threat from a giant spider.   Maybe if it was the very first time I’d heard of a giant spider, and I suddenly came across one in a game, now that might give me a shock.   But giant spiders in games have become so common place as to become accepted.   I’d actually be more surprised to see a normal sized spider in a game.

Zombies and undead – every time I walk into a tomb in a game and see a body, I wonder if it’s going to get up and fight me.  Again, if I could go back to that very first time, never having played a game where dead isn’t really dead, and see a skeleton start to get up from the ground for the very first time, now that would be something.   But again, it’s now expected.  I felt like prodding the unmoving occupants of some of the burial places in Skryim.  What’s wrong with you?  Why can’t you fight like your “friends”?

I did have a zombie moment several years ago.  I think I had played games with undead characters in the past (Grim Fandango in particular), but it hadn’t been scary.   Then I played Thief: The Dark Project. Oh my.

Zombie from Thief: The Dark Project.   Not so scary in 2011, are you?

Back then, my son was little, and I used to play after he’d gone to bed, in dim light, with the sound turned up so that I could sneak around and listen for enemies.   The first time I heard a zombie groan behind me I was terrified.  It took me forever to play through the game, because of the zombies, with saves about every 5 seconds.  It was the most scared I’ve ever been in a game.

But it was a first.   And since then, I’ve seen zombies and walking undead by the coachload.  There’s no shock value.  It’s still a little scary, and disturbing in that these were once people.  I think I could become more involved in a full zombie story where you get to know people before they become zombies, or perhaps are investigating one solitary zombie and maybe their evil zombie-master.  But in Skyrim, at the moment, they just feel like another annoying mob, like bandits or wolves.  The shock value has gone.

(Still love Skyrim though!).

Zombies and giant spiders.

Skyrim is ruining my life.

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Like many people around the world, I have spent a scary amount of time over the last couple of days playing Skyrim.   Which is a problem, as I have quite a lot to do this weekend.   I was a big fan of Morrowind and Oblivion, so I had an idea I was going to like Skyrim, but it has exceeded expectations.   I love it.   I love that the NPCs notice things and comment if they see you rifling through bins, or knocking things off shelves in their shop.   I love the voice acting so much that I actually listen to it, instead of reading the subtitles and clicking through.  I love the feeling of a big open world.

Anyway, no time to write.  Must get back to Skyrim.  When I left last night I’d interrupted some political meeting and set fire to everybody, because I could.   I must see if I have an earlier save.

Skyrim is ruining my life.

Mists of Pandaria

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I don’t care what the people say, I’m excited about this expansion.  There’s so much to love.  WoW has always been about the cartoonish, the exaggerated and the comical for me, so I see no problem in playing a “kung fu panda”.   My first main character was a gnome, after all.

I love the idea of the new monk class.  I’m a sucker for hybrid classes, and this one can play healer, tank and dps (I’m hoping all at once!).

I’m looking forward to new talent system.  From what I gather, instead of choosing a particular talent tree, we’ll be able to take one talent from a choice of three every 15 levels.   I’m hoping that these will be strong, distinctive talents which will change the way we play.   What excites me is that it looks as if we aren’t limited.   We can choose any of the three talents.   Whether those talents will match current talent trees, I don’t know, but I’m imagining that, for example, my druid might be able to choose a top of the tree healing talent even though she’d been choosing balance talents all along.

This sounds great for soloing.   The monk, for instance, might take dps talents to solo, but throw in a couple of tanking or healing talents for survivablity.   I have no idea how it will play out in groups, but it would be fascinating if it meant they could run with a mixture of hybrids and jack-of-all-trades, instead of dedicated healers, tanks and dpsers.  How fun and challenging would that be?

Thirdly, it looks gorgeous.  After Jade Empire, I’m just in the mood for settings like this.

And yet, presumably, it will still play on a creaky old PC.

Mists of Pandaria

Skyrim. Dada dum. Dada dum. Dada dum dee dee dum.

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I loved Oblivion.  I loved Morrowind.  In fact, I last played Morrowind only a matter of months ago.  So I have been eagerly looking forward to Skyrim.

But with reservations.   The other games were so time consuming.   I’m planning to play Star Wars: The Old Republic with my guild, and that will take up most of my free gaming time.  And I’ve watched the gameplay videos and, I can’t put my finger on it, but they aren’t screaming at me that I must play this game.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t find combat the most interesting part of the other games.  What I loved was the feeling of being immersed in a big world, with interesting quests, drama, people to offend or befriend.    I haven’t yet got that feeling from the videos.

Given my lack of time, and lack of enthusiasm for the videos, maybe it would be best to wait.   It’s not an MMO, that I need to start playing along with my guild.   In a couple of years I could probably pick up the game plus expansions for half the original price, and by that time there would be wealth of user mods.

So why do I keep feeling I must have this game, must have it now?

It’s the music.  “The Elder Scrolls theme as sung by a barbarian choir”.  Since I first heard it, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.

Christopher Plummer!  Max Von Sydow!

Am I really buying a game for the theme tune?  No, that’s just the main reason for buying it.  I really do want to recapture that magical  feeling of being in the Elder Scrolls world.  It’s a perfect opportunity for escapism.

Skyrim. Dada dum. Dada dum. Dada dum dee dee dum.

“Old people are like that”

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One of the best things about The Witcher so far?  Geralt telling people to “shove off”.   It’s so ….. understated.

The Witcher is set in a world where men are men, and women are waitresses, nurses, nuns and sex workers.  I think I’ve been spoiled by games where you can select your sex at character creation and it makes no difference to the story.  I’ve become so used to seeing women police officers and women soldiers that it comes a shock to find myself in such a male-dominated environment, with no chance to do anything about it.

But, as I said in my last post, I grew up in that sort of environment.  I’m older than most gamers.  I remember the days when girls had to do cooking and sewing at school while the boys studied the “manlier” subjects.   I’ve had to work with people who thought I should be at home, keeping house.  The fantasy world of the Witcher is just a reflection of reality.

Meanwhile, I’m still struggling with my Geralt, whose conversation choices often leave him seeming rude, dismissive or aggressive.   Maybe that’s the way he’s supposed to be, but oh, I miss my Commander Shepherd being able to give somebody a hug, or even talk them into being a better person.   Making somebody a better person: so close to impossible in real life, so easy and satisfying in games.

Here’s an example of my possible dialogue choices.  My Geralt had wandered into an old lady’s house, and she’d thrown him out several times.   Finally, she allowed him to stay and he spoke to Shani who was lodging there.   Shani told him the old woman was making her life hell, and I was given the following selection of replies for Geralt…

1. Girls your age should be married 2. Old hag ... she should have died years ago 3. Old people are like that

I couldn’t decide whether to insult women in general (and Shani in particular), to insult old people in general, or to wish death on somebody.   There was no option to point out, for example, that a single old woman might be justified in throwing out a slightly scary looking  hired killer who had entered her house without asking.  (Or to ask why Shani is disguised as Peter Pan).

I finally chose “Old people are like that”, because after all, Geralt isn’t in his first flush of youth, so would surely be saying it with an ironic self-deprecating tone.  Maybe I should have explored the “women should be married” angle instead.  It would have been interesting to see if Shani agreed.

Why do the old women all look the same?   Even down to the mole?  (Old woman eats her tea while I root through her cupboards)

Isn’t this the same person I met at Shani’s house?  And in the swamp?  Strange how you never see them in the same room together.    When I first saw an old woman in the game, I was impressed that the effort had been made to make her look aged, instead of just putting different skin complexion on a young body model (Wynne from Dragon Age, I’m looking at you).  I was disappointed when I found out that it had only been done once: all old women look exactly the same.

And it’s not just the old women.   While some of the key NPCs have an individual look, I seem to be getting a sense of deja vu with the rest.    It’s great that there are different body models rather than just a choice of male or female, but I’d have loved to see more individual variation.  Some of the scenery in the game is stunning, and it’s a shame that there doesn’t seem to have been so much love put into creating the people of The Witcher.

“Old people are like that”

Being Geralt

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I don’t tend to play myself in games.  Obviously not.  I’m somebody’s mum.   I go to work, do the housework, take some light exercise and enjoy my leisure time.  There’s not much call for me to save the world or the universe, or even my immediate neighbourhood, and should the call come, I wouldn’t have the resources to answer.   So clearly, I don’t play as myself.  I suppose I role play the character, maybe including aspects of myself.  It’s not so much “what would I do in that situation?” as “what would I do if I was that character in that situation?”.

So I’m quite happy playing characters who aren’t me in terms of gender, age, abilities, etc.   But for some reason I’m having difficulty with Geralt in The Witcher.  It’s not that he’s male.   I’ve got on fine in the past when I’ve had to play male characters, and I sometimes even choose to play male.  Is it that he doesn’t seem to know who he is himself?   That could be it, although I loved playing the character of the Nameless One in Planescape: Torment,who suffered from the same problem.

Is it something to do with his voice acting or animation?  It could be.  Although the scenery looks fantastic, Geralt doesn’t.   He seems kind of flat, but maybe that just fits in with his background and story.   He doesn’t seem to be capable of changing his expression, so it’s difficult to work out what he’s feeling.

Or maybe it’s that he’s just not close enough to me in what he says.   The things he says and the way he says them seem a long way from what I would choose.

Maybe I just need to take control of the character more.   It feels as if the game pushes him to be a drinker, a gambler, a womaniser and generally a fairly unlikeable hard nut.   But there are choices to be made, and I can choose not to drink, gamble or womanise and choose the most likeable route.   I speculated about my motivation for choosing the “good” options in other games in a previous post.   Maybe another motivation is simply that I want to like the character that I’m playing.

It’s not that I’m particularly against drinking, gambling or womanising.  I do wonder if gender comes into it here: if it was man-ising rather than womanising, would I be able to identify more?  Perhaps, and maybe I’d find it amusing to collect the cards.  But there’s something about the way sex and romance in the game has been handled so far that isn’t appealing to me at the moment.   I was trying to put my finger on it, and I think it’s perhaps that it’s so skimmed over.   The casual sex might be interesting if you saw a little of it, maybe a kiss at least, and perhaps had to choose some dialogue that would change its course.   Instead it seems to be a quick agreement that you’re both up for it, then a flash of a card, like a notch on a bedpost.  It all felt a bit juvenile and detached.

But then I completed a quest where, just after sex with a woman, I had to choose whether to save her or give her up to a baying mob.   Suddenly, there was a point to the sex.   Having done it seemed give some extra meaning to the following scene where Geralt had to make that choice.  Of course, giving her up to the mob would be bad enough, but to have had his way with her first would make him an out and out cad.  Although I’d still like to see a little more substance to his sexual encounters, however brief and fleeting, I think I will feel much more drawn to the character if his liaisons had some meaning in his story.

Where Geralt is at a disadvantage, is that he’s finding his way in what appears to be quite an old-fashioned, sexist world.   There’s a general atmosphere of misogyny that I find disturbing, and perhaps it’s harder to subvert it when playing a male, rather than a female character.   I’ve become overly used to games which show a world where woman have the same status as men.   Sadly, Geralt’s world perhaps has more in common with the world I grew up in.   Meanwhile, I have to try to develop a connection to Geralt, a man in a man’s world.

Being Geralt