The Carnival of Gamers - Slashdot Edition 65
Mu Productions, for example, has a piece on the future of Machinima, a unique way to 'use' games outside of the norm.
Non-traditional use of games is the center of Press the Buttons' reflection on the 'games can control pain' study that was recently covered here on Slashdot. Using gaming to keep your focus and push away distractions ... I think we've all done that from time to time.
The Game Chair laments the mainstream understanding of games on an airline flight. Does he play his PSP near a young person with 'killer games' in the media?
Tea Leaves challenges the 'hardcore' mentality with a reflection on casual gaming. In his view 'big-box dinosaurs' are an endangered species. Younger, faster, cheaply made casual games will have their day.
Speaking of dinosaurs, Design Synthesis is saddened by the lack of respect we give older games, relegating them to the bargain bin. Where are the gaming museums?
Non-traditional gaming doesn't alway have to be fun. Outside Looking In discusses the JFK: Revolution title and what it could mean, if it weren't a puerile exercise in headline-grabbing. Why not a JFK simulation, but one that could inject some fun into learning history?
On the topic of learning: Late Night PC talks about preparing for a trip to the Game Developer's conference (something I'm going to have to do pretty soon as well).
Psychochild wonders aloud what exactly is a game? As some other entries have already noted, they can be use for more than just 'fun', so what constitutes a game?
Cathode Tan considers games as narrative and games as art in a piece cogitating the often discussed dismissal of games by Roger Ebert.
On the topic of fun: Buttonmashing owns up to an on-the job-Nintendo fix. Nostalgia and pure fun combine in Nintendo's titles: how is that a bad thing?
Finally, on the topic of standards, we come to the topic of game journalism. We've been discussing that a lot lately on Slashdot Games, and three commentators bring up the topic this month in the Carnival. Videogame Media Watch author Kyle Orland digs deep into the 1up DO4 controversy. The Curmudgeon Gamer talks about the *1* problem with gaming journalism, and Continuous Play dispairs in a piece on the state of videogame reviews.
Turning now to virtual worlds, MMOFun talks the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to MMORPG communities. Those selfsame communities can turn on the hand that feeds them, a topic Man Bytes Blog covers in How I learned to Stop Leveling and Love the Nerf Bat.
For a humorous look at community gaming, Kill Ten Rats compares real-life work practices to Raiding. Raiding for the win, apparently.
When Julian Dibbell began talking about online currency being possibly taxable, I know many people desperately cried "Shh! They might hear you!" Play No Evil risks government audit by considering the legitimization of the virtual economy.
On a final general note, Virgin Worlds has a great post looking at some of the best MMOG podcasts around. Well worth listening to if you have a spare ear at work, especially to the sublimely amusing Taverncast.
Commentators couldn't resist talking about their favorite (or least-favorite) massive games, and our last selections this month are all about specific games. Heartless, for example, rips the blood-pumper from Dungeons and Dragons Online. The game, still in Beta, disappointed him by falling short of the pen-and-paper roots he was hoping for.
Darniaq talks about the recent Star Wars Galaxies NGE upgrade. He gives the new content and systems a thorough going-over, and finds both good and bad in the changes to the Galaxy far, far away.
I'll own up to it: I do some extra-curricular blogging myself. I couldn't resist making some doomcasting remarks about the original Everquest. The changes Sony Online seems to be working into all of its games leave but one option for the near future; In my opinion, a graceful shutdown of EQ Live has to be in the cards.
I've said before '5.5 Million people can't be wrong', and our last submissions this month are all about World of Warcraft. Top of Cool concurs with Blizzard's decision about gay guild recruitment in a commentary piece called 'Why Blizzard is Right'. Tobolds talks more traditional games with a Warcraft twist by reviewing the World of Warcraft board game. AFK Gamer has a great, humorous, piece about what he would do if given GM Power in Azeroth.
As you leave the Carnival, for the time being, one last post to consider: Scott Jennings takes a long hard look at the gap between casual players and hardcore raiders in Blizzard's hit MMOG. In his view the only way to fix the gap will require some major surgery. Read the post to find out what sort of stitching it will require.
Many thanks for reading, and I hope you find some of this month's contributors worth adding to your regular browsing habits. If you liked today's post, make sure and make the Carnival of Gamers a part of your monthly reading. Next month the Carnival will be setting up shop at the VirginWorlds blog, on March the 2nd. Until then, the midway is closed.
Re:Welcome back my friends... (Score:2, Informative)
Hooray for the Carnival! (Score:4, Informative)
For those of who like these kinds of articles, don't miss the final link that takes you to the Carnival of Gamers HQ [buttonmashing.com], where you can visit past Carnivals as well.
I love articles like these that take a step back from the reviews and mechanics of a game and discuss some of the larger issues surrounding gaming.
Looking forward to more next month!
On MMORPG Communities (Score:1, Informative)
His general concept is that PvP makes for bad communities. I disagree - lack of PvP doesn't magically improve the community. What determines what makes a good and bad community comes down to what resources are available and the competition for them.
If it were not for the horrible level grinding the game requires I would easily proclaim Final Fantasy XI as the greatest MMORPG ever made, simply because of the sense of community it creates.
WHAT?! Sorry, but, no. Having played both World of WarCraft and Final Fantasy XI, I can say that World of WarCraft easily has the better player community. People in FFXI are petty and cruel. Since the "horrible level grinding" (no arguement there!) requires you to play with other people, making any small screw-up will easily get you blacklisted in a wide section of the community. If you play with gear that's "too poor" or don't play your class perfectly or just have bad luck, expect to get yelled at, and have your name spread among the various guilds (linkshells in FFXI) in the game as a player to avoid. Good luck dealing with the level grind after that happens!
I've never had any problems in WoW when it came to dealing with other people. Why the difference?
It all comes down to opportunity.
As most people know, you can play WoW through to endgame without having to group. It relies heavily on instances to get the best gear - you play through an instance to get the best stuff. FFXI places most of the gear as rare drops off rare spawns, until end-game where it becomes instanced too.
The FFXI community forces you to have the best gear, or else you get blacklisted and can't find groups and can't play. Because the best gear can only be gotten from rare drops off rare spawns, there's incredible competition for these resources. With no PvP, this competition frequently turns to a tactic called "monster player-kill" where one player attempts to get the monsters to attack another player. The game was recently patched to disallow this (again, they tried before) and I don't know how successful they've been.
So with these limited resources, the community often devolves into fighting with each other for them. Since you can't literally fight, it's just a race to get the monster first. Much drama ensues as different guilds compete for the same limited resources. They both try and get the spawn first, people get angry, and shouting matches occur. In the end, you can get banned from groups simply by being friends with someone who got to a spawn first.
Compare this with WoW. You have ninja-looters and griefers in WoW, of course. However, thanks to instancing, you can simply avoid them entirely while playing the game. You don't have to worry about them. This makes the community a much friendlier place, since players generally don't have to worry about other players stealing a rare resource from them.
Guilds work to help themselves get the rare items without competeing with other guilds. People are friendly. People will help out.
Compare it with FFXI, where the game forces people to compete with each other for these rare resources. People get nasty. People refuse to help.
It's the competition for limited resources that makes a community unfriendly. When everyone is an enemy, potentially winning some important item before you can, the community is going to be unfriendly. When other players are just other players to talk with, you get a much nicer sense of community. I think the faction v faction play in WoW helps that too, since you're all on one side against "the enemy", as opposed to FFXI where it's effectively every player for themself.