Blog 5: Beyond Bloggerdome

Real quickly I'd like to say that I hope Anastasia recovers quickly from her sudden illness. I know they are pretty horrible, I succumbed to a rather sudden illness myself Sunday morning and probably will this next Sunday as well, and it's no picnic.

[making "drinking" motion with hand]

But back to the topic, which was about game developers and morality and being responsible or something like that...
I don't see how game developers wouldn't be responsible for the morality of their games; isn't that like asking if directors were responsible for the morality of their movies, or if authors were responsible for the morality of their books [are they? It's been a while since I actually read a book, and I don't know if most books are as preachy as that one was].

That's not to say that they have to make a game with good morals -- they're free to make whatever kinds of games they want -- but ultimately the developers are held accountable for the quality their games. I think that a developer can make it as bloody and gory as they want but still maintain a certain level of morality. They shouldn't make the players choose between two horrible situations -- there should be the option for the player to do the morally right thing.

On one hand, games like Fable and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic offer the player the chance to make the morally right decision in most situations [sometimes you still may have to steal things, but in video games that's often unavoidable] and keeps track of how many good or bad deeds you have done.

Then there are games like Grand Theft Auto.
Some might say that it is a highly immoral game [possibly referring to such activities such as running over people with stolen ambulances and killing prostitutes] and actually, they're absolutely right. You are required to kill people and steal things in order to complete a mission, it is essential to progressing beyond the first level.

I read Julian Dibbell's article A Rape in Cyberspace -- or as I like to call it, Dibbell's Driv-el because I am super clever and I was annoyed by the pretentiousness of his writing. Honestly, is there any reason to use words like "oleaginous" and "simulacrum" when "greasy" and "image" or "representation" would suffice? You can just imagine this smug douchebag proof-reading his own article on his MacBook in some super-trendy "underground" cafe while listening to indie music, getting a hard-on thinking about how vast his vocabulary is. And I bet he'd be twittering about doing so shortly thereafter.

But I digress...

It took me hours to do so but I read his article and, chock-full of pretentiousness as it was, it was an interesting story. Kinda horrifying, what Mr. Bungle had done, but interesting at how the community had grown so much because of it.

I feel that the developers held no responsibility for Mr. Bungle's immoral behavior because the option to NOT rape other players was always there, and odds are the option to do so was not intended in the making of the game.

I also feel that Julian Dibbell is douchebag, in case I was not clear before.

Blog 4: Bloggers of the Lost Blog

Aight kids so this week I'm supposed to talk about the game Flux and why I hate it. The game was centered pretty much entirely around the concept of ever-changing goals -- sometimes the goal of the game is to have three specific cards, sometimes it is... well I can't remember some of the other goals, but they weren't much more than just have cards X, Y, and Z in your hand and you win.

As far as the card drawing and dealing goes, I never fully grasped [or partially grasped for that matter] how that process is supposed to work, and the instructions were kind of long. A few minutes ago tho I found this picture that clears some stuff up.

The full list of rules is explained here. Probably the most interesting part of the game was when Anastasia said that we had to stop talking and could only communicate non-verbally, but that really had nothing to do with the game. This game reminded me of a less-frustrating version of a game called Mao.

Don't know how to play Mao? Well idiotically enough, that's the point: you go into the game without knowing how to play, drawing and playing cards, and being penalized for not performing a given action after playing a card. Oh and if you say "What? Why am I being penalized?" or "Why are you making me draw cards?" or "This is stupid get out of my house" then you have to pick up even MORE cards until eventually you call the cops and kick everyone out of your house in a drunken rage.

Also, the version we were playing was the Monty Python edition, with all of the cards referencing something to do with Monty Python and the Holy Grail [there may have been other Monty Python references in there but Holy Grail was the one that I recalled]. This is fine, but any game referencing that movie carries the risk of some idiot yelling "We are the knights who say NI!" which then carries the risk of me punching said idiot in their stupid face. This is because the knights who say ni are NOT FUNNY.

Seriously, they aren't! So STOP QUOTING THAT PART OF THE MOVIE!

I am also supposed to talk about what the designer attempted to do, and why it failed. However, I'm so sure he did...

It looks like the designer of this game [Andy Looney] was attempting to make a card game that require you to pay such close attention to the ever-changing rules that you forget that you're not having very much fun.

By and large I'd say that Mr. Looney succeeded since his game is somehow still popular after thirteen years. So congratulations Mr. Looney; you may have fooled a large number of people into thinking that your game is fun, but you haven't fooled me.

Blog 3: Blogs in Space

Ok, so my last blog entry wasn't entirely on topic, but in my defense I didn't bother to write down "RISK" as a reminder for what the entry was supposed to be about. I took more thorough notes this time, and if they are accurate [really kind of a 50/50 chance that they are] then I'm supposed to write about cheating in board games vs. cheating in virtual games, and if cheating works in an uncontrolled virtual environment. If that's not accurate then email your complaints to suckit@idontcare.com.

Cheating in a board game can be easier than cheating in a virtual game in some aspects, but harder in others. For example: holding extra cards in Munchkin vs. playing Halo with "god mode" activated [does Halo even have any kind of "god mode"? I don't own a 360 so I haven't played the last two Halo games very much.]

Cheating in Munchkin requires you to a stealthy hand and a good poker face, whereas cheating in Halo requires some kind of code [usually a pattern of button presses -- X Y X Y Left Up Rt Lt, etc.]. So if you do not know the code, or are just lousy at remembering button patters, Munckin would be an easier game in which to cheat. If, however, you do NOT have a good poker face and are as subtle as a shopping cart with one bad wheel, button combination in Halo would be more your thing.

If an environment is uncontrolled, like WoW, cheating "works" in the sense that it's possible to do, but requires a certain level technical prowess. Having only played WoW for the 2-week trial period about two years ago, I have not pursued any mods or whathaveyou that allow me to be invincible or let me start out with the golden gun and therefore have no idea how hard it is to get those cheats. But I'm sure it is possible and I'm sure it cheapens the experience for everyone playing with [or against] him.

You could also cheat by purchasing a high-level character, tho whether or not that's considered "cheating" is debatable. Some would argue that it's not cheating because somebody legitimately earned that character, regardless of the fact that it wasn't the person who now owns it.

Cheating in general I am opposed to, unless it's one of those victimless crimes [you're not playing against other people, or in competition with other people]. Doing so really cheapens the experience because it is often impossible for the non-cheating player to beat the cheater. It'd be like a child playing a game of Scrabble with an adult [who can spell, and takes no pity on children].
Or me playing any kind of sport against, well, anyone.

One game that I always cheat in, and never intend to stop doing so, is GTA [only when free-roaming, not the missions]. There's NOTHING more fun then just speeding thru the city, running over people, causing major pile-ups, blowing up vehicles with an insane arsenal, and jumping out of helicopters with absolutely no repercussions [that is, not losing your money or weapons].

Blog 2: Electric Blogaloo

Last Wednesday I played Risk for the first time in about a decade. It went considerably better this time than it did last time: this time I actually comprehended the rules [sort of] and could form rudimentary strategies [sort of].

Risk is a turn-based board game/world domination simulator in which you roll dice and draw cards in order to take over the whole board with your little colored game pieces. I couldn't tell you how the card-drawing part works because I did not get that far in the game, but the dice-rolling thing worked well enough.

The board is a very disproportional map of the world with territories mapped out. These territories are then divided up between the players thru some card-dealing process [doesn't matter exactly how, mainly cause I don't remember]. When all the territories were doled out, I ended up with all but one of the territories in Australia.

For quite a while I focused all my attention on getting that last eastern territory so that I could have the entire continent to myself, but then I realized that this was Australia I was fighting for. Sure it looks like a fun place to take a vacation, but not a place that I'd want to occupy for an extended period of time. Do you know about all the tiny animals that can kill you in excruciating ways? No thanks!

Upon realizing this, I cut my loses and focused on expanding my armies in North America. After about two turns, time was up and no one had accomplished anything close to world domination. Not even continent domination.

I can [sort of] see how this game could be considered fun as it incorporates both strategy and chance and it lets you simulate world domination, but there were about fifteen things you needed to do before you even begin playing [none of which I committed to memory] and it didn't help that they were printed on the booklet the size of a postage stamp.

To make this game better I'd like to revert back to my old rules of playing Risk. The rules were simpler but held one major restriction: it could only be played on sunny days, ideally during the summer. The only things you needed were the Risk army pieces, magnifying glass, and the sun. No need for any stupid dice, or cards, or even a board!

Turns out the same thing could be done with regular plastic army men, and for about the fraction of a price, but hey -- nothing ventured, nothing gained.