I just recently saw an interview Peter Molyneaux (Creator of Black and White and Fable among others) at IGN talking about some of the features that will be released in the upcoming Fable 3. A lot is going to change from previous instalments as the company has set itself a goal of reaching 500,000 copies sold, so it will have to target a much broader audience, moving from it's classic RPG setting to a more action adventure kind of feel. But that's not the point of this blog entry. What struck me was the use of the term "Arcade" game mechanics. That single concept has made me review the history of gaming in a whole different manner.

Let's back up to the birth of video games. Arcades (in all their different genres and forms) are truly the first video games to come into existence. But what is the true concept behind the arcades? A similarly repetitive form that increases in difficulty through a progression of levels. I mean think of your childhood, playing whatever arcade game you can think of. The whole emphasis of the game was to make it past all the different levels of difficulty, repeating time after time the same levels over and over till you finally managed to beat the game. The whole game was based on a continuous repetition of the same concept with slight variations and you'd have to rely on your reflexes, memory and skill to finish the game. This is what I would consider the core "Arcade" concept. For a more ideal setting let's just say we're talking of Space Invaders type game when we refer to the "Arcade" concept (low graphics, high repetition).

Slowly as the years passed the games have started to move further and further away from this basic "Arcade" concept to a more "gaming experience" orientated type of game (as in the feel of the game itself, the feeling and experience you have while playing a game). The graphics improved, more combinations of movements where introduced (or character skills) which made the game more engaging and enjoyful, improving the gaming experience users had while playing the game. Then suddenly the "credits" concept was torn away from the "Arcade" concept. Ok fine in the REAL Arcades (machine in a bar or arcade) they still existed since it was the way they made money out of it, but in the consoles it suddenly became obsolete. You could continue an indefinite number of times and some of the whole level repetition was removed. We suddenly started seeing concepts like saving a game, which were borrowed from the PC games (mostly graphical adventures) and where now a applied to console games. A lot of classic elements rapidly became obsolete such as High Scores and most games started introducing more and more complex story lines to go along with the levels to improve the "gaming experience". And suddenly a revolutionary concept hits the market: The Simulators. Levels and "Arcade" concepts are all thrown out and the game is fully based on the players' personal "gaming experience": they don't get points, don't pass levels, they just enjoy the ride.

The concept of "gaming experience" and enjoying the ride has slowly crept over to all forms of gaming, especially with the use of open worlds and sandbox concepts. Who can say they never just rode around Hyrule on Epona in "Ocarina of Time" just for the sheer joy of it? (yeah ok anybody who never played it, but if you haven't you should!) The general public has also opened up to gaming thanks to this, and proof of it is the smashing success of "The Sims" franchise. The game developers have seen it and since money moves the market all games have slowly evolved to a more "gaming experience" based philosophy with more or less success (Star Wars Galaxies anyone?). The rule now was not to make more detailed and intricate games with a gazillion options, but a more simplified and intuitive way of gaming that instead of challenging you takes you more for a ride.

In a natural way the gaming community divided itself into two opposed factions: The Hardcore gamers and the Casual gamers. The Hardcore gamers are more "Arcade" based: they enjoy games with a higher degree of repetition where they can hone their skills and deeper and more intricate layers of details which they have to slowly delve into to understand fully. The Casual gamers are more "gaming experience" oriented: they revel more in the graphical and submersion elements, enjoy the ride more and look for an entertaining experience instead of sitting down in front of a game trying to crack it down. (By these definitions I'm merely trying to introduce concepts and mean no ill to any of the factions per say.) But none of them are better gamers than others, they simply look for something different.

Take WoW for example. Hardcore gamers in WoW are Raiders, PvPers and even Power Levers. They enjoy the more "Arcade" aspects of the game: repetitive actions which allow them to hone their solo and group skills to achieve the "end game" aspects of the game, they aim to beat the game as in the old arcades. The vast majority of the rest of the game is more for Casual players (again not saying this in a negative way): it let's you explore environments, develop characters, meet other people and has more attainable and frequent milestones.

A lot of friction has appeared amongst the factions simply for an incorrect branding in my opinion. It would seem that the hardcore gamers are more dedicated and higher in the gaming hierarchy than the casual gamers just for the name. But this would be incorrect, as it is simply that they each choose to experience different parts of the game.... after all it IS simply a game.

But I digress... Games are evolving more into the " casual" and "gaming experience" end of the stick. But this is not just because the game distributors are money grubbing loving bastards (even if they are :P) but because it's the natural evolution of gaming. Remember the utopia at the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's about the whole 3-D goggles thing with alternate realities? Well it's still here! What does that have to do with arcades and levels? The whole function of games is to pull us away from reality so we can relax and flee from our complicated lives for a while, and of course that need is going to push video games to a more immersive and virtual reality, a better "gaming experience". Sure there will still be a place for "Arcade" gamers, but even hardcore games are getting more intuitive with time (when was the last time you HAD to read the instructions before you started playing?).

Maybe it's just me but the whole idea of the "Arcade" concept becoming slowly obsolete both has me disturbed and excited about what things will come in the future. I mean rumours have it that Blizzard will be pulling out it's current raiding system from WoW which is it's core "Arcade" aspect, so what will the future have in store for us? Bioware's highly anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic is mainly based around story and narrative which is essentially part of the "gaming experience" concept. "Arcade" and "Gaming Experience" are not incompatible but we've seen full core "Arcade" games.... What will full core "Gaming Experience" games be like?

First attempt at a comic strip with my new graphics tablet, link to a larger size http://api.ning.com/files/qc0zhz2-7t9CEM49Hp3YFWQMK*qHq0nwyosX*V2L3XwvM-Nojn9xCdAXOOMatitHGmiII4D*lH24hJXkXuddv2MuV*bPV*SS/NPCs1.jpg

From a gamer's community to another I bring a plea of help. Gaxonline.com has been an active gamer's community for a few years now, much like Dtoid but not as successful. It all started thaks to Gary Gannon, co-host of the now seemingly podfaded MOG podcast along with Ryan Verniere, and it offers the most common tools like blogging utilities (more user friendly than the Dtoid ones imho), a main news page with highlights from the most important gamer blogs out there, a chat window, forum, buddy system and what you'd except to find.

But since Mog podfaded it seems to be falling appart and with the releases of the various MMO expansions it seems to be dieing slowly. So I call out to you famed bloggers and all those that just wish to be heard to lend us a hand and help reactivate gaxonline.com even if it's just by reposting your blogs there or simply leaving your comments on the current blogs. You really have nothing to loose, it's ad free and you'll be able to access a greater audience. Plus your blog will remain on the main page longer since we don't have such an avalanche of posts as in Dtoid at the moment.

So give us a hand and come checkout gaxonline.com. You'll access a bigger audience and maybe make some friends in the process. Our doors are always open to newcomers!

I lol'd. Better yet I rofl'd!

One day later and we're back with another LOTRO based blog, almost a diary now. Today we're going to be dwelling in a day full of cooking and unimaginable levels of stupidity.

So yesterday we left Joco sleeping confortably sleeping in his new house and dreaming of a picnic table full of food and a keg full of beer. Little did I know it was soon to become a nightmare. I didn't get to play much today since I had an appointment with the doctor, but I've covered more distance today than I did in the last 2 days (physical distance that is). They day started off pretty simple though, I left my home and went off to start crafting my picnic table. I checked the pies I needed and I noticed I needed a tier 4 skill one, so I had to complete my crafting quest. So I get on my pony and travel to Buckland. I chat to a little hobbit and I get my tier 4 skill level, he also gives me another quest to gain access to the superior oven. I accept it but decide to skip it for now since I basically need to run around the shire cooking stuff for people in every single inn. I check my list, see I don't need the superior oven to cook any pies, and run off back to the crafting area in Michel Delving to make my pies. I make the pies, notice I'm missing some mushrooms so I jump on to my farmer alt, grow a few, send the to Joco, and the pies are done. So I run back home, mix the pies with my picnic table and bench and Voila! I have a picnic table full of food in my front lawn. Pity I can't eat any of the food in the table cause it looks tasty.

After a while of admiring my new furniture I set off on my quest to craft my own Keg of Shire Brew. Here is where I prove what a brainless idiot I am. I had thought of postponing this for a few days since after calculating the price of the new recipees I needed both for myself and my farmer alt the price had risen over 200 silver, but after checking my mail and cashing in my sales from yesterday my wallet was now bulging with 800 silver so I decided to give it a go. First step is getting the hops and barely I need from my farmer, so I mail him 200 silver and switch to my alt. My alt runs to the superior farming fields (he's a master in his craft at lvl 7), buys the necessary recipees which cost around 120 silver and start growing crops. The hops one goes fine, first crop gives me a 2 fine bushels which give me more hops than I needed, so I buy ingredients for 1 field of barely and I start planting.... field one is a dud... I run back for ingredients, second field is a dud... I run back for ingredients, third field is a dud.... long story short I had to plant 6 fields for a miserable fine bushel of winter barley. So I run back to the mail, send one letter with the hops, and another with the barely and remaining 70s I had left. I skip back to Joco and dun dun duuuun... I only get the hops one. What the hell? Who the hell did I send the barely and cash to? I check back with the alt incase I sent it to him out of habit but his is empty. Fuck... I really need to start paying attention. I then realize I might have sent it to Joko (don't know who it is but it's how I normally spell it, changed it for RP reasons), so I write an apologetic letter asking for the contents back, even though I know that if that character exists I can kiss the cash goodbye. So after another 7 crops of barely (not 1, not 3, but yes 7, 13 crops in total to get my barely) I remail the barely typing my name letter by letter this time, and relog back to Joco.

Back in my main's shoes I open the mailbox, grab the barley with relief and run to the crafting area. I buy the ingredients to make the treated hops and mashed barely and press the create button. Nothing happens. I push it again. Nothing happens. And suddenly I notice a small red writing that reads "Requires Superior Oven". Damn, where will I find a superior oven? Well esteldin has superior workbenches and expert vendors so they're bound to have one there. So I grab a swift ride to bree and stop to buy some crafted yew which I needed for the keg. I stop by the crafting area (which is the best place to get resources at low prices) and there's only one guy there... wierd. So I ask "can you make crafted yew?" "Yeah" "How much for 2?" "1g" "you're kidding right?" "No" and he walks off... What the... 1 gold for 2 measly yews? I bet the AH has a better priced yew for sure. So I run off to the AH and buy 8 of them for 25 silver. I send a tell back to the guy and tell him "Just got 8 for 25s you should check your prices better." "I was making a joke" .... Some people are fucking hilarious... (not). After recovering from a hard session of not laughing my ass off I trot down to the stables and grab a swift ride to Esteldin for 35s (pricey as hell if you ask me) and go inside the crafting hall I find the oven, open my craft tab and press the button. Nothing happens, and I notice that the red writing is still there, so I sheepishly look up and see the letters hovering above the oven that state clear as day "OVEN". It's just a regular oven.... I just wasted 36 silver to get to a regular ov... *click* my brain suddenly turns and I remember that I haven't done the quest to access superior ovens yet! What the hell is wrong with me ?!?! And who's the wise guy who snuck into my room last night and gave me a full lobotomy while I slept? Cause that's the only rational explanation I can find for my stupidity today....

Soon enough i find myself running around every tavern in the shire and grabbing all the requests those lazy stupid hobbitses can't cook for themselves. Just before hitting the last pub I get a request for a kinsman who needs help with a couple of lowbie group quests and I figure out that it will do me good to give a helping hand to release that pent up rage that's bubbling and waiting to be released. So after a while and a bunch of orcs and bandits dead later I sit down calmly and start to carefully plan all the stuff I need to cook to avoid further mistakes. All quests considered this is the list I produced:

3 Pork Sausages
2 Vegetable Medleys
2 Salted beef delights
2 Shire rations
4 Marinated chicken cutlets
3 Spiced potatoes
1 Mushroom pie
3 Stuffed Cabbages
1 Spiced Apple pie
3 Complete hobbit breakfasts
2 Blueberry Muffins

Oh god... this is gonna take a while... *sigh* I make a cross reference list with all the ingredients I'll need (won't post it so I won't scare you) but I needed a total of 81 ingredients which included quite a bit of farming. Suddenly I look at the hour and notice it's 9:30. Oh crap the servers go down in half an hour for the Mines of Moria update! Fuck! I stumble for my port to Michel Delving button, run to a mailbox, send him 50s and I jump to my alt. On Jungo (my alt) I grab the cash and run as fast as his little legs will carry him to the fields and starts planting as fast and carefully as I can, double checking the ingredients list as I go, and manage to get all the ingredients I need in just under 20 mins (18 to be exact). I run back to the mail box, post all the ingredients to Joco (double checking I spell it with a C instead of a K every time). And jump back to my main. My heart is pounding like crazy and I have a feeling I'm not gonna make it. I grab everything and start running to the crafting area. As I go up the hill I notice something unnerving with the corner of my eyer. I look above the oven and with big huge letters I read "SUPERIOR OVEN". What?? You gotta be kidding me... I've been cooking for the past hours in a superior oven?? Idiot! Idiot! Id.. NO! No time for feeling stupid! I must bake as fast as the wind! Kung Fu style! I start baking and suddenly my button stops working again... "Requires Camp Fire" ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHH!!!! I finish the stuff I can bake there and start running towards the camp fire in Waymeet. Cook you brainless git! Cook! I check the time... 5 mins left. No time! No time! Last piece of cooking is done, 2 mins left. I start hoping my watch is running slow, I get on my mount and head for the first tavern. My heart is beating like crazy, I know it's stupid and sad but I love it when I get into things like that. Hit the tavern, throw the food at the hobbits face, quest complete, What? No exp? You ungrateful son of a... no time, No time! I run for the second pub and I have 1 min left. Suddenly the watch hits 10 pm... nothing happens... Maybe my watch is running slow WHAM! Big Orange letters appear "We are sorry but we will have to shut down the servers in approximatley 60 mins at 10:00 pm GMT. Servers will be available at 8:00 am GMT". I stop in my tracks in shock. Either I had a heart attack or my heart server just rebooted.... YOU BLARING IDIOT!! It was fucking GMT! You live in GMT+1!! Remember? No... of course you don't. A retarded mule with forks stuck in it's eyes would have a larger reasoning capacity than you. God I felt like a retard...

I resume my pace more calmly after accepting my postion as an ebayer and now recently discovered complete and utter retard, and deliver all my cooked goodies to slefish hobbits who don't deserve them... And after that I go back to the hobbit that started it all in Buckland. I get 1200exp for all my troubles.... pffff stingy little midget. Oh well at least I can use the superior oven now... Yeah the superior oven I thought was in esteldin but actually turned out to be the one I'd been using for the past 2 hours... Idiot... I go back sulking and make the finish touches to my Keg. I make a second one for my neighbour as a thank you gift for the Tundra Bear trophy she gave me yesterday (yes! I confirmed it's a she!) and who coincidentaly celebrated her 10 year wedding anniversary (and she's married to another officer in the guild who I spent all last night calling a she... irony?). So I head to my house with the idea in my head that if it turns out to be a just a stupid barrel in the middle of my room like the icon shows I'm actually going to blow my fucking brains out. In the end we have a happy ending. It's a proper Keg and all, sideways and with a pedestal, and to make things better I can get drunk with it! Yey! So it cheer myself up a bit, I get drunk with it a bit first (I've only managed to reach light headed state so far... I'll have to be more persistant tomorrow) and head off to the furniture shop to get myself a Tree, a dresser, a bookshelf, a sound track for my house, paint for the walls, and a haystack and wheelbarrow for the front lawn. Well the house looks a tad more decent now, I might have to pick up fishing just to hang something on the walls.

The orange letters boom throughout the server announcing we just have 30 mins left, so I port to Bree cause apparently there's a server shutdown party goin on in the statue, and yeah the place was packed! Here's a couple of screenies. First pretty non floaty names:
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://api.ning.com/files/zpgulH5xg453bKoZLTLBtaaPt-t5OKVhJi1nE7BekWPz9DLLVVefo*VH2VwX0AuKKVjIZAIDwxBO1BxMrK9mZV5v9IfDN0Vr/ScreenShot00002.jpg" alt="" width="1152" height="864"/></p>

And second with floaty names, so you can understand the magnitude better:
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://api.ning.com/files/zpgulH5xg44p9USlFSiKZd16*rlM0VdUB8qkgPbZOUyip96qSf9rp293YHhokjXLEkU3VaQgmg1Ml6CcXr*7SOC7MY3Qc4zD/ScreenShot00003.jpg" alt="" width="1152" height="864"/></p>

And tomorrow Mines of Moria hits Europe! I have the impression that Game isn't going to deliver (literally) and I'll have to spend the day sending angry emails. I wonder if I'll even get my preorder codes... *sigh*

But all in all... wierd day today, it could have been good if my idiocy hadn't interfered with it. But I got my keg! Bring on the party!

Well I finally cancelled my subscription to W.A.R. And it pains me to do so...The game had so much to offer and yet it delivered poorly in my opinion. Don't get me wrong. The game is incredibly stable, well designed, the classes are very well balanced and it has a lot to offer. Yet I feel the problem is how content is organized and made accessible to the general public, and the absence of a community in the game.

First let's have a look at what the game's main appeal is. The huge open PvP areas, castle and city sieges, which seem to call to massive online battles where you need to cooperate with other guilds to crush the forces of your opposing realm. That's what I payed to see and experience. Yet what do I get? Scenario grinding... Scenarios are good once in a while, since they offer the chance of battling against a balanced foe and don't last too long (god bless the timer). But after a while all you seem to do is scenarios and to top it off the same one, time after time. It gets so tedious. And the sad thing is that a lot of them have great game play mechanics, like the tier 1 scenario of the elves where the control points explode. That is probably one of my favourite ones. But what do scenarios end up doing? They simply negate the possibility of jumping into an RvR zone and finding constant ongoing control battles which would be much more appealing in my opinion.

Another problem is that the game lacks a sense of community. I don't really understand why though, it might be the lack of any official forums, even though the unofficial forums (war alliance for example) seem to act as official hubs. But this is a very serious problem for a game based in team efforts. On one side how can they expect to rally large armies into the RvR zones when all you seem to find are pugs ingame, and very few of them since most people just seem to spend the day grinding scenarios. The problem with a pug based community is that all classes in this game are designed to function in party, their roles are fixed and they need a balanced group around them to actually be able to shine. My main character for example in the game was a tank, and doing pug scenarios was incredibly frustrating. I found myself praying to actually land a group where the healer wasn't trying to act as a DPS class, since without a healer covering my back all I did was act as very quick meat shield till I got nuked a couple of times by an RDPS class. The only way of getting out of this situation was to find a well organized guild that did premades often, and you could say goodbye to that option if you weren't in the 31-40 lvl zone. The only viable pug class I found were actually the ranged DPS classes, as you could just sit in the back and nuke everything that moved, trying to gain as much exp and rep as possible. Not even healers were a viable class, as most classes were just too involved in trying to farm their own personal kills, so no one would think about looking back and defending the classes that kept you alive, hence the healers would end up going DPS and just healing themselves. This also reflects how deeply the "rock paper scissor" system is embedded into the archetype system. Classes are just too unflexible, even with the mastery system and even though each class has a different mechanic, it all falls down in the end in a "war of the archetype", each archetype would have it's main nemesis which you would have to steer clear of while you hunted down the archetype you were built to counter.

The PvE would also be hindered by this lack of community as even the party friendly PQ areas would be found barren most of the time. This could also be due to the fact of people favoring the alternative of grinding the easily marked solo quests. At first I really enjoyed the fact that you could basically solo any quest that didn't involve a PQ, but now I realize the flaw of the system. On one hand I think that having quests that make you stop in your tracks and start looking for other people around you to play with as a team would in the end enhance the game's community, at the cost of some time of maybe waiting around for a group. But once the group is made you'd have a chance to interact with other people, play your role in a team, and make connections. And the other side of the coin would be the easily marked quests. Again I was a fan of this system back in beta since you didn't have to think where you needed to move next as it was clearly stated in your map. But in the end this makes questing feel even more monotonous and hinders the exploration aspect of the game. Having such a large number of tome unlocks linked to exploration doesn't seem to have the desired motivational effects, and the game the way it's designed actually makes you choose between questing and moving or actually moving away from your designated objective areas just to find an unlock.

The loot system also seems to be broken and this affects the economy of the game, which still is non existant. Gear is just too easy to find in this game, and I found myself just slapping on any random gear I would find and moving on, not giving what stats I wanted a thought even, and if my gear was starting to get sloppy and I didn't get any through drops I wouldn't worry as I would always get a piece as a reward from a quest every 2 or 3 levels. Plus the epics and sets didn't offer that much a boost compared to the regular gear so I never found myself compelled to go to my nearest Auction House and see what they had to offer. And the crafting systems are just not worth the effort you put into them. Trying to maintain the best balance possible amongst classes, all the craft system has to offer are a set of small buffs which don't offer much of a difference overall. And if you also add that the filters in the AH for crafting materials have still not been implemented, the fact of leveling up your skill is not a gratifying experience enough to actually spend time with them, and they don't offer a significant bonus enough for them to be profitable. Anyways the only thing you need cash for in this game is for your mount (who's price is easy enough achieved just through regular leveling) and maybe to hold a keep for your guild, which doesn't seem to offer a big enough bonus to be worth the expense.

It hurts and stings me to admit that W.A.R is just not a great game, but it has loads of potential. It looks great and if you look at the big picture it seems like an awesome game that can take over the MMO market as there are not any mmos out there which blend PvP and PvE in endgame so skillfuly, yet the difference is in the small details which need a lot more polishing in this game for it to be worth my while.I trust mythic will be able to turn the tables in the upcoming months and I do not doubt I will return to give it another go, but the game "as is" is just not for me.