Burlap Underwear: It Chafes

During the course of last week I've seen an increasing amount of people calling it quits.

Rift, for me, seems to have gone the way of Aion. People flocked to it with sparkling, hope-filled eyes and dreams of a better future. They opened the gates to a new world and, for a while, they made their best to adapt, to fit in, to discover the wonders they hoped to find. People were depending on Rift to take them into its loving embrace and carry them to a land of pixelated bliss while a choir of angels sang of their future exploits. Or something.

You see, we came from all walks of life (or games), carrying with us the desire to see aspects we loved from these games seemlesly integrated in a new and fresh body in a pretty dress. Is it any wonder must of us were disapointed?



Have a giraffe

I certainly was. My time in Rift was mainly spent near the loom in Sanctum, going through the most absurd rotation. I'd purchase or leech crafting materials to make pants; I would then destroy said pants to make room for more pants and to accrue more crafting materials; I would sell these second crafting materials to acquire money to buy pants-building materials and make even more pants. I found myself on this detestable loop of WASTE, on the losing side of a battle against burlap. I thought "what am I doing with my life? Is collecting 6 Goblin bladders for a lazy NPC really how I should be spending what little time I have on this earth?" It's just not for me. Which is not to say it's not for the rest of you. There are peolpe who love crafting pants. And even wearing them. Others like to pierce their geintalia for aesthetic purposes.

Trying to please both Greeks and Trojans is the worst thing a developer can hope to achieve. No two people will love the same things the same way. Maybe if they're twins. And the thing is air. Including everything people have ever praised about your competition doesn't sound like a good idea. Maybe that's why Trion didn't do it, which would explain the lacking PvP.

My next statement is possibly the most agreed upon by people in the know: Trion didn't fail but they didn't spectacularly succeed either. They tried to provide an alternative to the biggest hook in the sea and, as far as I know, they did so well enough (not counting the whole persistent queueing problem, that is). Or am I wrong?

My next statement is fact: I'm an immature player. I am EA's dream gamer, if you will. My brain is completely receptive and succeptible to marketing ploys and consumerist drives. Just a few minutes ago I blurted out "by the way, we forgot to buy that new Mass Effect DLC that just came out." The obvious response to this was an amused "what, is it mandatory? Especially after all the poor reviews?"

See what they did to me? That's downright scary.

Luckily, I took Friday to catch up on my Zero Puntuation reviews. Not only is it good practice to keep my English ear functional but it also promotes the critic in me. I don't have to love the games I like and I don't have to like what everybody else does. It's not that I didn't know this but I sometimes get swept by hypes and popular opinion.

Conclusion? Nothing I haven't stated before. I'm not sure, as of the now, of what I'm looking for in a game but I'd be a fool to restrict my views to popular trends. I do know what I did like and even love and I feel the increasing need to go back to the games that made me feel proud of calling myself a gamer. As opposed to, say, a pants weaver.


For a common goal.



I won't be going back to WAR in a hurry but, the truth is, I absolutely loved that game. It had its faults (and it seems to be growing them like tumors as time goes by) but it made me feel things (non-romantic or sexual things) that no other game has. It made me feel like a crucial cog in the machine; it also made me feel like an extra in a big theatre production. It made me feel like nothing I did mattered, at times. I mean, how many times can you kill a King? And, fucking hell, I miss a screen full of Cold Ones and screaming Choppas, bright lights and my character's pelvic thrusts.

And maybe, what I miss most of all, is the second M in MMORPG. I miss it being multiplayer, in the sense of playing with/against other players, not that some other people just happen to be playing it at the same time and you might cross paths on your way to the loom/workbench/drugstore. I don't see anyone grouping up to go kill those 20 pigs for that shady old man by that wagon. Not that you can't, but it's just not a worthy goal you can bond over.