The Common Sense Gamer Putting some sense in the insane world of gaming.

Go here for my comments on CCP. Industry is at it again it seems.

Comments are open…I hope. Let me know if your user experience is not as good as you’d like it over at CatholicGamer.

D out

…are over here.

Most of my bloggy rantings are over there now if you need your morning fix.

D out.

As most of you know, I have a couple websites out there right now. This one, which is a gaming/editorial/Darren-let-off-steam gaming blog. Commonsense gamer has had more of a focus on MMOs than with other single player games. I also have my religious site, where I tackle some relatively more serious issues of faith and philosophy. Of course, there was SUWT, a podcast about bringing the MMO blogging community together to talk about the issues of the day.

So, after some thought, I decided I needed to merge all of these into one site and expand the audience a bit…thus was born CatholicGamer.com. The goal is to cover not just MMOs, but any game on any platform as well as books, movies, kids stuff, technology, and yes, faith issues specific to the Catholic Church but still relevant to faith in general. The idea, on the gaming side is to evangelize gaming to people of faith. On the faith side, it’s to expose gamers to a mature (…read that word again…) and up-to-date view of, again, not specifically Catholicism but to faith in general . It is my view that there is a gap between the two world views and CatholicGamer’s mission is to…not close it…but bridge that gap.

Did I say “Podcast”? Yes I did. There will be a CatholicGamer podcast as soon as I figure out what format to use. Yes, I will be borrowing from a lot from the SUWT format, but with some minor changes. I’m thinking that the podcast will start NO LATER than September. There will also be videocasts as well. As soon as I can, there will be appropriate adverts on the site as well as a means for you to support the site in various ways as well. I will also be looking for contributors to the site. Contributors can be about any of the topics I mentioned above. Stay tuned for more details on how to contribute once I work out all of the details.

This is going to be different, but good. So go take a look as there is already about a weeks worth of content up already.

Please also note the commenting policy for the website. Feelers have already started going out to the established Catholic Blogger/Podcaster community, so you will be mixed together quite quickly…so please keep in mind that you do represent gamers when talking to others who have not been to gaming sites before. Asshatery of any kind will be met with swiftly.

Hope you all enjoy it and let’s see where this road takes us.

D out.

More great blogging over at Lowered Expectations. Take a look over here.

The rebuttal over the whole “Rift is nor WoW…Rift is WoW…is the same as ever other game out here” debate rages on. Personally, I think that anyone on the side of hard and unfocused criticism of of Rift is off their rocker. Been around this BBQ for a while and I remember the arguments people had over “innovation”…and yup…Rift has most of the check marks from those debates. Yes, I think it is the “Jesus” game in that it “saves” you from WoW. No…there is no water to wine or curing of blindness, but Rift has enough difference to save you from the sameness of WoW. WoW is still a great game, but it’s not Rift….and Rift is not WoW…..and that seals the argument right there.

One piece that I’d like to hit on is “balance”. Specifically from this quote:

As for the Soul System, it was probably the key ingredient that I enjoyed the most while playing Rift. It is a step in the right direction for MMOs, and I am more than happy to applaud Trion for its creation. But at the end of the day, it has two things working against it. First of all, that many souls will prove to be horribly difficult to balance over time, especially for PvP. I’m not sure if Trion will ever be able to get the balance right.

…poppycock I say!!

OK…let’s do this.

I give you and your friend each a tool box. The contents of each tool box are exactly the same. In that tool box are the following items:
- a hammer
- jello
- nails
- wood
- marshmallows
- crazy glue
- chocolate
- gram crackers

The quest I give you and your friend is to build the most solid, structurally sound doghouse that you can make. You’re friend uses the wood, nails, hammer and crazy glue. The house they make is solid. I can’t kick it down. The dog loves it. You use the jello, marshmellows, chocolate and gram crackers. The house is easily knocked down. The house is also covered with ants and the dog is eating it and later throwing up all over the yard. How did this happen? You both had the same tools. You both had the same mission. The reason you failed at the mission is because you failed to use the tools given to you in an intelligent way. Yes…it’s because you’re stupid and your friend is smart.

Point is, you’re friend figured it out, and you didn’t. Rift is the same thing here. All players have the same set of tools. THE SAME SET OF TOOLS. When all players are given the same set of tools, then by definition there is balance within the toolbox…the wildcard is always the player. It’s you guys…not Rift….or WoW for that matter. Some have just figured out how to make a good dog house, and you haven’t.

All I’m saying is don’t go shouting “BALANCE!!! Dear God Balance!!” when you’re not smart enough to tell the difference between a smore and a doghouse.

D out.

I got inspired by this post over at lowered expectations. Thank you sir, for stirring my blood a bit on a subject that has been bugging me for about a year now: gamers.

I’ll put this out there right now: Rift is the “Jesus” game you guys have been waiting for the last 5 years. All the talk, and the podcast discussions (…yes..I miss it…), the blog entries about “Innovation! DEAR GOD INNOVATION!!” is in Rift right now and for some reason, gamers are still not satisfied. Gamers are still looking for that perfect mistress that will never, ever come to them….and if she ever does, it will end up being like Weird Science all over again. It’s not the games that are the problem guys…it’s you. You, my dear gamers, are running around chasing tails and I’m here to tell you that it’s YOUR tail that you are chasing…not someone else’s.

In Trion, you have a HUGE mix of talent that has:

(a) Given you all the standard MMO stuff that you are use to: Maps. UI. Quest Journals. Quest Helpers. Character Paper Dolls. Skill Trees. Stats. Action Bars. Levels. etc…etc…etc.
(b) Given you something different to play with: Rifts, Souls, Invasions, Footholds.

This studio has been hugely available to the gaming community in many different formats that’s it’s getting hard for me to count. Tell me…how often has a Blizz dev been on a community podcast?

Yet still…ya consume and consume…theeeeeennnn ya bitch and bitch and bitch. Seriously. If you find yourself in this camp of gamers then I suggest that you’ve gotten soft. You’ve let yourself go to the point were you need to take up a more difficult genre and get your mojo back. Here…I’ll get ya started. You need to take a breath, look in the mirror and re-evaluate where you came from because I’m not recognizing the culture that is forming out there right now.

True. Rift has it’s flaws….and that is the nature of artistic software (…see what I did there…heh…), but it has all the ingredients that make a great game. A while back I said that this game is Trion’s to screw up. I may have to change this to say that this game will be huge loss for gamers if they don’t get off their ass and….like Lowered Expectations suggest…put some effort into actually caring about their hobby again.

D out.