Wolfbytes

So, the mate of a mate got his WoW account hacked. Made me think of a minor server blowout last Christmas, when Blizzard was trying to educate it’s customers on how to keep their accounts safe – and the rant I had back then in my old blog. Translated and updated here for the benefit of foreign devils. You’re welcome.

Blizzard’s anti-hacker advice was good enough, as far as it went. Never share your account information. Change passwords regularly. Buy an Authenticator, if you play at net cafes – that sort of thing. They just completely skipped the most fundamental problem:

The vast majority of MMO gamers are complete muppets when it comes to basic computer security.

Read more…

Random point of interest – Blizzard and Valve are two studios known for their ability to do no wrong in game design. Just recently, Valve’s Chuck Faliszek and Blizzard’s Kevin Martens have given the same reason for why: Iteration.

Basically, both profess to build a playable model of the game as soon as possible, and then test, revise or even throw out entire ideas if they prove unworkable. The main difference seems to be that Martens tells Gamasutra they do this inhouse (which is explains why Blizzard has so little leakage on projects – though how they shut up their employees, gamers have long dreaded to speculate). Faliszek on the other hand told TVG that Valve brings in outsiders to do the playtesting, to see how actual gamers will act – because how they play is how the game will be played. That could explain why Valve has blazed through Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 development at what seems like lightspeed? Playtesters uncontaminated by the designers’ idea of how a feature should work may well end up using it completely differently from how it was envisioned, and so encounter or solve problems that won’t come up with inhouse people, who have a rough idea of intended usage.

Speculation aside, fun to see top designers from different corners of the field agreeing that what makes ‘em great is plain work and correcting themselves, not some mythical X-factor.

When I was younger I didn’t much care who produced my entertainment. The work was the work, I didn’t care what the guy behind the book or movie or game thought, I was more interested in the thoughts and feelings the work sparked for me. And that’s why I was genuinely shocked, the first time I came across a political essay by Orson Scott Card.

Here’s this guy, whose Ender’s Game was one of the books I most remember from my teens. He’s a multiple Hugo and Nebula and whatever else -winning author whose work I’d genuinely enjoyed and admired – and there he was, spouting off on a Mormon website about how marriage has only one definition, the heterosexual one, and any government that attempts to change that is an enemy that must be fought and overthrown. Since 2007, he’s also joined the board of NOM (National Organisation for Marriage), which lobbies against gay marriage across the US with tactics that are dubious at best.

I remember being angry. Not because Card has an opinion – of course people are entitled to those, whether I approve of them or not. The line is drawn where those opinions move out of a person’s private life and become a demand they try to impose on society at large – which is exactly what Card was doing. I was furious because I suddenly realised I’d never again be able to read anything with his name on it without being reminded of the flaming discriminatory politics the author’s fame and royalties all contribute to. Something I’d enjoyed had been ruined, because I couldn’t in good conscience enjoy fiction that supplied fame and monetary support to a propagandist of the American religious right.

Card still writes, both fictionally and politically. I’ve read the second – the first just doesn’t feel honest anymore. Read more…

When the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm announcement landed, I quit WoW. Not for that reason alone, but the final straw was Blizzard confirming class restrictions would be relaxed. Most dedicated RP’ers right now are praying there’s some in-world story explanation to this that hasn’t been revealed yet. Because for us, changing who can be a druid or a paladin, let alone having Night Elves abandon the bane on using Arcane magic, is sort of a a big deal.

The pure gamer in me says it shouldn’t be. Players have been clamouring for certain gameplay/class restrictions to be changed for ages, and accommodating them is just good customer service. I’m only shocked here because after years of on/off roleplay in WoW, I finally realised an old friend was right. For all it’s genius in gameplay and design, in storytelling WoW delivers the exact same bullshit quality as any lesser franchise. It tells the same half-arsed stories using the same two-dimensional characters as every other Generic Fantasy Game (TM) out there – and it’s doing it’s damnest to achieve more, not less, genericness.

This also isn’t a big deal. In the world of gaming, only BioWare and Peter Molyneux routinely make story their primary selling point. To the rest “compelling story” is the same sort of non-information press release spin as “action-packed adventure”, “thrilling gaming experience” and “exclusive title”. WoW has never claimed it’s story is all that special, and it’s never claimed to be a RPG, so perhaps it’s unfair to judge it on those grounds (though it does have dedicated RP servers, so they do try to snag that audience too). It was just a shock to realise that though Blizzard does allow for roleplay in WoW, on closer reflection their approach to story seems handcrafted to drive all but the most casual roleplayers clinically insane. Read more…