PAX East 2011 Day 1

Well day one was quite amazing as to be expected. I did skip the keynote speech for reasons I already went over (and will prolly do a follow up to that soon anyways). Let's start with a few highlights for me.

[Quick side note, the pictures look like ass because they were taken with my phone camera. Taking a real camera today to get some MUCH better pics]

First off, I am happy to report that I am starting to think I was wrong about 38 Studios and Kingdoms of Amalur. Now full disclosure; I did get the shake Curt Schilling's hand, and as a huge RedSox fan, that is kind of awe inspiring. I didn't get any pictures though much to my chagrin. Anyways, the game looked reasonably solid, considering the gameplay demo we got was a pre-alpha build. One thing that really impressed me about Curt's attitude is that he is fully aware that KoA is not breaking any new ground as a fantasy RPG, but he wants it to be the absolute best. He is going for the Die-Hard effect (topic of a future post). The game right now looks an awful lot like Fable to me with more of a focus on fast paced, combo driven combat. To be honest the demo looked like a hell of a lot of fun, with really fast paced and visceral combat, beautiful visuals, and an interface that seemed very streamlined and functional, yet potentially as deep as many hardcore RPG nerds demand. Of course he is going to have some stiff competition in 2011.

I did spend some time in the expo hall as well checking out all the booths and what some AAA and indie developers had to offer and I am sorry to say there is really nothing new to report. Gears of War 3 looks an awful lot like GOW2, Battlefield 3 looks an awful like like BF2BC, COD, and all the rest of the military shooters to the point I couldn't discern (and I am sure it will sell accordingly), BioWare had a short playable version of TOR that looked exactly like it does in all the videos, and Bethesda had a multiplayer build of Brink for people to play that, once again, looks an awful lot like other online shooters on the market. Lots of fun to check everything out, but no new revelations.

On the floor I really enjoyed the Kingston booth, where they had EGiNcontroL playing Starcraft 2 against challengers from the crowd while being cast live by professional shoutcaster Day[9]. I have to say it is really exciting to be there, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd, watching high(er) level live matches. There was one game when the challenger got almost all of his army blown up by blings and just hearing the crowd holler and jeer was almost reminiscent of any professional sporting event I have been to. It really makes me want to pursue my thought of getting a small, local tournament up and running (more to come on that).

Regardless there was a lot of gaming, a lot of Magic the Gathering, a lot of great booths and great sights, and I got to meet a lot of amazing people already. Day 2, here we come!!

Why I'm skipping the Keynote at PAX East and why Art can't cure Cancer

Jane McGonigal is slated to be the keynote speaker this year and I think I would actually rather see the Kingdom's of Amalur live demo. Granted last year Wil Wheaton was absolutely amazing and his speech definitely was tear jerking-ly amazing to listen to live, but Jane is crazy and not all that smart (and also wasn't on Star Trek TNG, the best iteration of the show by far). For full disclosure I have not followed her career very closely and my opinion is solely based on her performance on Colbert not too long ago, but still she definitely seems to paint a picture of her views and her mission. It seems to me that she see's videogames as some sort of super-media capable of solving world hunger and curing cancer at which I have to laugh. Her goal is to get more people playing videogames because it would better society. I definitely think she is denser then a steel cheesecake encased in Paris Hilton for one reason; games are art.

Art, in any form, is at it's core entertainment; but art is also much more than that. Art is designed to evoke an emotion, any emotion in us for better or for worse. For example I would argue that the jackass movies are art. At their core they are just a bunch of very stupid dudes hurting themselves and each other, but ultimately I believe it is more than the sum of it's parts. Watching a dude get his junk bitten by a snake conjures up feelings of whimsy and escapism; surely I don't envy the poor sod but it makes me feel something I wouldn't normally feel. It pushes my comfort zone and personal boundaries. That is, by my own personal definition, art.

As I have mentioned in almost every post since I started this blog a monthish ago I believe that videogames are an interactive form of art. I think of the feeling when I **spoiler alert** first interacted with Sovereign in Mass Effect or when I beat my freind's high score in Tetris; it evokes an emotional response. When I am beating a hooker to death in GTA it also evokes an emotional response, albeit a completely different one. Bottom line is that is what art in general does; whether it be a book, movie, painting, ballet, or just a really hot chick in a slinky dress.

Not everyone is privy to the immersiveness of good videogames as artistic experiences. Not everyone will be able to play through Portal and enjoy what I consider to be the best artistic acheivement an artist can hope to strive for; leaving the consumer of their art in such a state where they don't know whether to laugh or cry. We as gamers know what is possible and, like religious zealots, some like Ms. McGonigal believe that everyone can and should be privy to the same experiences we are.

Another very important thing about art is that art is subjective. I believe that everyone ever born appreciates art in some form, but for everyone it is different. I loved the movie Fight Club. I made my mom watch it and she hated it. Does that make it bad art? No of course not; it makes our tastes different. Just because I love videogames and I firmly believe they have made a profoundly large and positive impact in my life doesn't mean videogames, in any form, will have the same impact for everyone. Not everyone wants to play games and not everyone should.

Back to my original point; spreading videogames as a way to cure society's woes is really akin to spreading religion to cure society's woes and if it were going to work it would have by now. Ultimately playing games isn't going to change any society, a general desire to change will (see Egypt, Lybia, or Tunisia). Now Ms. McGonigal may mean very well with her crusade, but to me she may as well have a Bible or Koran under her arm instead of a controler. I'm surely a believer, but not everyone will be or should be.

Regardless God of War meets Oblivion sounds way more awesome! Here's hoping I'm wrong about Schil and 38 Studios. Now if only Charlie Sheen were giving the keynote this would be a much different post!

Many have tried, none have succeeded

If you actually follow my blog (and you should by clicking the button to the right) you may have read that I was a part of the last Rift open beta. I spent probably close to 10 hours in the game over that week (which is more like 10 minutes to MMO players) and, despite their being hundreds if not thousand of hours of content created, I am pretty confident I got a great sense of what the game is all about.

Rift, like so many other expensive and relatively unsuccessful fantasy RPG MMO's, is a World of Warcraft clone. Let me elaborate before you start writing about how I am a jerk and I need to experience the endgame, or how the graphics are different, or how you have rift's open up and everyone goes and fights creatures that spawn (see what they did there?). The mechanics of Rift are exactly, and I mean exactly like WoW. You attack the same way, the hot keys are the same, the combat flows the same, and even the interface is almost exactly the same as WoW.

The thing that really gets me too is their big marketing tag line has been,
"You're not in Azeroth anymore....."


So you, like many others before you, create a game clearly designed to siphon off as much of WoW's business as you can, and that is your big pitch? In a world where it takes around $50 million dollars to create an MMO, a business needs to make sure they can actually make a profit on that investment. What boggles my mind is that someone would think they can steal Blizzard's golden eggs? If you were or are a WoW player ask yourself; what about that ad would compel you to leave your guild, your loot, and countless hours you put into rolling your characters? Especially seeing as though the game play is the same, even down to the "kill 10 of x to save the world."

That leads me to our my next company that worries me. As a Massachusetts guy ad a huge baseball fan I absolutely adore the Redsox. In 2004 there was a epic pwner who helped my team win the World Series for the first time in several generations and his name is Curt Schilling. Since retiring from baseball Curt, who is very likely hall of fame bound, decided to start his own nerdy RPG/MMO company called 38 Studios. He has spent a lot of money, bought up another studio, and hired some top notch talent and for what? Another game that looks completely and utterly generic.

Curt should know from playing against the Yankees that throwing money at a team doesn't guarantee victory. Did you learn nothing from your own sock in 2004? Heart is what makes a good game, not throwing millions of dollars at something because a behemoth like Blizzard did it. Now of course Kingdoms of Amalur isn't released yet, so it's not very fair of me to say that, but so far I am not hopeful.

Not that it's particularly relevant but I thought this quote from a conversation I had the other night was funny:
"Calling a WoW player a gamer is like calling a heroine addict a rock star. It may be true in some cases, but they are certainly not mutually exclusive labels."