“It’s like Metal Gear Solid and Super Meat Boy had a baby out of wedlock.”

Roger Ebert once posted a thing  about videogames, and how they will never be art. Or, as he later clarified “No gamer currently living will ever experience the medium as high art.”

I’m not going to debate that, (I mean, he’s wrong, obviously. But let him troll.) but his most important point is interesting to me, as it’s about one of a “serious” game’s most powerful tools. Player agency.

He states videogames lack the authorial control that “higher” mediums possess due to how inherently interactive they are. I find that point bunk for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because giving players enough agency to feel like *they* are affecting things is the best way to have them be effected in gaming. To think about whatever content they are interacting with instead of just experiencing it.

It can, and has, been used to great effect already in gaming’s relatively short history, and it’s one of the things that only games can do to such an impressive extent.

… Except maybe those weird experimental art street performances, but I just wouldn’t feel right defending one kind of art without dismissing another, so fuck those.

Which brings me to my actual point; Fuck BioWare. To me, one of the best narrative explorations using player agency is morality. First off, morality is an incredibly interesting aspect of human nature. It’s fucking cool. I find little as fun to argue about as morality.

And it’s a right jagged thing to throw into art, too. If something lacks morality it is probably fairly flat, and boring.

And exploring morality where things can actually be your fault as a gamer? I’ve watched some movies where I felt like the atrocities in them were my fault as a member of the audience, sure. But games can do that [i]better[/i].

But what do we get? Fucking BioWare. They’ve taken the evolution of Morality + VideoGames and have attempted to forever pigeonhole it as a fucking sliding bar that goes from Heavenly Blue to Demonic fucking Red.

It’s bullshit. BioWare have a good, heart staff of writers and designers, and their stories and characters aren’t that bad… But I’d rather read some of those shitty Star Wars books than play through another Knights of the Old Republic.

First off, most of their morale choices fall into that bipolar “You come across a small orphan boy, begging for change. Do you, (A) DESTROY THE BOY WITH YOUR LASERS, AND TAKE WHATEVER CHANGE HE POSSESSES [or] (B) Give him all of your worldly belongings, as he needs them more than you,” scenario, where all of your choices seem geared into making you the most horrible bastard who ever existed, or the second coming of Jesus fucking Christ. And if there are relatively sane choices in there, they are neutral enough that you are actively punished for not choosing them. Because they don’t add teh numbers on your slider, dawg! You need those numbers…

And, WORSE, not only does their morality system encourage stupid fucking writing, but it belittles any actually decent decisions you are faced with. If you are given a well-devised choice as a player, a real gut-wrencher, where you don’t know what’s right and wrong? All your choices are grey lines, and you don’t know what to do? It’s cool. One will probably give you +10 Evils and devil horns, and the other will probably give you +10 Goods and a glowing white penis.

Bullshit.

And it follows through into character design, because these (otherwise wonderfully designed) characters start falling into the same pittraps that you do on your morality road. “WHY DIDN’T YOU DESTROY THAT ORPHAN ANNIE MOTHERFUCKER AND FEAST UPON THEIR IMMORTAL SOUL!” says the otherwise reserved, caddy pyromancer lady you had been looking to bone. You knew she had mommy issues, but you thought underneath she had a heart of gold. Turns out, actually, she fucking eats orphans. And you better eat orphans, too, if you want a chance to tap that in the endgame…

Fuck. In reverse, here’s an article on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory about its morality;

http://gonetostrangecountry.blogspot.com/2011/10/splinter-cell-chaos-theory.html

It doesn’t force it down your throat, it doesn’t even reward or punish you for your decisions. But it is there, and significantly more profound than the standard BioWare has pushed through.

Also, I’m playing another I’m-A-SuperSpy-What’s-Just-Like-Fisher-In-That-Other-Game game called Alpha Protocol that tallies your exploits at the end of the mission in an “Expected Effect” kind of way that is pretty neat. Still no slider, just a behind the scenes reputation system. That, plus the lack of quicksaves and the mechanics forcing you to make choices very quickly makes things feel a bit meaningful.

Plus, one of your tallied statistics is “Orphans Created,” which I found amusing. Also strange. Every dude I kill in Middle-East-Ville created like 18 orphans, while going on a massacre in Tai Pei produced about 1 orphan per grown-up corpse.

… Now if only I could find and consume those orphans, this gaming experience would be complete.

TL;DR… Roger Ebert is a bit of a twat, and BioWare have a secret plot to ruin RPGs.

Old video game cartridges had shitty sound chips that had a very limited range of music… And, somehow, these means magic.

Whoever says robots can’t cry lies right to your god damned face.

http://youtu.be/nrp-CHpqieg

Gamers are very useful they solved AIDS and found two New Earths this month, thanks to gamified crowdsourced research methods. Aw yeah.

Seriously.

But you know who isn’t a cool gamer? firstName “Notch” Perrson. Indie darling developer behind smash hit MineCraft. His studio, Mojang, is INCREDIBLY WEALTHY. And are soon going to be in a legal battle with Bethesda/Zenimax (WHO ARE FAR MORE WEALTHY AND WILL ROFLSTOMP) over possible trademark infringement on the word Scrolls. Cuz, see, his studio is making a new game. Called Scrolls. Which is a stupid name. So he trademarks it. ‘Cept, you know, Bethesda has already trademarked their megabillion value series, the Elder Scrolls.

HILARITY ENSUES.

LOL, stupid right? Big ol’ Evil MegaCorp, picking on the indie. Except they aren’t suing him over him naming his game a stupid name. They are suing because he trademarked the damn thing, and it *is* possible trademark infringement and the thing about trademark infringement is; If the trademark is worth a lot of money you have to bloody scrap over it all the time. Because a trademark loses value if you can be proven to be negligent of its defence, and all that.

Completely valid, Notch. You being an Indie Darling (who likely makes more money than my NON INDIE game studio,) does not exempt you from the law, asshat. It is a stupid name, and possible infringement. Fuck, the thing even looks like what the Elder Scrolls turned into a casual Puzzle-Quest-ee aesthetic would look like.

IT IS INFRINGEMENT, CHANGE YOUR NAME FUCKTARD.

But no, the internet sides with him. He’s totally in the right. It’s just a word, right dawg? They trademarked the Elder Scrolls specifically, why would THE ONLY FUCKING NOUN in that trademark, when used on its on, cause any confusion? Yeah, fuck you internet. You are stupid.

They give him a well worded 15-page legal document explaining their point of view, he respond “LOL GUYS I DIDN’T THINK THIS WOULD BE A PROBLEM, why don’t we settle this in a Quake deathmatch?” and his cult of adoring fans give him many blowjobs in response. Except, a Quake deathmatch isn’t really much of a legal precedent of defending your trademark, innit? It’s like Uwe Boll challenging critics of his shit movies to fight about via the manly endeavors of gloved fisticuffs — Hilarious in concept, but does little to disprove his movies being full of dicks.

Furthermore, if he didn’t see this being a problem he’s being ignorant. Or TROLLING, which seems more and more likely. I mean, just do a quick google search of Scrolls and note the first three results — His website for Scrolls, the wikipedia page on what a fucking Scroll is, and “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.” I fail to see how trademark research on Scrolls in the videogame industry could lead to not seeing a conflict.

No, valid response; Suck it up, change your name to something less offensive to the colossus trademark. Nonsensical response? Puff out your chest and stand your ground. Well, or is it? I mean, it’s silly and childish — But god DAMN this has been good PR for Mojang Studios. EVERYONE loves a good David and Goliath story, nevermind if the David in question has a bit more muscle on him than expected, and is quite likely to be in the wrong.

It’s just a great story, right?

Pfffffffff…

Annoyed rant on the stupidity of the internet aside (FUCK YOU IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME, I HATE YOU.), just got hands on with A Valley Without Wind and the Binding of Isaac today. Two remarkably different takes on integrating substantial roguelike elements, particulairly permadeath and procuderal generation, into other gameplay mechanics — Immersive world building RPG, in AVWW’s case, and Zelda style ARPG / Shoot’m Up in Isaac’s case.

Very impressed, so far. AVWW is kind of ugly and clunky, but it’s a Beta so that second bit will change, and the vision is WONDERFUL in scope. Love it. I’ve always held that procedurality and permadeath could be superpowerful narrative tools for anybody with the balls to attempt to use them correctly, so kudos to them for that.

The Binding of Isaac I’ve *just* bought off Steam, but hell… It’s Edmund McMillen. He made Gish and Super Meat Boy. Him + Roguelike = Thoughts to come, but I’m quite aroused.

tldr …

Notch, stop being a baby. Streets of Rage to RAGE != The Elder Scrolls to Scrolls, on a whole lot of levels. Not a good legal defense. Change your stupid name to something less stupid, everybody wins.

What a terrible drug. I didn’t think things like this existed outside of dark literature about apocalyptic futures. Apparently, it also does in Russia. Jesus.
On a lighter note, crack-cocaine. Because Asian People Love Golf.

Night A: Zombie Apocalypse

Materials: Zombie getup. Backup undead chorus singers.

Song List:

- Zombie Delight ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCUdRUjeM-c )

- Re: Your Brains ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81qIUuExQmQ )

- Big Finish ( TBA )

Night B: Crazy Newzealand

Materials: Awesome glasses. Second Crazy New Zea Lander.

Song List:

- Hiphopopotamus Vs. Rhymenocerous (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FArZxLj6DLk)

- I’m Not Crying (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGes7FDmHAM&feature=related)

- What is Wrong with the World Today? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0pTICdrLAA&feature=related)

Also, what a stupid fucking quote;

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” ~ Steven Weinberg 

Ten points for spotting the idiocy.

AtheismResource.com, folks. If you ever feel like you want or need to be told what to think, but that going to church for it is too big of a commitment.

God is dead, and blogs have killed him.

Also, on the note of awesome; http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/

If you’ve never heard of Natural Selection it’s an FPS-RTS hybrid and the new one looks bloody amazing. But that’s not why I’m blogging the link. It’s the way these guys are devving it that’s made me think to share.

“Open Development.” Basically, they share all their project tracking and tech blogs and stuff of that ilk so you can track their status and see how whats they has be making their game. It’s neat.

Also, if you preorder it you even get access to their builds. :O A new one just came out, and there’s a trailer for it at the link. It’s perty.

Sorry we don’t talk that much anymore, Tumblr-bot. But to be honest you still kind of scare me. I’m not saying we can’t be friends, just that we need to take things a little slow. Here, though; A sacrifice.