Good and Evil sides in an MMO

Good vs evil is good in movies, not in my MMOs

First I want to say that this post will be about what I want in an MMO, and I am willing to admit that I may be in the minority.

As I was reflecting on my last post about Wildstar and watching others have fun in the game, I realized there was something larger at work for me that I didn't capture in that post.  I now understand that I don't want to play an online game where some of the people are playing the 'evil' side.

I have never role played in an MMO, but I do have roles for my different characters.  I wish they were as clever as those in Tome of the Ancient but it is nothing so complicated.  When I created Kanter, I knew that he would be a herbalist and alchemist.  It didn't have anything to do with how it would help him earn money or be stronger, it was all about what kind of hunter he was.  He has never changed professions since the beta for that reason.

I play good characters.  I admire people who can play evil characters in television in movies, but I've always been the kind of person who gets emotionally involved in whatever I'd doing or watching and I can't imagine playing an evil character myself.

That could still allow me to play the good side, which is why I played Alliance in SWToR.  However, that leaves half the players (hopefully, for balance) playing the evil side.  With all the bad behavior in MMOs, I don't want to encourage it others by having their NPC role models do horrible things.

Superficially the Horde is the 'bad' side in World of Warcraft, but Blizzard has done a lot since Warcraft II to make it more complicated.  Yes, there are evil characters, but I don't feel like either the Horde or Alliance is being portrayed as evil.  Having your new Horde character hit lazy peons on the head is a far cry from performing experiments on people that kills them as happens at the beginning of Wildstar for the Dominion side.

I know there are a lot of people enjoying Wildstar right now and I'm very glad about that.  The combat is interesting and even though I proved yet again that I can't do jumping puzzles by dying three times while trying to jump up a cliff in the game, I think it is great there is a lot to do besides combat.  We need more polished MMOs with different ideas and I believe Wildstar contributes to it.  But it isn't for me, and, I don't believe I'll ever seriously play an MMO that has a side that is portrayed as evil.

The Liebster Award (continued)

First I wanted to mention that the Newbie Blogger Initiative for 2014 is scheduled to begin on May 1st, but you can already get started either helping out or preparing for writing a new blog!

In my last post I recognized Yanet and Neri for kindly recognizing me with a Liebster award.  Now for your questions, finally (the first question is pretty much the same, so I only answered it once):

Neri's questions:

1. What inspired you to start blogging? / What made you decide to start blogging?
• Eloise (aka Ysharra) was a member of the only guild I have ever been in and at some point she posted on the guild forums about her no longer active blog.  I very much enjoyed reading it and it lead me to Syp's blog (this was about the time the Warhammer went live) and that led me to many other blogs.  At some point later, I decided I still wanted to play MMOs but didn't know how best to balance it with my family time and I thought writing a blog would help me do that and that there were probably others in a similar situation.  At the time I was thinking this, Syp announced the "Newbie Blogger Initiative" and I went ahead and made the commitment to write knowing it would only be about once a week.
2. If you won a free ticket to Blizzcon, what panels would you be most excited about seeing?
• I would be more interested in meeting some of the people who's blogs I read in person, but the 'What's next' panel would be exciting (though I guess there won't be one this year).
3. How do you balance time in-game with your ‘RL’ commitments?
• As mentioned above, the first way I do it is to write this blog!  More generally, I don't over-commit to participate in raids and I generally at most plan to have "One Night a Week" where I spend a significant amount playing.  I also bought a gaming laptop when my previous desktop stopped working and that has made it a lot easier to play while still being able to pay attention to my three daughters.
4. If World of Warcraft shut down its servers tomorrow (Or you aren’t currently playing), what would you be playing instead?
• I would probably wait for Wildstar to come out and then give that a try.
5. Are there any bloggers out there who you aspire to be like? What is it about them that you love?
• Ocho and Stubborn are probably the two I admire closest to my style, and I always find them thought provoking.  Syp and Godmother are both so conversational and entertaining in their posts that I am always glad when they come up on my feed.  Finally, I also look forward to Belghast's daily posts and admire his ability to write something I want to read every day.
6. Are you brave enough to show us your gaming set up?
• I technically have a set up in my 'computer room' but I haven't played in their in months.  Here is my current setup (I tried to take a picture, but since it is only a laptop, I thought I'd just use a commercial picture).
• 
7. At what age would you let your children (Real or hypothetical) start playing video games?
• I have three children and I've let them play on tablets when they showed an interest.  I think you need to be careful about what children play and how much time they spend playing on electronics, but I don't think there is a starting age.
8. You have a weekend of interruption free gaming ahead of you. What essential supplies do you stock up on to get you through it?
• That is beyond my imagination right now!  I have starting using Clif and Kind bars as less sugary not messy snacks for work, so I'd like them for a gaming weekend as well.  By power of suggestion, I'm going to have one now!
9. If you could pick any job in the gaming industry, what would it be?
• I have been a programmer and designer of business software as my job, so I have periodically imagined myself doing that.  I am glad my current position is much less stressful that it is to be a game programmer or designer.
10. Have you ever done any gaming cosplay?
• No and I can't imagine myself doing it!  However, I do have a great amount of respect for the amazing cosplays I have seen.
11. What is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen done in an MMO or multi-player game?
• Our guild had a level 1 gnome rogue raid on Orgrimmar where we all danced on the bank roof until we were killed and then resurrected ourselves a few times.  It was a lot of fun.

Yanet's questions:

2. What advice do you have for those wanting to start a WoW/gaming blog?

• Read other blogs, they are the best inspiration for writing.  Then write what interests you, not what you think others want to read.

3. What's the biggest noob mistake you recall making when you first started playing WoW?

• I started playing in the beta almost 10 years ago so it's difficult to remember though I'm sure I made many.  I mostly played solo and I know when I tried to participate in dungeons with my guildmates at first I couldn't control my pet.

4. Besides WoW, what do you enjoy doing on your spare time?

• I enjoy walking my dogs and spending time enjoying books and other things with my three daughters.  When we get a chance, an evening dinner alone with my wife is a great treat these days.

5. What's your biggest pet peeve in and out of game?

• People who think they know better and can tell others how to play/live.

6. How many years have you been playing MMOs and have you ever quit and why?

• It is almost 10 years now with the WoW beta.  I have taken three breaks when either I thought I was spending too much time playing and/or that I wasn't playing enough to be worth the cost.

7. If you could meet any fictional game character who would it be and why?

• Chromie has such a great personality that I think she'd be a lot of fun.

8. How do you go about picking your character's names?

• Before I started playing MMOs, I came up with the idea of taking the unique consonants from my first and last name (KNTHR) and then adding vowels to form a character name.  I dropped the H because I thought the names were better without it and I've stuck with the games I have played since.

9. Of all your characters, who's your favorite and why?

• My first WoW character, 'Kanter', a dwarf hunter, I imagined during the beta and came up with the professions based on what I thought his personality would be like.  I wanted to be able to have animals who would fight with me and once I adopted my bear whom I named 'Iorek' (bonus points for those who get the reference), I was even more sold on his character.

10. If you could pick one thing for Blizzard to bring back to the game, what would it be and why?

• Nothing is jumping out at me, but I do miss the non-raiding events we used to do as a guild.  I'm not sure how Blizzard could encourage it, but I wish they would.

11. What's the one thing you wish Blizzard would implement in the game that isn't available yet and why?

• World of Warcraft really needs housing.  I'm not sure if Garrisons will fill that nitch completely, but I am really looking forward to seeing how they are implemented.

Mists of Pandaria, Pets Battles, and Family Gaming

My daughter's panda in Loch Modan

Mists of Pandaria offers many different options of ways to play the game, and, in particular, more options for casual players including children.  I suspect there was more conversation about this when Mists first came out, but since I wasn't playing then, I'm late to the conversation.

I have taken the week off for spring break for school and so I was able to spend a few hours playing World of Warcraft with my eight year old daughter.  Right now, the only rule we have is that she can only play when I am around to help her.  My wife and I are concerned about people on the internet and what they'll say but as long as I'm there with her, I feel like it is fine for her about her to play online.  Other parents will have different rules and I don't pretend to know what is right for them or their children, but I'm hoping it is helpful to hear about my experience.

This is the same daughter who was playing Lord of the Rings Online with me last year.  She likes pets in games so it's not surprising that she wanted a hunter here.  She and some of her friends at school pretend to be pandas, so it's not surprising that the offer to play a panda in WoW was exciting for her.

At eight, I don't think it makes sense for her to have her own account.  Possibly at ten I might consider it, but I realize different parents have different tolerances (and different amounts of disposable income) and some children can be allowed more freedom than others.

She also has been steadily playing Pokemon White and White 2 since she received it for her birthday last March.  So it's not surprising that she is enjoying the pet battle subgame. I decided with my limited time, I would limit myself to crafting and questing at first, so this was my first to see the pet battles as well.

It's fun!  I think it was great that my daughter was able to get 5 achievements related to pet battles in less than two hours of playing time.  She also has an older computer with no video card, so it is nice that she can take her time to decide what she wants to do.  She started with 'Mojo' as her first pet (I'm not sure why) and she promptly renamed him 'Mojo Jojo'. ;)  After getting him to level 3, she decided she wanted to play with different pets and at this point she now has three pets levels 4 - 5 and has defeated two of the pet trainers.

I'm not sure if the parents at Blizzard were behind this or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were at all.  This is an almost ideal way for parents with children who want to play with them to be able to play without worrying about others and in a fun, relatively stress free setting.

Free will?

Does it feel like you've given up your free will as a parent?  It does to me sometimes.  I don't mean this as a complaint, just an observation.  So many times now it seems like my decisions are made for me.  I should probably spend a little time planning ahead, but it seems difficult to find even the time to do that some days.


So what does this have to do with MMOs?  I showed Lord of the Rings Online to one of my three daughters, who is 7, the other day.  It just happens that my wife started reading her 'The Hobbit' about a week ago and the two of us have been reading it to her depending on who is more available in the evening.  As you can imagine, once I showed it to her, she wanted it on her computer as well, so I downloaded it from Steam.  I didn't think it would run well on her computer that has an older Core2 processor and no video card, but it actually runs quite well in the limited resolution she has it at.

My daughter's Lore Master, Kantrita (imaginative, but not so much with names)

So, as you can imagine, though I'll go through the last two evaluations, my decision has pretty much been made for me.  I'll be playing LotRO with my daughter at least until she loses interest.  She's pretty young to be playing the game, but she'll always have help.  Also, she's pretty good about listening when we've said she's had enough.  Of course, she knows if she doesn't then she won't be doing whatever she was doing for quite a while.


With it being free it's not really costing me anything but time for now.  But since she seen me playing World of Warcraft and seen others on horses now she wants one for herself.  I could just get her a horse pretty inexpensively but I had been looking at the Mithril edition since it seemed like a good deal.  By my count you get four quest packs which would cost 2950 Turbine points, plus a mount that would be 1195 Turbine points, plus 2000 points to use as you'd like for $20.00.  So that's 6145 Turbine  points or at about $1.00 for 100 points over $60 worth of stuff for $20.  Do I have that wrong?


However, I know the best deal is free and $20 isn't close to free and, if I would to buy it for myself and my daughter that's $40.  However, LotRO has one big selling point that the subscription games don't. Once I pay, I have what I purchased until the game goes away.  Still $40 is a lot to pay for something that was free.  Then again, I don't mind spending money on something I enjoy and it's even more difficult to deny it for my daughters.  If she keeps playing until I finish the evaluations, I'll probably splurge on it for myself (unless someone can tell me it's not a good deal) and just make sure I don't get my horse out in her presence and then give one to her as a treat a few weeks later once I've decided it's worth it.


This goes directly to the point of this blog.  When you have limited time, the value of things are very different than when you have a lot of available time.  $15 a month for 80 hours of game-play can seem like a great deal, but if it's only 10 hours, the value of the subscription is much less.  Even if I stick with it, I suspect it will take me at least 6 months to finish the content in the Mithril edition and for that I only have to pay once. Now, if I were someone who finished it in a month, it's probably still a pretty good deal but the value is a lot lower in comparison to the person who plays little.  Similarly the value of $15 VIP membership is much better for someone who plays a lot.


I posted earlier about influences.  It doesn't seem much like an influence when you are on a ride and you only think you know where you'll end up.  It's more like a train I'm hanging onto.  But at least I have fun and some pretty scenery on the way.

Influences

I remember hearing an interview with an author (I believe it was John Updike) where he was asked about his influences and he stated that although he had read extensively, his biggest influence was his children.  The same is true for me.  My wife and I have three children, ages 3, 7, and 9, and although in some ways I am the same person I was before my first child was born, my life is totally different.


One way that affects me is in my choice of games.  Typically I do not play while my children are with me, but once in a while it has turned out that one was there while I was playing World of Warcraft or SWTOR.  I thought about what I was doing and made sure I could leave at a moments notice, but I was never really concerned about what they saw or heard.  However, it's a influence now as I pick games going forward.  I have friends who are excited about playing the Secret World.  I was interested enough to read some about the game and take the quiz to find out I was a 'Dragon' but the 'mature' tag made me pause.  I realized that even though I typically played games by myself, I didn't want to worry about one of my children being disturbed by what I was playing and decided the Secret World wasn't for me.


Similarly, I recently played the 'Diablo III' open beta.  I had played Diablo and Diablo II extensively and enjoyed the brief beta experience, but I've decided I wouldn't be comfortable playing it with my children with me and therefore I won't be buying it.


What about the rest of you?  Do you find that your game decisions are limited by your children, girlfriend or wife, boyfriend or husband?  It's not necessarily a bad thing.  There are so many games and so little time, that it's good a way to have limits on the choices I will make.