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I’m a Star Wars fan. Always have been. I wasn’t alive for the original release of any of the original trilogy films but I have fond memories of sitting in front of the TV aged 6 and marvelling at the Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. I saw the cinema re-releases of the films in 1997. I bought the DVD box set release of the original trilogy, even though the films were modified from their original state (Han Shot First). So I was very excited by the recent release at E3 of the trailer for the upcoming Star Wars MMO - The Old Republic. The trailer is named Deceived and I recommend you download the large resolution version if you haven’t already.

There have been many Star Wars games over the years, most of which I have played. However, the odd thing about the games is that almost none of them actually let you feel like you’re a Jedi or Sith, which is something that I think all Star Wars fans have wanted. You’ve been able to play as a Jedi or Sith but none of the games have really captured the essence of the role, as portrayed by the films. The game mechanics might not have been good enough or maybe the artwork wasn’t right, but for whatever reason the games have left you wanting.

However, The Old Republic might just break the mould of less than satisfying Star Wars game experiences. It’s being developed by BioWare, the same guys who made Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR), which was excellent (even though the combat was turn based and therefore spoiled the Jedi experience). They have a reputation for making really great story driven games. It is my hope that BioWare is able to rise above the mediocrity that has plagued Star Wars games and craft a game that can live up to the brilliance of the original trilogy.

I thought I’d take a look at some of the things in the trailer which may give us an insight into some of the things we can expect from the game. The Old Republic takes place 300 years after the events which transpired in the KotOR game. This means it’s still at least 3000 years before the the prequels.

"ah the jedi temple, so lovely and peaceful"

The trailer starts with a characteristic Star Wars panning shot of a spacecraft flying towards a planet (Coruscant). We see a Sith Lord and a Twi’lek walking up the steps towards the Jedi temple on Coruscant.

It didn’t occur to me initially but it seems likely that the Twi’lek is a companion character that it’s been mentioned will be one of the features of the game. The Twi’lek is clearly armed and we see her take part in some combat later in the trailer. Whether companion characters are of a particular class is unknown (in KotOR party members were of a particular class). From what I’ve read/heard in interviews the key motivation for the companion characters was to provide an additional vehicle to tell the game’s story. I wonder if companion characters will take part in PvP. If they do take part in PvP with the player’s character it seems to make sense for them to be of a particular class.

The Sith and Twi’lek are being observed by an attractive bounty hunter who, after seeing the Sith successfully dispatch the temple’s token security (with a forcepush and obligatory lightsaber throw), jetpacks up to infiltrate the temple from a higher level.

Mr Sith Lord and his companion enter the temple and meet up with some less-than-friendly-looking Jedi, headed by Mr Master Jedi. All the Jedi seems to be wearing some form of body armour under their cloaks, in contrast to the Jedi we see in the films who wear cotton tunics/trousers under their cloaks. Later in the trailer there’s even a (very brief) shot of a Jedi wearing a mask covering the entire face.

HAI GUIZ

Just as we think a fight is about to break out between the Jedi and Mr Sith Lord a spaceship crashes through the entrance to the temple, distracting the Jedi. After screeching to a halt, and completely ruining the beautiful stonework in the temple lobby, a hatch opens in the spaceship to reveal that Mr Sith Lord has brought some of his Sith pals and some troopers to play! The Sith seem to be attired very similarly to the Jedi, except of course with more black. The armor being worn under the cloaks suggests itemization and armor choices for Jedi/Sith in the game will not just be restricted to light armor and there will likely be some kind of tradeoff between wearing heavier armor and light armor.

The Jedi and Sith then have a big battle (as opposed to a tea party). This is very cool, hopefully the game will feature some large-scale battles like this as part of the PvP. During the course of the fight we see a bunch of cool stuff:

1. Deflecting blaster fire with lightsabers - this was pretty much guaranteed to be in the game and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
2. Force grab by Mr Sith Lord - this seems like it could be a different ability than a force push. He uses the force to grab a Jedi, lift him into the air and throw him against a pillar. It’s hard to tell, but it also looks as though the Jedi might be under the effects of a force choke at the same time.
3. Bounty hunter flying around with jetpacks and shooting missiles to destroy a bridge - will there be destructable terrain? I haven’t really seen many MMOs implement this before. I think WoW has some destructable terrain now in one of the battlegrounds. Also, I wonder how long bounty hunters can stay flying? It seems like the sort of thing that could be pretty powerful if they were able to their jetpacks for as long as they wanted.
4. Force lightning by Mr Sith Lord - This is an ability that’s appeared in many SW games before and some of the films. It’s usually only seen as a Sith ability and it’s not clear whether this ability will be available to the Jedi (although apparently it has been used by Jedi in the Expanded Universe books).
   

   "you wish you were as creepy as me"

5. Flame throwers by the bounty hunter - definitely in the game, on the SWTOR site you can see a (very) short clip of a bounty hunter using flame throwers.
6. Force jump - another common Jedi/Sith ability seen in pretty much every movie and game.
7. Force smash - seen at roughly 2:25 in the trailer, a Sith performs a force jump and as he lands smashes the ground underneath him with waves of energy apparently knocking over the nearby temple security forces. I haven’t seen this ability in previous SW games, perhaps it’s one that will be available to the Sith and maybe Jedi.
8. Mr Master Jedi receiving a message from a droid - I wouldn’t be surprised if droids were available as companion characters in the game. Obviously they’re seen many times in the films and other games in companion-like roles.

As battle continues we see Mr Sith Lord meet up with Mr Master Jedi in a pretty epic fight scene. It’s interesting to note the difference in fighting style between the two. I haven’t heard anything about whether Lightsaber Forms will make it into the game, indeed there’s been very little info about the combat so far, but they were present in KotOR and would make a cool addition and add extra depth to the combat. Mr Master Jedi appears to be using Form IV (lots of spinning and jumping with wide strikes with the lightsaber, physically avoid blows rather than blocking) whereas Mr Sith Lord is probably using Form V (very powerful strikes, not especially mobile, preferring to parry/block strikes rather than try and avoid them). The fight also features another lightsaber throw by Mr Sith Lord - this ability will doubtless make it into the game.

"I believe I can fly..."

Mr Master Jedi is defeated by Mr Sith Lord. We see the Jedi drop his lightsaber and fall to his knees, staring out at Coruscant which is now burning and under attack from the Empire. We see some starfighters which look quite similar to TIE-fighters, we see some starships that look suspiciously like Imperial Cruisers, and also some walkers similar to AT-STs. Very cheeky.

Mr Sith Lord pulls on his hood and strolls away from the Jedi temple, the sacking of Coruscant well under way, pleased with a job well done.

the background in this shot is actually the stage from an old KISS concert

The release of the trailer at E3 generated a lot of positive hype. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a short review of the trailer. They made an interesting comment: “This cinematic, then, may not be explaining all that much about how the game plays, but it is saying one thing loud and clear - “we’re going to fix Star Wars.””  That’s definitely the vibe I got from the trailer as well. I was speaking to a bunch of friends after seeing the recent Star Trek film and it became apparent that for many people the Star Wars prequels have really tarnished the Star Wars name as a whole (the Rock, Paper, Shotgun review touches on this as well). This is a huge shame. While I didn’t really like the prequels I feel the original trilogy is so awesome that it still deserves to be thought of as an epic film series which has really enriched our culture.

Please comment and tell me what you think of trailer and game and if I’ve missed anything from the trailer :)

This post will touch on themes I covered in my earlier post gaming - do not want! In that post I expressed how I felt that current games and gaming are essentially time wasters. Adding to this, I believe that gaming doesn’t benefit players in a meaningful way, ie. more than just as entertainment. I say ‘current’ because I believe games could be of meaningful benefit people but aren’t at the moment.

However, recently I’ve begun to think that this time wasting applies to other media as well - namely film and television. People have different tastes but most film and tv shows seem so devoid of any meaning. Sure they’re good for entertainment purposes, for a light laugh, but it pretty much stops there. There are films and possibly some tv shows which break this mold but generally it seems that you spend some time watching a film/show but you are no different for having watched it. It hasn’t enriched your life in any way.

Good films/tv should be thought provoking and you should be different for having experienced them. They should make you question things you’ve taken for granted or give you some insight into life and the way you live and the things you do in ways that you hadn’t previously considered. Films (I don’t really watch tv) that have had this ‘enriching’ experience for me are 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Dark Knight. 2001 really makes me think about what it means to be human, and the possibilities and challenges that humanity will face in the future. The Dark Knight really makes me wonder about corruption in society, and how much of a difference one person can make, and the power of symbols.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but yesterday the LA Times featured a story with a quote by Alan Moore which really hit on what I’m trying to say:

“I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying,” Moore told me during an hourlong phone call from his home in England. “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I, for one, am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change.”

Alan Moore expresses well what I’m trying to explain (even if the metaphor gets a bit convoluted towards the end of that quote) and also alludes to another aspect of it: Repetition and lack of originality. Not only does most film/tv lack any meaning or value beyond pure entertainment but there’s so little original thought in most of the movies I’ve seen recently (beyond The Dark Knight). Speed Racer, a film I really enjoyed and found to be superbly entertaining, suffers from this badly. It was novel in terms of the art direction and extensive use of green screen special effects for pretty much everything, but in terms of plot or themes it’s nothing we haven’t seen before thousands of times.

I also think the fantasy genre (books/films/whatever) suffers from this as well. I don’t claim to be an expert on fantasy but I have read/watched quite a few fantasy series, and the genre seems for the most part to just recycle the same  basic plots/ideas/characters that were established years ago. One notable exception I’ve read recently is the Temeraire series.

Of course it isn’t surprising that there’s a large number of books/films (particularly in the fantasy genre) that are very similar to each other in terms of plot/characters - these are obviously quite popular and sell quite well. But in that respect they are close to most films/tv: entertaining but ultimately meaningless.

I think “regurgitated worms” is a good metaphor for many films/tv. Hollywood/whoever feeds us more and more unoriginal, visually pretty, entertaining, ultimately meaningless crap which we watch and consume without thinking. It entertains us, keeps us happy and distracted from real issues. Meanwhile, other things are happening in the world, interesting things, important things, things which people don’t hear about or let slide if they spend too much time just watching unenriching films/tv. This may sound very cynical, but it really does seem at times like some forms of media have the effect (whether it’s being used deliberately or innocently) of a drug - it’s nice to watch it, consume it but it’s ultimately distracting us from things that are more important and worthwhile of our attention.

I’ve always played computer games. My first interaction with computers was playing the original Prince of Persia on a computer running DOS when I was 5 or 6. I have now decided that I will stop playing computer games except for very rare LAN sessions, where it is more about the socialising than the gaming.

Over the years I’ve spent a large amount of time gaming. Too much time. Instead of gaming my time on computers will now be spent doing productive things, hacky things, fun things, open source things, things that I could have been doing and learning so much from doing if I hadn’t been gaming.

Gaming is great, but it’s such a waste of time. I used to equate the amount of time I spent gaming to how other people spend time watching tv, almost as a means of justifying it. When you’re on a computer it’s already so easy to waste a lot of time not doing anything productive. Gaming, for me, just compounds that scenario.

A recent post on /. featured a review of a graphic novel called Hackerteen. Hackerteen, it is explained, is not just a graphic novel but “an edutainment program created by the Brazilian company 4Linux”. The reviewer goes on to state that:

“The curriculum… arose out of a desire to deal with three problems.

1. Excessive time spent by young people playing computer games on the internet.
2. Young people committing digital crimes on the internet.
3. A lack of professionals who work with networks and computer security.”

Obviously I’m not alone in the amount of time I (used to) spend playing computer games. There’s so much other cool stuff you can be doing using computers instead.

To spend time playing with computers and learning about the cool stuff they can do and how they work,  instead of playing computer games is my belated new year’s resolution.

Oh and Cory Doctorow’s novels are awesome :)

I would’ve been blissfully unaware if it hadn’t been for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. It seems someone leaked some details about Wrath of the Lich King from the “Friends and Family” alpha testing. So of course I went to the site. So of course I read all the juicy details. Ugh. Tycho from Penny Arcade coined the term “brain hunger” in relation to WoW once, and it definitely applies to me. I don’t really know what it is about it. I start trying to imagine what it would be like to play with all the exciting new abilities, start to imagine how the gameplay will have changed. It’s like I’m trying to run a simulation of it in my head or something, it’s terrible. But I won’t play it again, not matter how cool the druid changes sound.

What I hate though is that more games, or just more games that I actually enjoy playing, have started to head in a “grind->reward” direction. I’m mostly thinking of TF2 here, the only other game that I actually play regularly (except Audiosurf :D ). It’s almost as though the most profound effect WoW has had on gaming is to make other developers realise that introducing a bit of a grind into the game is a surefire way to keep people playing longer (aside from making them realise just how much cash you can make from MMOs). This frustrates me. Multiplayer pvp should be about skill, not how much time you’ve invested. TF2 isn’t on the same scale in the time-sink scheme of things as WoW, but it stills takes a heap of time to complete the new medic achievements and unlock the new guns. I gave up after farming the first gun late one night on a server with a friend. I hate the direction Valve has gone with this. It’s a cop out for the studio too. Instead of making the gameplay itself appealing enough to keep people playing for the gameplay’s sake alone, instead they opt for the cheap and easy route of making a bit of a grind. Blizzard and Valve - the creators of StarCraft and Counter-Strike (respectively), games with the longest lasting appeal of pretty much any game (not counting sequels). It’s disappointing.

In other news: I’ve decided to make a rule for myself: If I become involved enough with a game that I start to get angry (rage :P ) over the game then it’s time to stop. When I write it down it sounds like an obvious thing to do. I don’t like that I become involved enough with games to start getting angry about them. Gaming should be about having fun, if I’m not having fun I shouldn’t play. Sounds simple and a bit “no duh, retard” but I get carried away with it easily and I think other people do too.

I think gaming is probably too big a part of my life. I should really get some other interests. I have other interests (reading, listening to music, talking with friends) but they’re kind of passive things, not interactive. The thing with many of my friends is that they’re also gamers. I need to take up something that doesn’t involve using a computer. All my uni work requires the use of one and most of my leisure time I’m on it too. I need to get out more :S

Recently I’ve been thinking about how different mediums can be used to tell stories, and the consequences associated with using a particular medium to tell a story.

Music can tell stories. Lyrics obviously can be used to convey ideas and meaning. However, music without lyrics can convey emotion, and less explicitly elements of plot (Peer Gynt for example). Songs are typically short so a song will often deal with just a specific idea. Concept albums (like Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater) and classical pieces can tell whole stories.

Films are typically around two hours long, two hours in which to tell a story/convey an idea to an audience. You tend to be able to fit quite alot of story into a film of two hours since you can convey ideas visually and aurally. Films often contain music but the music in films is usually more to augment the story or mood rather than to explicitly tell a story. Films don’t ask much from the viewer. You can sit and watch and listen and have experienced a lot of story telling in just two or so hours. So films are information dense and require little effort to absorb.

Books (novels) are much more demanding of a reader. The visuals and sound are not provided directly to the reader, they must be interpreted from words on a page. Since some of the words in a book must be used to describe what is seen and heard, books are less information dense than films. So books take many times longer to tell a story than films. However, the process of interpreting the words on a page, linking the words on a page with their meaning in your head… this can result in a richer experience.

Computer games incorporate visuals and audio so they’re as information dense as films. However, games which tell stories take much longer to play through than it takes to watch a film and in some cases approaching the time it takes to read a novel. Why is this? Is it because games have to also involve the player in something fun? Does making compelling gameplay compromise story telling? Or does the added time it takes to finish a game over a film the result of gameplay which compliments the story and thus creating a richer experience for the player? In my experience gameplay interferes with story telling. Setting goals to achieve (beat this boss, get to point X on the other side of hundreds of enemies) for a level makes me focus on achieving those goals and forgetting why I want to achieve them. Success for the sake of success. I can’t even remember the plot behind Half-Life 2. Most of it seemed to be “get to the other side of town through zombie and combine infested areas to shutdown a reactor thingy”. Perhaps I’m alone in this. I certainly haven’t experienced any particularly strong emotional response from a (story-oriented) game, the same way I might from reading an engrossing book, listening to my favourite music, or watching a good film. Are games a bad medium for meaningful story telling? Are compelling gameplay and emotive story telling mutually exclusive, or have we just not achieved it yet?

Sometimes playing games makes me feel like I’m a lemming and someone is playing me. Unless I jump through the hoops just right I’ll die and have to start again.

As promised previously, I’m going to write a post about the game I want to make at some stage. However, before I get to that I’m going to start by giving a bit of a run down on WoW PvP. Until about 4 months ago I used to play WoW pretty heavily. At times this became pretty unhealthy. Not something I’m proud of, but that’s a discussion for another time (maybe). When I played, I PvPed exclusively. PvE completely bored me. At one stage I was pretty decent at PvP (not great, just decent). However, after a while I got sick of it as it wasn’t balanced, but I kept playing even after realising I was bored of it because I was kinda addicted :/ The point behind talking about WoW PvP is to give my game some context. I enjoyed some aspects of WoW PvP while hating others, but both aspects influenced me in equal amounts, and WoW PvP in general is the biggest influence on my gaming tastes at this stage (along with the other games mentioned in the earlier post).

Here is what I enjoyed about WoW PvP:
- Classes. I like the idea of classes and adapting to and learning different playstyles which can be equally effective.
- The large scale. The world PvP in WoW has been some of the most fun I’ve had in gaming, and it’s because the scale is large. You can get a hunter/prey situation going where each player is looking for the right opportunity to make the kill, and one player might follow another all over the map to eventually beat them.
- Unpredictability. The great thing about world PvP in WoW is that you don’t know what’s going to happen or when it will happen. Like when you get ganked by a warlock and just as you start to get the fight under control you get jumped by a rogue, but somehow you manage to beat them both.
- Skill. Some people don’t think WoW requires skill to play. They are wrong. As in the above scenario with the warlock and rogue, there’s something deliciously satisfying about getting ganked by several other players but coming out on top - knowing you outplayed them, knowing you played perfectly and pulled through despite being overmatched.

Having heard about why I liked WoW PvP, here’s what I didn’t like about it:
- DoTs. Or Damage over Time spells. These are just retarded, they allow a player to continually damage and grind down another player’s health without being vulnerable to attack themselves (by being out of range or line of sight).
- Random Number Generation (RNG). Nearly every spell or ability in WoW relies on random number generation to some extent. Whether spells/abilities hit or are resisted/dodged/parried. There are also many “on proc” abilities that have a chance to occur. For instance cast lightning bolt and have a 5% chance to have another lightning bolt cast immediately after it. There would be times when whoever you were fighting would get many lucky rolls in a row and just destroy you, no matter how well you played. Or you’d get unlucky rolls and your enemy would resist 5 spells in a row and you’d die.
- Crits (Critical strikes). This relates to RNG above too. More random rolls. Being the victim of 3 crits in a row and not being able to do anything about it and dying no matter how well you play. It’s no fun, and decreases the amount of skill needed to play, as long as you stack enough abilities that have random “on chance” effects. There’s critical strikes in TF2 as well, but it doesn’t matter so much because it’s much more a team game and the respawns are so fast and health is so low compared to damage.
- Balance. WoW PvP has never been balanced. And you’d be trapped into continually waiting for the next patch to fix it but it might fix some aspects while breaking others. There’s a big compromise for the WoW designers. It’s impossible to balance arena pvp with battleground pvp and world pvp. To fix this blizzard now just prioritises arena pvp at the expense of everything else. And this results in a poorer quality experience than if a game was to just focus on one aspect of pvp. Part of the reason it’s so hard to balance is also due to the huge number of variables. There’s so many stats in WoW (Intellect, strength, stamina, armor, critical chance, blah blah), and each class and player has different amounts of each that balancing becomes impossible. This is a gear issue. And gear is a big part of WoW, but wouldn’t it be nice if winning was more about skill than just how many hours you invested in getting the best gear for your character?
- Counters. There are some classes (or class combinations in the case of arena) that are hard counters to other classes. It’s almost impossible for a good mage to beat an equally good warlock, same with warrior v mage. It’s even worse in arena where only a very small subset of the potential class combinations are able to do well. This isn’t fun. Knowing you will never be able to beat another class in a fair fight is disheartening. Of course the reason one class is better than another class is down to what spells/abilities they have, which suggests that there are abilities that perhaps shouldn’t even be in the game because they render another class unable to do its job or perform effectively.
- Too many abilities/Steep learning curve. I predominantly played a mage when I played WoW. To be effective in pvp I used over 40 different abilities regularly. As I said before, I played fairly heavily and was therefore quite proficient in the use of abilities and did well. But more casual players have a hell of a hard time trying to do well in pvp with so many abilities.

After quitting WoW there’s been times when I felt like logging on and playing just to experience the fun of chasing someone all over Hillsbrad Foothills on my mount around Tarren Mill. However, looking at the list of what made PvP fun for me in WoW, I realised that the positive aspects outlined above are not WoW specific. If you could capture those things that make WoW fun in a game without the downsides you’d end up with much more enjoyable PvP. The interesting thing is that Blizzard has in some way recognised some of the unfair/less enjoyable aspects of WoW PvP and has tried to fix it by introducing resilience (and increasing the effect of resilience). Resilience is another stat (*sigh*) on some gear which reduces the chance to be crit, the damage done by crits, the damage done by DoTs, and the amount of mana drained by mana-drain spells/abilities. The DoT and mana drain effects of resilience were added after much lobbying by players to try and fix those aspects which spoiled the fun of PvP. Blizzard has also introduced PvP sets which to some extent homogenise the amount of health/damage each class has, which also makes things easier to balance. But wouldn’t it be nice if PvP was designed to be fun in the first place? That’s the goal for my game. Keep things simple stupid :P

I spend quite a lot of time on computer, either for work or play. I typically play online multiplayer games which have some sort of combat or fighting between players. Games I’ve enjoyed playing most over the years are Soldat, WoW, CS:S, TF2, and Naruto: Rise of a Ninja all game with pvp content (well… Naruto has 2 players anyway :P ). However, recently I’ve become frustrated with these computer games:

- Soldat I’ve loved and still love playing occasionally but it is dated and I yearn for something fresh and modern which retains the frenetic gameplay.

- WoW was fun but addictive and not balanced. Many players (myself included) would play it eventhough its pvp is not balanced, but eventually you get trapped into a cycle of waiting for balance changes from a patch, the patch changing some stuff but creating a whole set of new problems, then waiting for the next patch and so on… This kind of vicious cycle which continues, all the while you’re lining Blizzard’s pockets with cash for a game which you continue to play on the off chance that they fix it up.

- CS:S and TF2 basically suffer from the same problems: they’re both very team games and if you join a game and end up on the crap team then you can have a pretty miserable time for a while as the other team whips you round after round. Eventually the map changes and you try and get on the team with the better players. Although you can have fun in these games (and I still do to some extent) you are somewhat dependant on the other members of your team to not suck. The gameplay itself isn’t good enough to want to play it even if your team is getting hammered, atleast not for me. Obviously this isn’t an issue if you join a clan and play in a ladder or something against other clans, but players shouldn’t have to join structured teams to get the most out of games.

- Naruto on XBOX360 I only like for the 2 player vs mode, which is a bit like street fighter but 3d and a bit better mechanically. It’s problems are that it’s only 2 players, only on 360 (I don’t own a console and still consider them inferior to the pc for gaming). And it’s based on Naruto which means half the characters look/sound like girls eventhough they’re guys, and it’s a bit childish looking (I mean honestly, he’s meant to be a fucking ninja, what kind of ninja runs around in an orange jumpsuit?!). It just isn’t hardcore enough.

This brings me logically to a solution: Why don’t I make a game, a game which plays like I want it to play, and which hopefully appeals to some other people too? So that’s what I’m going to do. I know that huge numbers of people have had these same thoughts “if only it played like this and this and featured awesome stuff like this”, but this is something I feel committed to. I’m not going into this lightly, I don’t expect to be able to make this in a few months or even a year or even several years. I’m studying software engineering, I know large projects take time, especially if you don’t have all the knowledge or experience to complete it right now. That’s why I’m not setting a deadline at this stage, I’ll work on it as I can, while fitting in all the other things in my life (mostly uni), but all the while aquiring the knowledge needed to create something awesome.

So! What’s this game going to be like then? I’ll post some of my thoughts on that next time :)