Talking About Eve

I have been neglecting this blog for a few days now, but it’s not my fault. Eve is the culprit!

No, I’m not talking about a girl here. EVE Online is an MMORPG that I started to play – again – on the 16th. I’m actually not sure what attracts me to that game. But let’s start with a description!

EVE Online is an MMORPG based entirely on space ships. You don’t have some character to run around with, you’ve got vessels floating in the endless void of our universe. There are starbases where you can dock, but even then you don’t ever see more than the face of your character. And the ship, of course. I can’t say much about the graphics, because there has been an optional graphic update that my computer wouldn’t cope with. The old graphics look nice, though.

Gameplay: You start with a frigate, run a tutorial and a few missions that show you the ropes, and then you’re left alone. The learning curve in EVE is pretty steep, but luckily there are a lot of helpful people around who answer most questions, even the really dumb ones. That’s something that not every MMORPG has: a community that actually helps newbies. Most of the time. Since EVE is supposed to be one huge sandbox where you can do what you want, there are also a lot of people with… evil intentions. Pirates, scammers – you name it. Anyway, the sandbox: You can mine ore from asteroid belts, you can process that ore into minerals and use them to build ships, equipment and other stuff, you can do missions for non-player characters (the “quests, more on them later), you can transport stuff for a living, just play the market or you can engage in player-versus-player combat. This last thing is what most people see as the core of EVE.

And indeed: PvP is everywhere. Especially when you know its definition as seen by the developers: PvP is any action that puts you into a conflict with other players. Like trying to strip all the asteroids in a belt before anybody else can. Or trying to controll the prices for certain items. Well, by this definition, every online game has lots of PvP and thus I don’t think it’s well suited to define EVE Online. But combat PvP is still a very important thing: Pirates will try to attack and rob other players or maybe hold their ships to ransom. Anti-pirates either hunt the culprits actively or accept mercenary contracts. Some corporations (groups of people with one or more leaders, headquarters, maybe even a player-owned starbase) wage war on eachother. There’s always lots of fighting going on in EVE Online

By the way: Fights are more tactical than in other games because the vessels aren’t controlled by keyboard, but by giving movement commands with the mouse. Changing directions takes some time due to inertia (and sometimes lag).

The peaceful activities (mining, producing, trading, courier services) don’t need much of an explanation. Generally higher risks net higher rewards. Asteroid belts in dangerous systems provide more valuable ore than safer systems. And no matter what you do, if you leavea station you can be attacked by other players.

But PvP isn’t the only combat there is. Asteroid belts are plagued with non-player pirates and many missions include fighting computer-controlled enemies. The rest of the missions are non-combat ones. The missions, by the way, are downright boring. Most enemies won’t stand a chance against a decently equipped player and more often than not you can just warp to safety, repair everything and come back to where you left off. And since there aren’t that many missions, they get repeated quite often. That’s why a lot of players think that missions are the only risk-free way to generate money in this game.

Anyway, a very important part of any RPG is character advancement. In EVE, this is handled in a very convenient way: Trainable skills. A player sets one skill to be trained. This takes some time, but it’s done in the background and in real-time. Yes, a player can be offline without the training stopping! This is the best thing about EVE in my opinion. And there’s no end to the skills that can be trained. It would take decades for a character to learn everything there is to learn. Because of that it ist best to concentrate on those skills that are necessary for what the character should do, e.g. mining skills, production skills, science, fighting…

Some players think that they could never catch up with a player that has been training skills for years. This is not true. There are only so many skills benefit a specific activity. After a few weeks of training, a character will be just as effective at flying battleships as a player who has trained his for years. But the older character might be able to fly interceptors too, and maybe be quite proficient in mining.

Anyway, to cut this whole story short: EVE is a great game for anybody who doesn’t mind a harsh environment. Killing other players regardless of where they are and how strong they might be is a commong practice. Complaining about that is laughed upon by most and not cared about by others. Peaceful activities carry that risk, but that makes them more fun in my opinion. Otherwise they would be extremely dull. The sandbox experience is great, since one can really do anything. That’s something I miss in most RPGs where you can’t be anything else than a fighting hero. Oh, and the skill training is a great idea. Of course it’s bad news for people who want to reach the highest level there is as fast as they can, but the lack of levels should keep those away anyway.

Oh, and this is a picture of EVE’s learning curve (not by me!). Let it be a warning…

Tinnuel’s D&D: Fire Wall Inbound

We finally managed to have a roleplaying session yesterday. It was the first time with this game master for me, so I was pretty curious about the way she would handle things. And I must say, I was impressed! The characters of my friends and me tend to bicker with eachother more than actually accomplishing anything, but this time they actually worked together. Maybe because the GM managed to provide a good reason for us to do so.

See, there was this huge wall of fire sweeping across the world our characters lived in. As is quite often the case in games like this, our characters were chosen to save the world. Most of them wouldn’t have lifted a finger if it wasn’t for their personal safety – and the promise of a luxurious house for each of them in the best part of the capital city. But these two incentives managed to kick them into action.

Why was it our characters that had to save the world? Because their grandfathers were presumed to have done so once already. But nobody seemed to remember that, not even our party’s fathers. There were no records of a catastrophe like this to be found.

Aside from finding one single clue, our characters didn’t manage much in this first session. The fire wall is still moving with increasing speed and all we know is that they might have been stopped with the help of the watchtowers dotted around the capital city. The names of our grandfathers really don’t seem to match the people we remember. But at least we managed to secure the help of one of the most accomplished mages of the capital city’s guild for the price of a house that we don’t even own yet. Oh yeah, and our bard was able to seduce another man…

Personally, I think the highlight of the session was a fight during a banquet (amongst the characters and without weapons) followed by a drinking contest that left the halfling monk meditating most evilly on the chest of my unconscious barbarian. At least nobody snored…

I’m really looking forward to the next session!

P.S.: I might include some pictures a friend made during the session later on.

Sherlock Holmes

My girlfriend is a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She’s even bought a TV series on DVD. Now, I don’t like crime stories. They are pretty boring to me. But this series… Well, the actor playing Sherlock Holmes is one Jeremy Brett and he’s doing – or rather he did – an astonishing job. His expression, his intonation… everything fits perfectly.

Jeremy Brett didn’t play Sherlock Holmes, he lived the legend. Sadly, he couldn’t let go after the series was finished. Still, a brilliant actor. If you ever get the chance, watch the series. And that’s saying something, coming from me.

Supreme Commander

Warning: long post incoming!

I bought «Supreme Commander» some time ago. I’m pretty sure it was shortly after its release, because I was a big fan of its predecessor series, «Total Annihilation».

Anyway, I haven’t been playing it for a long time now and I wasn’t sure why. So I gave it another shot. I remember now: My computer just can’t cope with the requirements. Don’t get me wrong, it can run the game, but it gets laggy as soon as more than a few units move around at the same time.

The graphics aren’t the problem. «Supreme Commander» calculates a lot of physics. Every single shot, I’m told. And when things get rough there are a lot of missiles, bullets, plasma beams and laser rays flying around on the battlefield.

Still, the game is great in my oppinion. It’s very abstract, though. Almost no bloodshed, since the only living being on a battlefield is the commander and he’s safely tucket away in his ACU (Armoured Command Unit). Of course the ACU can be blown up (and spectacularly so) which marks the end of a battle for that commander’s army. This abstractness might not appeal to each and every gamer out there, but it serves a purpose. «Supreme Commander» lets you concentrate on tactics and strategy rather than on spilling as much blood as possible.

Sadly, the game’s lacking there sometimes. It is quite easily possible to overwhelm an enemy with an army consisting of only one type of unit. If you can avoid that, the large-scale (well, truly epic, actually) battles can be a lot of fun. Every plan you set in motion takes some time to be executed, so you have to actually think a few steps further than in other strategy games. The three armies of the conflict here aren’t very different, though. They all get the same unit types, but there are some minor differences. Harder armour, an extra weapon, stuff like that. These differences suit themselves to different styles of play. Each side has one unique unit which is basically an upgrade to a standard unit.

The biggest eye-catchers are the experimental units, though. Here the factions differ greatly from one another. It takes time to reach the technological requirements to build these and they cost a lot. Although they can take a beating, none of them can actually win a game on its own. The only exception here is a giant artillery cannon with unlimited range and pinpoint accuracy which literally takes hours to build. That, or a very strong economy. If your opponent sees you building one of these you can be sure he will do everything to take it down. Yes, it’s that strong

As I mentioned earlier, the most important unit of every army is its commander. He can hold his own in the early stages of the game and has rudimentary building abilities. He uses a lot of resources while building or repairing, but that also makes him a really fast worker. He can be upgraded in several ways. You can make him more survivable, a hard hitter or the best builder of your army, but you can’t do it all. You can revoke every upgrade, so making a mistake isn’t a big problem, but reconfiguring your commander takes some time.

Ok, enough of that. Let’s talk about gameplay. In skirmish and multiplayer modes you get the usual goals (destroying the enemy commander, destroying all of his factories or destroying all of his units) – nothing to see here, let’s move along. There’s also a campaign telling the story of the infinite war raging between the three factions. The story’s nothing special: You’re a young commander in the service of your faction and soon become the most able fighter they’ve got. Only you can save them… yadda yadda yadda. From time to time the enemy commanders try to teach you the error of your ways but you can’t actually change sides. There’s one good thing about the story, though: If you’ve played all three campaigns there isn’t actually an evil side. All fight for their cause and think the others are the baddies. Much like in real life, methinks.

The campaign missions themselves offer some twists and turns that make the whole thing more interesting. The most notable feature here is that the map expands when you get a new objective. In some missions, enemy units come from somewhere outside of your current map, but there’s always an enemy base there when the map grows larger. The missions range from fetching supplies, esorting allied units and defending an area for some time to repairing a building within a timelimit. Ultimately, though, you’re always almost asked to take out one or more enemy commanders.

Oops! Almost forgot to write about graphics and sound. I can’t say much about the former because I use the lowest settings (yep, I definitely need a new computer), but the sound’s quite nice. The music is comparable to that of «Total Annihilation», which means it’s orchestral and fits the epic mood of the game. The sound effects are ok, though the “pew pew” of lasers annoys me a bit.

Time to close this case! Summary: «Supreme Commander» is a great game for people who like big battles with a massive amount of units, for people who like to think about strategy rather then tactics and for patient folks. Make sure your computer can handle the game, though. It taxes your processor heavily.

P.S.: Updating the game takes a looooooooooooooong time, so make sure you aren’t in a hurry!

I Miss Music

To be precise: I miss playing the piano. I’m listening to Wilhelm Kempff playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 (the Moonlight Sonata). True masters, both of them. I used to play that piece a lot. I love it, really. But after moving with my friends (and leaving the piano at my parents’ house) I didn’t play a single note.

I never was very good at it. Average, maybe. But I didn’t play for others to listen to me. I used to play for myself. Mastering a new passage pleased me immensely. I had forgotten how much I had poured into music and how much I had gotten in return. Until tonight…

My parents sold the piano years ago. So now I long for a new one. There are more important things that I should save my money for and there are other things that I’ve been wishing for for a long time. But what I really want now, at this moment, is to get back to playing.

Maybe, dear readers, you used to play an instrument yourselves but don’t do so anymore. Maybe, then, you can understand my feelings.

If you want to listen to Kempff playing the sonata, look here for the first, second and third movement. The last one is absolutely stunning and a piece that I have never been able to master.

Electronics Retailer Sued for Selling Games

European customer electronics retailer Media Markt was sued by a Swiss politician for selling John Woo’s «Stranglehold». To be more precise, Roland Näf sued the manager of a local branch of Media Markt.

Now, I’ve never played that game myself. But it stands to reason that the graphics and effects aren’t particularly more violent than John Woo’s movies. This politician hasn’t sued cinemas or tv stations for featuring his films nor did he sue Media Markt for selling John Woo DVDs, despite the fact that the law he bases his charges on was specifically written for pictures both moving and static.

Now, the reason Mr. Näf is doing this is that he wants to see how effective this law is when used against video games. He states that Swiss law isn’t strict enough in that respect. Even though the video game industry voluntarily uses a system that prohibits selling overly violent games to minors, kids could still easily get their hands on them, especially since the law doesn’t forbid giving the games to them.

So Mr. Näf wants to ban video games from being produced or sold at all. He wants prohibition. As far as I can remember, prohibition never worked. People just started smuggling forbidden goods. And with games and the internet, “smuggling” games is so much easier than trying to fool customs officers. If people want their games, nothing can stop them.

What Mr. Näf didn’t think about: More and more people are playing games. The community is growing rapidly. And with the Swiss system of government being what it is, prohibiting games just won’t work. Not for long, at least.

Actually, he already tried to change the law but was turned down by the parliament. They said that the law as it is now was good enough and that no connection between video games and violent minors was evident.

Good to know that there are some politicians who actually think about the matter instead of lashing out irrationally.

Condolences of a Roleplayer

My Blog’s only a few hours old and already I feel inclined to post something that deeply saddens me. Gary Gygax, one of the fathers of Dungeons & Dragons, died on March 4th.

Now this might not be the most interesting news for most of the people out there, but it was thanks to people like Mr. Gygax that I discovered the joy that is roleplaying. His mind was one of the more imaginative in the world.

Like most roleplayers, I discovered this hobby somewhen in my teens. I even remember some scenes from that night. Heck, I could even quote a few memorable things. Since then I’ve spent countless hours drafting up new characters, inventing story arcs and spending time with my closest friends, sharing a dream.

I have never met Mr. Gygax. Usually I don’t care much about the death of people whom I don’t know. But this time… This time I’d like to express my sincerest condolences and my great respect for a fellow dreamer.

Thank you.

The Game’s Afoot!

Ah, the first, wobbly steps of a fresh blogger. Maybe I should start with telling you, dear readers, a bit about myself and my intentions.

I’m from Switzerland, where I work for a private TV station. My main passion is writing, though. I write short stories in German mostly, so you won’t have to endure much of that. I read a lot, too, mostly fantasy novels and the odd comic or manga. The rest of my spare time I spend with games. Pen&Paper roleplaying games, computer games and recently I’ve taken up tabletop games.

So what will this blog be about? Stuff that catches my eye (or some other sense). Annoying experiences. Enjoyable things like games. Just don’t expect any reviews about the latest shooter or something. Everybody does that. Instead, I might write about older games, about roleplaying sessions or any other game I’m currently enjoying.

Well, that’s it for my first post. This blog will get more interesting over time, I hope. For now, I’ll be over here playing LotRO. See ya!