Hidden costs of game subscription fees

I play a lot of Indie and iPad games and at the moment I also play a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have two monthly subscriptions – an Xbox Live and a SWTOR subscription. I don’t think I need both.

My rule in the past has always been one monthly fee; but I really enjoy coop and it soon became just two and now Chris really enjoys playing with me and now we have four, no five.

I would count our fast-speed internet connection as a monthly fee. If we didn’t game and game online, our contract would be tiny. We use our connection for downloading games and gaming content, 2 online gaming devices connected simultaneously and a conference call or two. If we didn’t game, I wouldn’t even notice if we switched to 3G on our phones instead.

For XBLA we have a monthly subscription for Chris which we activate when a good coop game comes out. I have an annual subscription and regret that choice dearly. It is cheaper if you play every month, which I used to do; but I only play one multiplayer and at the moment and that’s Star Wars on the PC.

This year’s coop will be PC based: Star Wars, Torchlight 2, Diablo III, please let the Blizzcon cancellation mean that I get Diablo III in 2012. My next Xbox coop title will probably be Halo 4 in the fall; I might try a few minutes of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, but I don’t enjoy Player vs Player anything. I suspect the next time Chris will play coop via XBLA will be… maybe Halo 4, but I wouldn’t be surprised if its not. He’ll play single player campaigns but for socializing online, he is just too much of an MMO enthusiast at heart to bother with console based coop campaigns.

That brings me to our two Star Wars: The Old Republic subscriptions. Initially, we had decided to share an account; that lasted until level, mhm, about three seconds after watching the opening cinematic. The whole point of playing an MMO is to play with your friends; if we can’t play at the same time, it looses most of the MMO fun factor; and so we made a lot of changes to get us both ingame together.

Gaming is an expensive hobby. Retail games are £38 at release, downloadables are cheaper, but the money flows out quickly as there is just so many of them that just look so interesting. The kit can be expensive – game pads, keyboards, gaming mice, PC’s, new graphics card, consoles, an extra controller or two, headphones, a decent mic and there are so many interesting peripherals these days. These are the costs that I expect to pay and keep a close eye on. Monthly fees – I often forget I have them.

They’re insidious and although I begrudgingly accept them when I play a game almost daily, it annoys me that I’m never done paying for it. It makes gaming more complicated than a single purchase would and the hassle of constantly evaluating use, payment options, prices depending on those options etc steals a little bit of the fun. Do I feel strongly enough about it that I’ll change my habits?

I don’t know. Steam is free, but I often sell games after I complete them and games linked to Steam loose their resale value. I am very much enjoying Star Wars, enough so that I’m not cancelling my subscription any time soon. As for my broadband contract? I can’t imagine us not being gamers. Ever. It may be a pricey hobby, but the benefits are priceless. It’s the one place in the world where I can run and travel and fly and carry an awful lot of stuff and buy as many pairs of boots as I want. I’m not giving that up. Ever.

The cost of my PC gaming vs console gaming

I haven’t turned on my PC since I finished Uncharted 3 and I haven’t used my Xbox 360 for gaming much this year. With the exclusion of Trenched available on XBLA, I have been almost exclusively gaming on my PC; so much so that we’ve purchased an upgrade and reinstalled my N52te software for key mapping. Is it just me? Is it just the time of year? I’m not sure.

I was reading an article about it yesterday. As a rule I would say that gamers play on whichever system they have access to.  I don’t know many PC-exclusive gamers, in fact, I think there’s a total of 2 people on my friends lists that do not own a console. I don’t know any console exclusive gamers, at the moment one of my friends are saving up for a gaming PC after his died a horrible death as PC’s tend to do and so technically he’s exclusively console gaming, but that’s not a choice, its a temporary situation. I think gamers game across platform and usually own at least 2-3 different platforms.

When it comes to cost, I’m spending about the same on console gaming as PC gaming. My PC is more expensive than a console, but given that I have a propensity to shop for one model down on eBay at a quarter of the price a brand-new top of the range would cost me, it’s only twice the price of an Xbox. Retail PC games are about £8 cheaper at release date and Indie games compared to console downloadables are mostly a steal, particularly when you shop in Steam sales and buy bundles. Console gamers are pricier but consoles are cheaper than PC’s and I think it roughly even out in the end for me.

Wrist instability, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Accessible Gaming

I haven’t been playing or typing as much as I would like, due to a flare-up of wrist issues. Why now? Working on a new accessible gaming site whilst leveling in Star Wars: The Old Republic, exacts its toll on my hands. The solution is simple but not what I want to hear; it’s what you do with all repetitive strain injuries: Take more breaks.

Gamers are notoriously bad for not taking breaks. Just finishing a level, a mission, a plot line can feel like it will take 5 minutes but actually takes 2 hours. I think I’m pretty good with the wrist-breaks when playing. I rest devices  rather than hold them and when I’m not mashing keys I rest my hands in a good position; often with a heat or ice pack at hand just for that purpose.

I’m not so good with the other stuff. I do have resting splints that immobilize my hands in a neutral position and I absolutely hate them with a passion. Chris calls them my wraith gloves and they take forever to get on and off and I can’t do a single thing whilst I have them on. I try to wear my normal splints, particularly my finger splints, when using my hands a lot, but I don’t do it often enough.

I guess my new years’ resolution should have been: 1. Wear my splints, 2. Take more breaks, 3. Do my hand exercises daily, 4. Wear my splints and 5. Game more often. No wait, hang on, that can’t be right. Scratch 4 and replace with: Have more cake.

Crew Skills: Crafting and Reverse Engineering in SWTOR

The SWTOR servers have been down for maintenance on and off since 8am yesterday (and when they were up last night, my internet provider at issues and I couldn’t play then either) and so I’m spending a bit more time learning about crafting.

My Sith Sorcerer has Artifice as her crafting profession and although everything in TOR is quite transparent if you’re a gamer / have played an MMO before; the terminology and exact mechanics can get rather complicated and overwhelming. I’m trying to level Artifice quite quickly, mostly by crafting Might and Resolve Hilts near exclusively and haven’t been sure whether reverse engineering is something I should be doing. I’m not even sure beyond the general “you get better schematics” what reverse engineering actually does.

On the surface; it’s simple. Most items that you craft (and some similar items that you haven’t crafted) can be reverse engineered. Reverse engineering leads to the discovery of new recipes; every now and again, it’ll just happen. I’ve been rather confused as to the details. After reading this lovely guide on the SWTOR forums; I think I get the gist of it.

There’s linear reverse engineering which works like this: My Artifice trainer will teach me a green/premium recipe. If I craft green/premium items using the recipe, for example Resolve Hilt 9, I have the chance of discovering the blue/prototype recipe for Resolve Hilt 9 and if I craft Resolve Hilt 9 blue/prototype items, I then have the chance to discover the purple/artifact) recipe for Resolve Hilt 9.

The second type of reverse engineering, prefix RE, works on the same principal, with the addition of branches. So there’s multiple blue/prototype recipes not just one to be learned from reverse engineering a green/premium crafted item and multiple purple/artifact recipes to be learned from reverse engineering each of these blue/prototype  items.

The fun of MMO’s are their complexity. It is a alternate universe with thousands to millions of other real people contributing to it and although the game never finishes, levelling up your character is very similar to a campaign. I spend half my MMO gaming time reading up on how to do things and of the half left, I spend may half, if that, in combat and actively progressing my story line. Crafting is a mini-game that’s interesting in its own right and definitely adds to the enjoyment of TOR, even though it can be a little daunting for the newcomer.

Anthill: Eat what you kill

Anthill, an iOS game, gained some bonus content this week. I’ve been meaning to try it out since its release in October last year. I had an hour to wait at the doctor surgery today to see my new asthma point person and that finally gave me the time to dig my teeth into it.

It’s a beautiful game and I went so far as to turn the music on in the waiting room as it really does add to the experience and got through the first 5 maps or so. I will most definitely be playing more. Usually a straight up tower defense gal, with this game tactical trail defense is slowly winning me over. Can’t wait to play more.

Naming Policy SWTOR (Chiana)

Another account, another character and another name required. I was searching through baby naming sites and lists yesterday whilst keeping an eye on the official naming policy. I’m a big Farscape fan and thought Chiana might be okay; turns out it’s a restricted name. I had another look at the naming policy and the rules are the usual:

1. Nothing offensive, harassing or defamatory:  ”… names that are hateful, defamatory, racist, ethnically offensive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, or any other language that is offensive in nature” or “[Names that are] harassing or defamatory to other players or employees of EA, BioWare or LucasArts, e.g. EASUX, Timsretarded, and Biowaresux.

2. No ownership/copyright infringement:  ”… names of any EA, BioWare, or LucasArts employee or service related to Star Wars: The Old Republic. … names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products, e.g. Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper.

3. No-well known names from either popular culture, media, names with religious or historical significance or NPC’s within the game/ Star Wars universe.

4. No titles or ranks allowed, e.g. captain, sergeant and I would assume Lord, Lady etc wouldn’t be allowed either despite the policy not stating that explicitly

5. Nothing inappropriate: No inappropriate phrase, sentence or fragment of a sentence, no drug/drug related names and no Leet speak

6. No misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules and no gibberish names, e.g. ajsdu, rifndsw, qweszs.

I didn’t think Farscape was a big enough to be covered by these, but the fact that one of the major characters, i.e. Chiana is a restricted name, would indicate that it is indeed bigger than I thought as the only reason I can think of why it could be on the list is that it’s a well-known name from (sci-fi) pop culture. Either that or please let it be that someone decided to pay homage to it and created an NPC Chiana. Please please please let it be that.

The official naming policy can be found here.

In the spirit of Coop

On Friday I was miserable and feeling lonely playing an MMO by myself. It’s Monday and stuff happened. Rem, my long standing gaming coop partner has leveled a toon to my level just to quest and level up with me and Chris, darling husband that he is, bought a second gaming computer on Ebay and a copy of SWTOR so that we can play at the same time in the evenings.

I’m not usually a big fan of January/February; my health tends to take a bit of a knock and its pay for overdoing it time. It’s also the coldest time of the year; so pain levels go up, I get chill blains and ulcers which makes walking and typing harder and I’m stuck indoors a lot.

It’s not all doom and gloom; the upside is that I haven’t spent any money in the post-Christmas sales so there’s room in the budget for a hardware upgrade and soon my idea of an MMO will hopefully finally come to life, making days spent indoors something to look forward to. Off to Warminster in a few to pick-up my first system with a quadcore processor and way too many blue LED lights.

 

SWTOR: Running into walls

The little one is finally sleeping in her cot a bit with her Dad, which has freed up my evenings for gaming. I’ve been playing TOR more than anything else and it’s not been the most pleasant of experiences. I think Bioware did a fantastic job, but I’ve started to think about quitting at level 14. That’s not good. I’m struggling getting back into the play style of an MMO. For a few reasons, some good, some stupid; some valid and some not so much.

First, there’s the mouse issue. Using a keyboard, gamepad and mouse setup is very difficult for me. The mouse causes instability in my wrist and flares up the old symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. I’m getting clumsier by the day, the numbness and tingling is bothersome and the pain is steadily going up. I do everything I should, I have the best mouse, keyboard and game pad I can afford and although I would probably look into programming a 360 controller in the long run, when new spells are constantly added, I’m stuck with the mouse and keyboard for now. It hurts a lot and when I’m running into walls, it also hurts my pride.

Second, there’s the social aspects of playing badly within an MMO. I’m not a great player but I used to feel that I’m just a little below the norm. The seemingly small issues I have particularly when it comes to movement (I do use the N52 gamepad joystick for more movement, but with thumb joints that aren’t so hot, that’s difficult too) becomes all about perception. I run into walls a lot, fall off cliffs, aggro mobs I shouldn’t.

As I don’t use the mouse to move, I start by hitting autorun and then swapping to the movement keys programmed into the N52. As I have trigger finger issues, it also leads to hitting autorun at just the worst moment and suddenly finding myself running off wildly into something bad. I can’t jump and steer, so jumping is awkward and the impression this tend to create is that I’m really really bad at this. It makes it hard to wrack up the nerve to get into pick-up groups or join in.

Thirdly, another social/accessibility issue; I can’t type and play and I don’t hear very well. I got around this in WoW by playing with a partner when playing with others, someone whose voice and speech mannerisms I know well enough to understand despite not hearing very well. I would talk to them and they’d interface with other players for me. I started on a new server with a few people, stupidly assuming that’d solve this problem.

However, with a baby at home and sharing a computer, there’s no way Chris and I can play simultaneously and the thing about levelling when you have limited time and spend a lot of time running into walls is that your friends tend to be so far ahead as to be inaccessible; or haven’t started yet. So I’m playing an MMO alone, just great. So those of you who haven’t started yet, please come join the Dark Side on The Red Eclipse so I can selfishly hog your evenings to run through group missions and flashpoints. I’m almost at level 15 and not really in the mood to PUG or be boosted through Hammer Station.

I found myself in tears after last night’s playing session. It’s amazing what running into walls can do to one’s self-esteem. Add to that the intense pain I’m inflicting on myself at a time where I’m on a break from pain meds because I relied on it too heavily to get through the festive season in more or less one piece and a crying spell seems inevitable. Chris woke up to be supportive and once I started talking, I realised that it’s not actually that big a deal.

Playing an MMO again has brought two things home to me, the first is that the cyclical never-changing nature of playing with others are quite jarring. Running past someone you’ve killed ten minutes ago now standing there talking to someone else is weird. Getting into a Sith Inquisitor story line area and suddenly being surrounding by a load of other players with the same companion and occasionally similar style definitely detracts from immersive story driven game play.The second is that the seemingly small obstacles can have a massive impact, not just on the enjoyment of gaming but also on a much more personal level.

I’m still curious about how Bioware has fared in creating an RPG MMO. So far I’ve seen some excellent stories, quests and design, but I’ve also run into things that has been disappointing and frustrating. I’ll keep exploring for some time to come, although I’m pretty sure playing every day won’t last for very long. Skyrim is sitting on my shelf and having just started, I’m itching to see more dragons. There’s social pressure in an MMO that’s not present in other games for me; a direct line of comparison and now that the first patch has been announced for next week, bringing some juicy end-game goodies with it in particular, there’s a huge temptation to power level and I very much have a sense of falling behind.

My inherent response is to want to play something else; something that’s less effort and just pack this MMO up forever. But MMO’s have the best coop and I love coop; so I’ll keep plodding along slowly and hopefully in the process, pick up some friends along the way. The most fun I’ve ever had was raiding Naxx with a guild that soon became friends and I really wouldn’t mind having another chance to recreate that experience; but with lightsabers and spaceships and afterall, its Star Wars, how can I not be excited about playing a Bioware branded Twi’lek.

Where do you get your gaming news?

Getting into gaming was complicated; there were so many different games available and I had no idea which to buy. I relied on friends’ recommendations and those were sometimes hit and miss as they invariably enjoyed different games  than I did. Some of my friends still get their gaming news solely via their social network and the first question that’s passed around when meeting up with someone I don’t see on a daily basis is usually; what are you playing?

Word-of-mouth is not the best place to go for news or reviews and I’ve gradually been pulled into the world of games, gaming development, news, events and all things gaming related. I’ve been trying for a while to stay up to date with current affairs, but have struggled to keep abreast of so much information pouring into multiple different feeds, lists and sites.

The solution, I’m now filtering everything through my google reader and so far it’s working out great. It’s taking time to set it up and having everything in one place has made me feel better about missing some stories, I do have an awful lot of them, but having just one place to go is making my life simpler. I can access it on my pc, netbook, iPad or iPhone on almost any type of (often dodgy and slow) connection and it’s in a text heavy format that works well for me.

Does gaming news really matter? It does to me. We’re hectically coding our Dual Ring Accessible Gaming Site,  hoping to be out of Beta by early March, just in time for ME3 and a big chunk of owning a gaming site is stay up to date with the news. It’s personal too; I like knowing what I’m buying, but more than that, I love knowing what’s going on outside of my personal gaming habits. I’ve always loved Google Reader and now I love it a little bit more.

SWTOR: Crew and affection

I didn’t think I’d embrace the crew dynamic, I’ve never enjoyed the social aspects of games much and it’s not a significant motivator for me unless it comes with added benefits, such as in ME2 where  the mission was more likely to succeed if you have your crew’s loyalty. My characters are usually loners, focused on succeeding at the task at hand. I’ve tried the romance aspects in Mass Effect and ME2 and although I quite liked Thane, who doesn’t like a contemplative assassin that meditates, he also annoyed me with his religious and philosophical outlook on life. Leaving the romance aside and just looking at crew as companions, I’ve never quite been able to warm to the idea. They’re extra work, they cost me time and money and in return I get a sentence or two that soon become repetitive and monotonous.

I wasn’t planning on doing anything with my crew in The Old Republic, but then a friend power levelled just to get a particular companion, talks about it more than anything else in the game and Chris keeps giving his gifts to win her affections. So I sent Khem Val to go get some gifts and gave it to him.  A Trandoshan pirate ship was shot down and I sent him to hunt for treasure. Wonderful. He was very happy to receive his gift, which just happened to be a cultural item and gained 96 points of affection. That got my attention. I have him a second gift, which wasn’t as popular, but he called me “Little Sith” and on returning from his next mission just looked so happy. I couldn’t resist, I sourced and gave him another cultural gift.

I enjoyed making him happy and now feel quite affectionate toward him. I liked him before, he’s direct and guiless and huge, but now that he likes me a little more, I like him a little more too. He reminds me of Taura from the Miles Vorkosigan saga and I’ve even given him a red skin to accentuate that. It would be nice to get him some clothes, proper clothes, like Miles did for Taura, but alas, no matter what armor I equip, it is a loin cloth he’s stuck in. Sigh. Will the crew aspect of SWTOR retain my interest and attention? I don’t think I’ll ever get into it as much as some people do, but I am finding it surprisingly enjoyable. It’s like making friends that are actually minions, very Skullcrusher Mountain.