Video Game Tuesday: What other MMOs can learn from FFXIV

This week for Video Game Tuesday is I’m covering a topic that sets apart my favorite MMO from all others. It’s all about What other MMOs can learn from FFXIV!

What is the biggest difference?: Well it’s really simple, Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) makes you feel like the hero of the story, and not just some passenger to an NPC’s story. No in Final Fantasy almost every NPC knows about you. You’ve killed gods, brought end to wars and taken down dragons. The NPCs you work with always acknowledge that you are the key figure in these fights, that without you none of it could have been possible.

Really?: World of Warcraft has had issues for years where no matter how powerful your character became, you were always not the main participant of the story. You as the player were never the hero in the story. Sure you might have taken down Nefarian, stopped C’Thun in Ahn’Qhiraj, killed Illidan and beaten Kiljaedan through the Sunwell. You might have brought down the Lich King and killed a dragon gone mad with power that tore apart the world, but you never really were the main character.

This problem is highlighted most with the Lich King encounter at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. You bring down Arthas all the way to 10% and boom you and your entire raid die. But Tirion Fordring, breaks from the ice that kept him out of the entire fight, breaks Frostmourne and deals the fatal blow to Arthas.  You the player on the other hand are shoved to the side until you get resurrected and hurry him along to death. There’s no thanks other than maybe a statue of the races of your faction in Dalaran if you killed him first on your server and some shiny weapons. That’s it, you get no real recognition. You may get a few NPCs thanking you, but in general you aren’t proclaimed the hero and lauded throughout the world. You were just there, helping Tirion while he slept in a block of ice until he decided to get out of it and finish the fight you were dealing with.

Final Fantasy XIV doesn’t have that problem and lots of MMOs, including not MMOs like Destiny, could do with learning from how Final Fantasy treats the player. You are treated as a hero, and even other players aren’t treated like you are by NPCs. It makes you feel special and gives further immersion into the world of Hydaelyn.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. What are your thought son the subject? Do you feel like the main character in MMOs, or just a minor actor compared to some NPC hero. Leave your comments below.

Video Game Tuesday: Console Mods

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering a subject that I find both frustrating and interesting. It’s all about Console Mods.

Why frustrating?: Because companies like Bethesda have made an effort to bring mods to consoles, but are doing a terrible job of it. They won’t properly curate the mods for games like Skyrim’s Special Edition and Fallout 4, and this causes many mod authors to have their work stolen by thieves without proper acknowledgement. I know if they did acknowledge it that a lot of mod makers wouldn’t be so upset, but the fact is that Bethesda has done a piss poor job with their efforts to bring mods to consoles. I’m not surprised that Sony won’t allow Bethesda to bring mods with unique assets to the PlayStation 4, they just don’t respect the mod authors that breathed so much life into games on the PC. Skyrim has a thriving mod community, but Bethesda has continuously screwed them over, with paying for mods on Steam and the console mod debacle.

There’s other games and companies that won’t allow mods, like Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIV. However Square Enix actually has a valid reason, FFXIV is an MMORPG and as any MMO gamer will tell you, if a portion of the audience can’t download mods the mods are next to useless. Plus theres the toxicity that comes with mods like Damage Meters, something that can quickly devolve into huge flame wars on forums and chat channels.  I used mods when I played World of Warcraft, and I required all my raiders/guildmates to install them if they wanted to raid. Some were invaluable, like Deadly Boss Mods, while others were just for fun, like Bejeweled. All of them were useful in one way or another, but I don’t regret not having them in FFXIV. I actually enjoy that I don’t need any mods or VoIP programs to succeed in doing the hardest content. Yes it’s helpful, especially the VoIP programs, but they aren’t necessary at all.

Why interesting?: Because I love mods, some of my favorite game modes in games like Warcraft III were mods like the Angel Arena maps. They had custom models and I had great respect for those who made those models. I hope one day we’ll be able to use mods on consoles properly and add fun things like Thomas the Tank Engine to games like Skyrim in the future. But until such mods are properly curated and monitored we won’t be getting them with any amount of frequency if at all.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

Video Game Tuesday: Hearthstone

 

This week on Video Game Tuesday I’m reviewing Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft! I got into the beta for the game back in December and was happy to try it out for a bit, but was disappointed a bit at the lack of balance at the time between the different decks. So when it launched on the iPad a couple weeks ago I was very happy to give it another try and was very pleased at how it turned out.

Plot Synopsis: Wait you were expecting a plot for a card game?

Gameplay: It’s a card game in the fashion of Magic the Gathering, or Yu-Gi-Oh if you were burdened with a little brother in the early 2000’s like I was. You choose to build a deck of 30 cards and depending on what Hero you choose, Jaina Proudmoore is the Mage for example, you can add different spells and minions as well as hero-neutral minions into your deck. I prefer playing with a Hunter Deck, Rexxar is the hero, and building up my less powerful minions by sacrificing more of my own minions to become stronger. The gameplay is very balanced now and while it will probably become quite different come Fall, with the new Adventure mode being released sometime this summer, so far I’m really happy with how my deck turned out. I win 60% of the time with that deck, which isn’t bad in a game where RNG, Random Number Generators, rule supreme. I’ve reached Rank 20, because I don’t really enjoy competitions all that much and I only wanted the card back for reaching that rank which is pretty easy to get.  One thing that must be stressed about this game is that you can buy cards with real money, however if you are a cheap person like me you can get a pack with 100 gold, which can be earned by winning 30 games or completing a couple of daily quests. You don’t need to buy cards to win games, as I’ve nearly leveled all the card decks to level 10, the point in which every basic spell and minion specific to each deck is unlocked. I have bought 2 packs with money (it cost $3), however I did that as part of the beta test.

Art: The art in this game is pretty amazing, although there are certain things that bug me, like the Gryphon on the Human board being the low poly model that’s been around since World of Warcraft launched and not the much more recent Grand Gryphon model of Mists of Pandaria.

Music: It’s okay, but since I play this on my iPad most of the time I don’t get to listen to it. I’m actually listening to an audiobook, if I’m just playing casual games; or music, if I’m playing ranked games.

Overall: If you want a great card game to play that is multiplayer and free play this game. It’s been released for iPads so far and will be coming to Android soonish.

For those who like: Collectible Card Games, Warcraft, Free games.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, but really it’s free just give it a try.

The first post: site charter

So I guess some people who follow me on Twitter would love to see me make a blog with more comments about what I talk about on Twitter which is Games, Books, Anime, Light Novels, and other media. So heres to the new blog! I’ll probably update this site once a week at least, with the goal being a different subject every day of the week.

About Me:

I’m a former student of both Game Design and Japanese. Currently Unemployed (though I’m working on getting a job). My hobbies obviously include the above mentioned activities. I speak Japanese somewhat well, and understand it fluently for every day topics. A spineless moderate as my High School Government class teacher would could call me as my political alignment. I’m an Agnostic with a slight leaning towards Judaism.  I live in the Pacific Northwest, in Oregon specifically. As for names I go by I was born Michael, and have been called many other things from Mouse to Peter(Don’t ask it’s a long story).I have a history of dealing with Depression and Anxiety, which I may mention in posts.

Why did I choose the name Windborne Sword? I was born in the Chicago,Illinois aka the Windy city and I have always admired swords, and they are the things I’ll use in games over anything else if I get the chance. Hence I was born of wind, it’s a pun, and and my mind is like a sword, sharp and to the point.

Favorite game genres are JRPGs with some action games suiting my tastes. I tend to dislike FPS games, and platformers or any kind of competitive Player vs Player gameplay like League of Legends. I do play WoW and I used to be part of a hardcore raiding guild on the realm Garithos-US [A]. Now a days I’m still on Garithos, but I’ve taken to casual raiding on the weekends while I work on getting every legendary item in the game. Only 2 more to go as of the day of this post! My main is an Unholy Death Knight, alts include a Rogue and Monk, with a mage and druid as my profession alts.

My favorite book genres are Fantasy of all kinds. Some authors that I enjoy reading are Brandon Sanderson, awesome guy by the way, Pat Rothfuss and Jim Butcher. I’ll read just about anything though, except for Twilight that can rot and burn for eternity along with The Crucible.I tend to listen to books instead of reading them now a days as I read way too fast to actually get much enjoyment of the book.  I do read Manga, and have about 10-15 series I’m currently caught up to current chapter releases with. I tend to enjoy all genres of Manga and I do even dabble into Shoujo.  I enjoy reading Light Novels as well, and I do read them when I get the chance on my iPad.

I like to watch Anime as well, and like my reading I’ll watch just about anything. I don’t watch much TV shows anymore because when I was in college I didn’t have a TV. That said I occasionally will watch a movie or something on TV.

Music preferences are for stuff from Japan, as it helps me keep my understanding of the language fresh in my mind and I grew sick of Western music for the most part after being in my school’s choir for 4 years.

What to expect from this blog: My thoughts about any Anime series I’m currently watching, Books I’m listening to or reading, and thoughts on Games I’ve been playing. I may go into game balance as well, as I love to analyze what works in games and doesn’t work.  I may go into how to play better as well, specifically into playing World of Warcraft in the PvE side of things. I’ll have to see if I feel up to that.

What not to expect from this blog: Deep insight into my psyche and/or look into my private life. I’m not going to be talking about my love life or family issues at all here as they are private matters. Any kind of spoilers about anything I talk about. I take great care to keep anything spoilerish as vague as possible so others can enjoy it. If I must go into spoiler territory it will be marked as such.

P.S.

My twitter handle is @WindborneSword please follow me so I can follow more people, this stupid 2,000 people limit is kind of dumb for us speed readers and information hogs.  Yes I do actually read through most of my twitter stream, as I can read really fast, so the more people I can follow the better.