We've seen a lot of commentary about the quirks associated with Blizzard's decision to take Diablo III online only. Downtime prevents players from accessing the single player game. Digital download purchase of the game are now being subjected to restrictions intended to prevent fraud involving stolen credit card numbers - though apparently the limitations were more severe than Blizzard intended and will be relaxed. And, of course, there's the ever-convenient side-effect that an online-only game cannot be resold. All of these things are true, but let's not over-romanticize the offline physical media era.
A cautionary tale
I purchased a physical copy of Uncharted 3 for my 2.5 year old PS3-slim and was shocked and disappointed to find that it would not load. All the other disc-based games in my library play fine, so I assumed I was looking at a defective disc. I was technically beyond the exchange policy at the retailer at this point, but my wife fears no customer service agent and she was able to convince them to swap out the disc for a new copy.
I brought the new copy home and was shocked to find the same symptoms. The PS3 clock icon spins ineffectually long past when the game should have loaded, but the game never kicks in. A trip to Google revealed that the PS3 forums call this phenomena the "spinning ring of doom"- convinced that it is an issue with either the coding or the manufacture of the physical game discs. They may or may not be correct, but it appears that I am not amongst them.
I called PS3 technical support - not seriously expecting a solution to the problem - and at least came away with the real culprit. My system will load all the other game discs I have handy. It will load all the downloaded games on the device's hard drive. Then the rep told me to load up a Blu-Ray movie and sure enough, the same problem emerged. My 2.5 year old system apparently has a broken disc drive.
(Aside: The rep then attempted to give me the strong-arm hard sell for Sony's repair service, which cost over $100 - I don't remember if that included shipping or precisely how long I was going to be without my system as a result. I pointed out that I can get a new system on sale for around $250 with a game and a controller that collectively MSRP for around $100, and the guy tried to put the scare tactics on me that my game and movie downloads would not work on a new console. I pointed out that the PSN service specifically markets game downloads as tied to your account, and - caught - he said that they should but that he's heard that sometimes they don't.)
Vestigial Points of Failure
Don't get me wrong, I'm not thrilled with how this experience played out, and the results do not leave me eager to spend more money on the PS3 platform. I'm now out of pocket for a game that I can't return because it's been opened and can't play because my system won't load it.
However, the part that failed is not some fancy computing hardware or exotic cooling solution or even the machine's hard drive. The point of failure is the optical drive - a vestigial appendage whose sole contribution to the endeavor of letting me play games is to load physical media from a physical store which is taking a substantial cut of the sale price for the privilege.
Can I hypothetically trade in my working disc for something else that may or may not run on my hobbled system? Perhaps. Somehow that's not a lot of comfort right now.
SWTOR Ding 50
I was originally going to hold off in favor of working on alts, but I changed my mind because I was close to the cap and having a hard time figuring out how many of my credits I needed to save for when I got there. (Answer: 110K+ in training alone, and I haven't decided how to spend my commendations versus what item mods to purchase.)
Meanwhile, the Jeutrémie legacy is sitting at level 6, and currently grants the following benefits:
- 150 presence (human racial plus 5 companions)
- All five Companion archetype buffs (1% each HP, accuracy, crit, surge, and 2% healing)
- Heroic moment ability duration doubled, cooldown reduced by 25%, one Trooper legacy Sticky Grenade per cycle
- All classes get the trooper/bounty hunter buff (5% endurance)
- Cyborg race unlocked for Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Sith Inquisitor classes, also additional cosmetic options available
Anyway, with these benefits in hand, it's off to work on my first alt, a Sith Warrior. And perhaps return to the trooper from time to time to blow things up for the Republic and/or credits in support of my Legacy. The trooper was not a class I was that interested in until I played it, but I'm glad that I did, as its medium range melee/tanking niche was different and fun. If I'm similarly surprised by other specs, I've got a lot more fun left to have with this game.
Seatech Astronomy
The Secret World launch is less than two weeks away, and the only public information I've seen on the beta (as opposed to the relatively open weekend events) is a few blogposts from folks who have beta keys to give away. One of my readers sent me an email containing a pair of such keys. Due to the presumably limited time left to take advantage of these, I'm not going to do anything creative with em - first two emails to my inbox (grnarmadillo@gmail.com) get a key, I'll edit this when they're gone.
Winners have been identified and contacted, keep your eyes peeled if you're still looking, seems like there are more of these things going around as it draws to a close.
Winners have been identified and contacted, keep your eyes peeled if you're still looking, seems like there are more of these things going around as it draws to a close.
Endgame Incentives For the Solo Player
My last post gave one reader the incorrect impression that SWTOR did not have an endgame - in fact, it has solo daily quests, 4-player "flashpoints", and "operation" raids that come in 8 and 16 player size options. These things did not really enter into my thinking for my immediate reaction post upon reaching the end of my class story.
I spend a fair number of hours playing MMO's, but I don't do so on any fixed schedule, which rules out traditional raiding. The things that do motivate me to continue playing are new experiences, such as:
I maintain that Bioware has not done a bad job in SWTOR. Many MMO's try to sell the player on multiple characters using additional leveling content the devs needed to build anyway, but SWTOR is the first game where I'm not only working on my second character before finishing my first, but even have plans out to what order I would tackle all eight of the class stories in. The catch, as Bioware completes their server merges (123 US servers will trans-merge down to 12, while 88 European Servers condense to 11 according to Darth Hater - nearly the worst case of the scenarios I examined last week), is that this continues to be a recipe for a nomadic population which is less well suited to longterm MMO communities.
I spend a fair number of hours playing MMO's, but I don't do so on any fixed schedule, which rules out traditional raiding. The things that do motivate me to continue playing are new experiences, such as:
- Story, if presented in a non-scheduled format (like WoW's EZ-mode PUG raid finder)
- Alternate advancement or similar (including more regular advancement in the case of my SWTOR character, who is still two levels shy of the game's cap)
- Perks and bonuses for future characters
I maintain that Bioware has not done a bad job in SWTOR. Many MMO's try to sell the player on multiple characters using additional leveling content the devs needed to build anyway, but SWTOR is the first game where I'm not only working on my second character before finishing my first, but even have plans out to what order I would tackle all eight of the class stories in. The catch, as Bioware completes their server merges (123 US servers will trans-merge down to 12, while 88 European Servers condense to 11 according to Darth Hater - nearly the worst case of the scenarios I examined last week), is that this continues to be a recipe for a nomadic population which is less well suited to longterm MMO communities.
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