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February 22, 2011

Bardic Coolness: The Literal MMO Rockstar

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , , — 3 Comments

I’m totally convinced that the Bard-like classes in an MMO, that base attacks and magic around playing music, are the middle child of MMO class-dom. Sometimes completely ignored in the midst of the traditional “trinity” of healer-dps-tank classes or otherwise of low standing for their odd, non-traditional role, Bards have never probably received the love that they so richly deserved. How do I know this? History is one teacher. When I ask people, for example, who they feel their favorite character from the Final Fantasy series is, people would be hard pressed to say “Edward”, the famous harpist who used singing skills and flashy music to help defeat enemies. Nobody talks about Edward unless it’s in the context of a badly translated quote for which he’s being made fun of.

Bards in general may have been doomed in MMOs to live a stereotypical connotation of dressing in clothing way too flamboyant. If not that, they are alternatively a Monty-Pythonesque annoyance to other players. After all, Bards have traditionally played a sort of odd hybrid support role, providing mild healing and a secondary support while occasionally doing damage.  This, combined by the fact that primary weaponry consists of a lute, a song, and a distinct lack of a tour bus makes the Bard a seemingly silly role to play.

But Bards are seeing a bit of  a resurgence, most recently in games such as RIFT and LOTRO, where the musically inclined can not only serve a helpful support role but one that is essential. Healing is a bit better, the options for damage are greater, and the appeal of the class as one that isn’t expected and a potential refreshing change for people like me who tire of the “green bars go up” support role and want to try something different.

That’s not to say that playing Bard is not a spam button class either. Like their precursors from EQ and DAoC, Bards today are a study in why gamers can get carpal tunnel. Keeping songs up that buff the party and provide a little more punch to a raid or group means being able to continuously refresh them, a sequential process called “twisting” in MMO terms. I forget where the term “twisting” came from, but considering as a Bard class I juggle as many as 5 things at once, I can see how I could literally twist myself into not being able to type for a couple weeks. And that’s just talking about one element of a class that can potentially heal and do damage, as well.

All the recent hubbub about Bard classes in recent MMOs gives me hope that the class itself will not be ignored for future game releases. I personally like the Bard, stereotypical feathered cap and all, for a change from my normal protective roles, but more than anything, being a Bard for PvP is great. Not for the damage, and not really even for the support in groups – but mostly because dying to anything that uses a lute as a weapon must seem to be particularly embarrassing. So bring on the opponents – because unlike my singing and playing ability in real life, I’m sure to belt out a tune that will knock your socks off.

February 22, 2011

Something Geekily Different: How I Was Defeated By Self-Checkout

by Frank — Categories: Social Geekery — 2 Comments

Good god, I’m almost late here. Could it be my New Year’s resolution to make 365 posts in a year is in danger? Possibly.

To save this, I suppose I have no choice but to relate what may be a very unfortunate story today.

I was defeated by the grocery self-checkout. Yep, that’s right. I lost to it.

It all started when I got some groceries on the way home. Now, all things aside, I was feeling pretty good about my geekiness. I checked my lists on Remember the Milk, had some instructions emailed to me, and used my phone to keep the whole mess organized while I stumbled around with my cart dropping things into it. I’m pretty good at this, mostly because, like many male geeks, I’m good at following directions. Install a server? No problem, we’ve got steps to follow to ensure it doesn’t become a smoking ruin. Fixing an issue with my remote? No biggie, I’ve got the manual and some troubleshooting I know how to do because of it. Shopping? Not an issue, because I have a list and I figure out what to get to it to the letter. This becomes slightly important later.

After rolling around with what seemed to be 15 minutes, thankfully without running over any elderly people or small children, I got to the checkout line. Now, some normal person would probably not care if they went to self-checkout or the normal person who has trouble scanning at least one item and worries you can’t get outside on your own with a 20 bags of Cheetos. But a geek like me is a different story. We live for the cutting edge of technology – sure, some of the time it’s because we want to feel like the future of the Jetsons and Star Trek is here -, but nevertheless, we’re early and constant adopters for the latest things. This is why self-checkout was more appealing to me than poor Ed at the counter, who appeared to be having a dilemma with a sudden breakout of acne while he seemed to weep over low wages.

Half the problem with self-checkout is the wait. Part of the reason for the wait is more than likely, from your perspective, the fact that the person in front of you failed the aptitude test necessary to operate modern machinery beyond a hammer. They look to be fumbling around, scan their items multiple times by running them across the unforgiving glass pane like crazy people, and generally look more surprised than they should that you must actually pay a machine before you can leave. What I clearly saw from a distance was someone who obviously was the type of person I helped every day with their computer, because they’d clicked on the popup for “Free iPod Nano” and installed a bunch of spyware that gnawed on their machine. I chuckled inwardly as a deer in headlights look appeared on the face of the person in front of me, their face scrunched in concentration as they desperately tried not to drop their eggs and other delicate groceries in an attempt to not be as embarrassing as they looked.

As they departed, I walked up to the self-checkout counter. The cheery female voice directed me to push buttons and scan items. Grinning to myself, I was about to do the people behind me a service by showing them how doing a self-checkout was supposed to work. Efficient. Quick. Not looking dumbfounded.

..except for the fact that the first scan I did of an item totally appeared to mess up the system. It seemed like such a small thing, this bunch of frozen fruit bars that I’d decided to add to my cart at the last minute. But for some reason, my moment of weakness at deviating from the instructed list of items was my downfall. The system appeared to accept the item, but then refused to speak the price. Thinking this odd, I tried to scan the item again. It beeped happily, but did not appear to register at all. Instead, it kicked me to a screen that told me I had to enter the item manually.

No issues. Google had trained me all the tricks when it came to searching for the item to come up. I input FRUIT BARS, then POPSICLES, then FRUIT. Every time, the item would not come up to be named, and would return no results, instead telling me I had to put in the name of the item. Not surprisingly, pushing the random button sequence which came out to be something like AFDFAWRGAE returned no results either.

By now, I’d become aware of the stares that were being directed my way – the ones I had once directed to the person ahead of me. Suddenly, I felt as if I was on stage again during the spelling bee in grade school – the one I lost for spelling the word “successful” wrong, ironically. Pairs of eyes descended on me – all of them, I was convinced, were bearing down on me with the condescending look of people that suspected that I was incapable of operating something mechanical unless it was one of those pencils that dispensed the points that always broke. On a public stage of produce, I was floundering, pushing buttons in a mad dash to find some key combination that would entire give me 30 lives or put me back to the previous screen. Alas, however, all was for naught, as I had to flag down a worker who looked at me as if I had caused the grocery apocalypse with my screwing with the system. Fixing it for me with the same mild, barely-hidden sigh I’d seen come from my own mouth after fixing a silly computer issue, I was allowed to finish my purchases and leave without too much embarrassment.

The lesson learned? Well, aside from probably never buying fruit bars again, it would have to be that even the simplest forms of technology can baffle the smartest  people. It’s certainly one that I take to heart as I work and post every day, and so should all my fellow geeks out there. You never know when a self-checkout, web kiosk, or walkie talkie system might humble your geek cred a little.

February 20, 2011

Cheap Mashed-up Updates Are Amazing

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Leave a comment

Today’s cheap update takes us to the world of mashups – that wonderful world of smashing two things together and hopefully getting something like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and not Crystal Pepsi.

The best part of some mashups when it comes to games is finding something that you totally would not expect to be a part of one, like the below:

February 19, 2011

Weekend Sci-Fi Rewind

by Frank — Categories: TV and Movies — Tags: , , — 1 Comment

These days when I’m needing to have something on in the background or if I am needing a bit of a fix for some good sci-fi, it’s almost always an old show that has long since left the air. Currently, I’m running through the Farscape collection of DVDs I have, partially because it was A)hilarious in its cheesiness, B)had a great story in parts and C)the last time I watched a Farscape marathon was on vicodin from a wisdom tooth removal. So as you can see, I have good reason to re-watch it again.

But re-watching in general is something that we geeks like to engage in for a bit of nostalgia. With geeky folk weeping all over the world when Heroes couldn’t be rescued, Firefly was cancelled before its time, and Dollhouse just couldn’t cut the mustard, I know I’ve turned to the past in order to nurture my love of sci-fi type shows. Maybe it’s me, but the nostalgia that I feel watching the shows of the past tells me that there is at least something in the genre that has some longevity in it. We talk about Star Trek, and Babylon 5, and Stargate, and a bunch of other series with a bit of reverence, but at the time, there was always potential that the series wouldn’t go as far as they did. Today’s offerings, which have seemed to have less of a life, make these older shows long-lived by comparison.

Not to say there haven’t been recent sci-fi shows that have gotten some traction. Fringe, for example, is turning out to be the next generation’s X-Files, while Battlestar Galactica enjoyed a great run and Doctor Who’s resurgence is a godsend to old and new fans alike. But there’s something about re-watching an old sci-fi series that makes you chuckle – not because of the fact that some of the “futuristic” devices have ended up actually made (see: Star Trek, Original Series), but also because of the fact that the audience was there, was appreciative, and was supportive even in the face of more popular mainstream offerings in the realm of such genres as reality TV. If blue-skinned aliens, oddly shaped ships, and the occasional mumbo-jumbo sci-fi explanation was enough for something to stay on TV, then there’s nothing but to look forward at what sci-fi will come up next as its next big thing.

Til then, however, I’m content with watching  the old school shows. After all, what defines sci-fi more than multi-colored rooms and a bunch of odd vomiting?

February 18, 2011

The Silly Comfort Of Tinfoil

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: — Leave a comment

Geeks are usually smart people with a good head on their shoulders. Ask any geek to rationally explain to you why you shouldn’t be afraid of cellphones giving you disease, computers being able to see that you visited the Hello Kitty fansite 450 times in the last week, or anything else that would normally freak you out, and they’ll be able to do it with typical aplomb.

Ask them what they think about one of their favorite games receiving a hotfix because an ability is broken, though, and they immediately become an irrational whirlwind of rage – crying, pounding the ground, and generally having an outburst online that John McEnroe would be proud of. Read any forum, check any fansite, pop into the comments section of any video, and you’ll find these tinfoil hat wearers everywhere. To them, any explanation leads to a definitive conclusion, any set of words can be connected together to fill a hidden agenda, and even a seemingly innocent update about the inclusion of in-game donuts is evidence of some larger scheme designed to do something else, whether that is good or bad.

I’m kind of not sure what makes the tinfoil hat so comfortable to wear, but I do know that it is certainly something that an optimist like me isn’t really interested in putting on my head. For one, it’s a lot of effort. Tinfoil is light, to be sure, but the weight of reading between the lines at any possibility of finding something is a heavy and stressful job. It’s also exhausting, too. If for some unknown reason I was to run around in circles waving my arms around whenever someone said something to me about lunch plans, I think I’d have very sore arms and aching legs. Multiply that by a few days and a few hundred posts and you’ve got someone for whom it is a literal mental strain to actually read anything. Rough stuff.

I think that removing the tinfoil hat is something that will go a long way towards simply enjoying a game for what it is, what it could be, and what it inevitably always has to patch to be. Yes, there is a reason for doing and saying a lot of things, but finding out about them along with everyone else, right from the horse’s mouth, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To be perfectly honest there are more important things to worry about other than the fact that the latest and greatest something is going to put you to the road to ruin. Games have so much more to them than what the developers tell you about them, whether that is how you personally enjoy them, how your friends perceive them, and how they change the industry overall. Worrying about the methods and design of how they get there, or hidden motivations or agendas is ultimately just has a negative effect – so I say, enjoy those in-game donuts. I know I am.

February 17, 2011

Grown Up Gaming Fight Club

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Internet — 1 Comment

Remember when you were a kid and you and your other friends would go out and mime out being your favorite superheroes, fighters, and overall ass-kickers in play fights? Remember those barely choreographed kicks and punches that sometimes accidentally landed little Billy with a bloody nose, a lot of tears, and some sheepish explanations about how you were “trying to do the hadoken”?

Today’s cheap update takes a bit of that childhood and amps it up into an IRL Street Fighter frenzy. Check out the choreography and camera work of these folks:

February 16, 2011

Savoring The MMO

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: — Leave a comment

Unlike the tasty steak on the right, which I would probably devour with reckless abandon, I kind of like to savor the MMO releases that come around the corner. Savoring in this context means many things, but the meaning that comes to mind is appreciating what you like before you consume it.

I get how hard this is, though. The siren call of open beta, events, promotions, and convention appearances sometimes screws around with your need to keep things a bit sane until release. When you get a taste of what you could be playing, for some it becomes a bit of a drug, causing people to obsessively check forums, camp RSS feeds, and overall unabashedly show their desire to have more.

But there is a value to allowing yourself to build your appetite a little instead of taking little nibbles or bites. For one, the prospect of burnout is farther away. Yes, having that MMO steak is very much an awesome thing, but there is no such truth like “too much of a good thing”. Even if you could eat steak all day, every day, eventually, you’d get sick of it. Trust me – a known chocolate addicted friend of mine went to work in a factory and years later cannot stand even the smell of chocolate in the room. It’s a dangerous thing, I tell you.

I do honestly think that the most beneficial thing to savoring your MMO appetite, though, is the fact that it allows you to enjoy it for what it is, as I said when I started this post. I think that in an effort to sate a constantly unsatisfied hunger, a lot of people will tend to obsess over the little things (and get upset over them) rather than understand the big picture, the whole experience, and the entire meal. I’ve employed this for the last 3 or 4 years, and trust me – when you finally get to the table and start to eat, it tastes that much better.

February 15, 2011

The Funny Bits Of Irreverence

by Frank — Categories: Internet — Leave a comment

Today’s positive missive pays respects to the sometimes irreverent stuff we typically find on the internet.

Before I do that, I think it’s important that I make a clear distinction about what I’m talking about when I say irreverent. There’s the kind of stuff that I know you can find on the Net that is purposefully awful and wrong for awful and wrong’s sake, and while it fits the definition, it isn’t really what I’m talking about today.

No, what I refer to with the irreverent internet is the comics, sites, and hilarious user-contributed content that sometimes pops up on sites such as The Oatmeal, Damn You Autocorrect, and F My Life. These are sites both dedicated to a specific purpose of being funny, sarcastic, and totally wrong while still maintaining a decency line that they do not cross. Beyond being shocking for shock’s sake, the more irreverent sites on the internet seek to create humor from the things that we simply might not publicly say or cackle about when we’re on our own.

The Oatmeal, for example, has a bunch of hilarity about punching dolphins, awful interview questions, and a particularly wrong but funny Valentine’s Day observation that made me chuckle.  Part of this, I think, is the unabashed blatancy with which these sites pursue their topics. Sure, we might have thought that kitties want to rule the universe and resort to all kinds of scratchy mischief to get our attention, but we dared not vocalize it due to the fact that we’re trained to be at least mildly respectful of even the most screwed up situations. Sites such as The Oatmeal break the barrier and expose the more hilarious and irreverent thoughts we have during the day and post them for all to secretly nod and smile over.

In a society that is becoming increasingly more filtered in terms of how we communicate to one another in media or in face to face, the fact that these sites still exist to be laughed over is a testament to the fact that the internet itsel fis still a wild frontier that is in no danger of being tamed anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong – there are limits to what is irreverently funny and what is just in poor taste, but trust me – the real masters of the irreverent online know how to dance the line with the agility of a monkey on crack on a tight rope. And we’re all better for it.

February 14, 2011

The Variety Of Geek Love

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Leave a comment

Geeky folks have it so easy these days. When I was a kid, or even a teenager, I sort of had two modes of Valentine’s Day celebration – either I had someone in my life that I was involved in, or I didn’t. This might not seem like it’s something exclusive to geekery, but to someone like me, who was perhaps of average physical appearance but all the love in the world to give through overpriced chocolate, it’s kind of a big deal. Back then, I didn’t really have very many options open to me though. I was either with someone, in which case I was all about planning a pleasant day, or I was chasing someone, which meant I was all about planning a pleasant day finding an excuse to be with them. As a result some of my Valentine’s ended fairly well, and some ended in a manner that probably reflects the awkwardness of being more into computers and sci-fi than cars and sports teams.

All my swings and misses in the romantic arena aside (though I think I’ve done pretty well for myself), today’s geek has a lot more options open to them. They can, as I did, choose to throw all their caution to the wind and go after the one person in their life that they are within slapping distance of. But they can also pursue someone that they’ve been talking to online or spending time playing a fun game or MMO with. They can use the various tools of social media and casual gaming to shoot a bit of affection over (nothing says love like giving a cow in Farmville, right?). They can maintain a relationship that spans miles and sometimes countries with the magic of video Skype and Ventrilo. And for those not into the whole romantic nonsense of it all, gifts to be given to those who are merely loved ones or close friends are a couple clicks away.

For the geek who is with someone on this day of red hearts and cheesy messages, V-Day has become another time when people can get creative with the way they express their love. From in-game MMO items to electronic greetings to Groupon love-fests and more, the discerning geek has all sorts of ways to tell that special someone that they love them. And even the traditionalist sites that give out flowers and edible goodies have modernized for folks by providing tech-friendly delivery ordering, area breakdown, and even real time  tracking for your gifts.

Either way, today isn’t a day to be cynical or sad. I think we all have someone or another that we either have or want to have be precious to us. I would like to think that we’d all have some way of expressing that friendship and love to these people, and hope that everyone realizes there’s always someone out there that does or can care for you.

February 13, 2011

De-Necessitating The MMO Ranking

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Internet — Tags: — 1 Comment

You’d think that by nature, the discerning geek would shun the pecking order and hierarchical nature of society that sometimes tends to get attached to them in real life. After all, the labels attached to one’s physical appearance (such as height, weight, and whether or not you eat at fancy steakhouses or McDonald’s) aren’t the kind that someone wants to bother with when it comes to the great big anonymity of the internet. While I by no means have very many physical features to be ashamed of (other than perhaps an overbite that I’ve always been too lazy to fix), I don’t necessarily want to communicate anything that might put me in some ranking amongst the other males (read: most) of the internet.

That being said, when it comes to MMOs, unsurprisingly geekery is as bad at creating a social ladder to climb as the people who watch and perhaps live the Jersey Shore life. If you don’t believe me, find any blog more traveled than mine about MMOs (which is most of them, granted) or check any forum for online games and you’ll see the full smorgasboard of elitists, shallow folk, and shunned people that you’ve come to know and expect in today’s bar scene. What’s worse is the fact that most of the people who post in these places defend and rank their favorite MMOs with the fervor normally reserved for kids wanting entertainment at a Chuck E Cheese. Whether they think WoW is the ultimate in the bee’s knees or maybe sandbox EVE Online is the best thing since sliced bread, there are always people looking to call the best and the worst of MMOs.

I don’t know about this, really. It might seem like a silly notion, but when was the last time you played a game because you felt that it ranked somewhere in some agreed-upon hierarchy of MMO-dom? While playing what appears to be the most popular and well-liked of games does have its advantages (not the least of which is no shortage of internet personality), I’m not sure that it is necessary for you to really enjoy a game. The problem is that when enough people have this mentality, the Multiplayer in MMO – an actual necessity for a game to be sustainable – suffers, causing the population to decrease and eventually die out. If more people simply played a game because it spoke to or made it fun for them in a way, this would be less of an issue.

I’ve probably written about this before, but people love to defend their MMO of choice to death. This in and of itself isn’t bad, but to participate in the pseudo caste system people try to assign the various titles out there is sort of a self-defeating battle – mostly because people on the internet all have their own opinion of something. It just so happens that some of them align together into similar ideas about their game of choice. If someone just happens to like the fact that an MMO that is ranked, say, 20th on the scale of MMOs is their cup of tea, then I say, more power to them. The idea of ranking MMOs is kind of a blah thing in part because it is anti-variety, implying that a game with only a few wide-spread appealing features is an acceptable game. A dangerous game to play for both developers and players – players being the ones driving the market for what is considered to be a successful mass-market MMO and developers making the decisions in their design to accommodate that (or not).

To this I say – play the MMO because it makes you feel like your toon is worth playing regularly, not because a ranking system tells you such. You’ll be happier for it.

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