Oldschool Hard

You didn’t actually want to be free to own the games you bought, did you?

I’ve started to backup all my files in anticipation of finally installing Windows 7, which I’ve had sitting here for about a month. It’ll be an interesting upgrade, considering I bought XP the week it came out, and have kept using it through a number of different computers, skipping the maladies of Vista entirely. I have years of crap on my hard drives, so it’s taking hours to catalogue and properly backup everything.

The upgrade seemed necessary, though. Partially it’s because I want to actually use all of the 4GB of RAM I have and not have my graphics card use a big chunk of assignable memory, partially because I’d like to see what DirectX 10 can do for my gaming, and mostly, honestly, it comes down to WoW ONCE AGAIN not patching properly for me, whether I use a downloaded or disc installer, different versions of the patches, install under safe mode or to a different folder, or any of the other suggestions that a google search throws out. Blizzard suggests my problem relates to system restore, which I have never used, just like last time I had a patching problem they suggested it was due to a problem with Dell computers. Pity I’ve never owned a Dell in my life…

While that’s a game-related annoyance, it’s only related to one specific game. As part of my process of backing up my files, I stumbled upon a far more insidious problem: shitty copy protection. Using the oft-mentioned Mass Effect as an example, yet again, I remembered that because it uses SecuROM, I had to ‘de-authorize’ my computer or risk losing one of my five ‘licenced installs’, a ‘generous’ upgrade from the three installs that accompanied the game when it was first released on the PC (it also phoned home every 10 days). To do this, I couldn’t do anything in the game menu or in it’s uninstall program. No, I had to download a seperate tool, which scanned my system, gathering god knows what information before determining that Mass Effect was installed, and making me download another seperate tool to give me back one of my precious de-authorizations. Spore is another game requiring a similar process.

A few questions came to mind as I was going through this process. What if these authorization servers ever get taken down? Will there be a effective way to play the games you bought in a few years time when they’re no longer available at retail? Are you even considered to own the copies of games you buy under copy protection like this? The sad fact is, SecuROM doesn’t even seem that bad next to StarForce, which acts a lot like malware, making disk performance worse, opening your system up to security flaws, similar to a rootkit, and installing its own device drivers alongside game installs, that, up until the latest version of StarForce, didn’t necessarily get uninstalled when the game did.

Copy protection, like many things in gaming, isn’t new. Back in the day, there were code wheels, references to certain letters, sentences, or clues in user manuals that you had to match, symbol sheets (some printed on red paper so they couldn’t be legibly photocopied), deliberate errors introduced into the manufacturing process to prevent physical copying, and plenty of others which I either never saw or currently escape me. Sure, some of these methods are onerous, too, and kinda bullshit, but I’m not against people trying to protect their income from their work. But assuming your mother didn’t throw out your game boxes, and that you have hardware still capable of playing these old games, you have the physical capability to get through this copy protection by legimate means, and the only thing the copy protection affects is the game it’s meant for. This won’t necessarily be the case for any games you purchase with current forms of copy protection.

What I ask for from any copy-protection is for three simple rules to apply:

1. Don’t phone home. If you can’t authorize a game using the physical medium or downloaded file which I posess, don’t make me need to authorize it at all. Sure, the internet is basically ubiquitous, but that doesn’t mean your company or the game authorization servers will be around forever. I should have everything I need to play the game available straight out of the box or download.

2. Don’t limit reinstalls. I might forget to ‘deauthorize’ it…I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ‘DEAUTHORIZE’ IT. I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS GAME. Again, while I might be able to call or email for fresh installs, that doesn’t mean you’ll be around forever. Or the customer service rep might be a dick and not help me out. And also, checking how many more installs I’m ‘allowed’ means phoning home, again.

3. Don’t screw up my computer. Copy protection should exist within the game itself and affect the game only. It shouldn’t install anything seperate, it shouldn’t have any access to anything not directly related to the game it’s for, and it shouldn’t have any impact on the performance of my computer.

Am I asking to much by wanting to own the games I buy?

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Frustration with the gameplay style of other people is nothing new, as my friend’s N64 controller-throwing tantrum of a previous post has shown. As least back in the day when your friend, little brother, or neighbourhood aquaintance made a dick move you could punch him in the arm, because he was sitting right next you on the couch or the floor. Yeah, there were controller hogs, fighting game idiot savants, and jerkwad Oddjob players, but you had recourse.

Stole the powerup you needed in Contra? Punch. Sent a homing shell at you in Super Mario Kart? Punch. Hogged the controller when you were meant to be taking turns? Punch. Pulled off an 80-hit combo you couldn’t do anything about? Punch. Moved their selection cursor even close to Oddjob? Punch. Most bad behaviour was either self-correcting or someone was gonna get a hurt. If your gaming session involved Bomberman and a multi-tap, there could be so many chokeholds and windmill punches it’d look like Wrestlemania.

When you grew up a little and were either trusted to take the family PC along to a LAN night, or could afford to buy and take your own to play some Quake or Doom (or for my LANning era, more likely Counter-Strike and Battlefield 1942), it was a bit more anonymous, but generally by standing up, yelling out “HEY, STOP SPAWN CAMPING YOU FUCKING SPAWN CAMPER,” and watching who smirked, you knew where to aim your stale pizza crusts. More difficult and less satisfying than just punching them in the arm, but at least you still had dick-move recourse.

LAN parties weren’t really a satisfying solution to large-scale gaming though, as by the end of a long night, the smell of BO and grease clings in the air, but we put up with them as they were the only way to get your game on with so many people at once. Fortunately, internet connections got better, and cheaper.

Unfortunately, internet connections got better, and cheaper.

Now, you can game with many other people from the comfort of your own house, BO free. All you need to do is log on to just about any game on XBox Live for a dose of screaming tweens, mouth-breathing frat boys calling everyone ‘fag’, people proudly displaying their shitty taste in music by having it blasting through their microphones, inane chatterers, stoners who leave their mics on so you can hear the rolling-boil noise of their bongs and references to how stoned they are, and a significant group of northern Americans making fun of your accent if you’re either from the southern US or anywhere else in the world, via one of two lame jokes or banal references that form all they know about your part of the world.

If that doesn’t strike your fancy, you can play an MMO (most likely World of Warcraft) and deal with gold sellers, gear beggars, Chuck Norris jokes and the same question repeated a hundred times a day. If you devote enough time to it to get to max level, you can then increase your fun by raiding with a large group, and dealing with the chronically clueless, loot whiners, 1-plys (ie. one wipe and they’re done), and time wasters. ‘BRB, 5 minutes’ from someone in a key role is a sentence that still sends chills down my spine, from the 40-man days of WoW raiding. 40×5 = 3 1/3 man-hours wasted waiting for one guy to finish rolling a joint. Yeah, I love WoW, but it’s a conditional love, and some days are worse than others.

Sure, there are friend lists and party chat, and ways to play with people you actually want to play with, but that only works if they’re all actually online at the same time, unlike when you were a kid and you knew exactly when everyone finished school and would be available to play. Sometimes you can’t deal with the logistics of getting your friends online, and just want to play. And it’s either stupid computer bots or an unholy combination drawn from the motley crew above.

Anonymity breeds stupidity. I’ve posted a link to this before, but I think showing you is very important:

Don’t be this guy.

Image from Penny Arcade.

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Mmm, River City Ransom. “BARF!”

My last post probably gave you some idea of what sort of games I like.

So you can get even more idea of where I’m coming from, and can decide now if we’ll never agree and you can thus make a graceful exit (door opens outwards), here is a list of my top 25 favourite games. There’s a few that are stiff to miss out, but this is basically it. I originally drew up a huge list of my favourite games on each platform, it was long and boring, and I won’t subject you to it.

Bear in mind a few things: I keep both a literal stack of unplayed games that I get cheaply, and a figurative stack of digital files from steam weekend discounts, impulse sales, and so on, and the pile is currently up to about 80 games. Also, I could only own one console per generation before becoming an adult and being able to buy as many systems as I want, so I may have missed your particular favourite. My exposure in particular to non-RPG PS1 games, XBOX games, and Sega games post-Megadrive is limited, because I never owned the systems. Lastly, these are my personal favourites. I may have played -better- games, but sometimes something about a game just sticks with you.

River City Ransom
Crystalis
Mutant League Football
Shining Force 2
Snatcher
Shadowrun (SNES)
Super Mario Kart
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Planetfall
Wasteland
System Shock 2
Knights of the Old Republic
Vampire: Bloodlines
Planescape: Torment
Deus Ex
Fallout 3
Grim Fandango
Psychonauts
Baldur’s Gate/2
World of Warcraft
Super Mario 64
Shadow of the Colossus
ICO
Rez

Why yes, I do like cyberpunk, post-apoc, Tim Schafer, and Bioware. Why do you ask? I generally like moody FPS games, western RPGs, quirky adventure games, the unique, and anything with some form of experience and/or loot grind. Mmm, purplz.

This month, all going to plan, I will sit down with Brutal Legend, and Dragon Age: Origins, both of which have the potential to be in there, based on my usual preferences. Something like Diablo 2, Mass Effect, Majora’s Mask, Okami, Metal Gear Solid 3, Half-Life 2 or any of a host of other Infocom text adventures could be in there if I wrote this on a different day.

But I didn’t.

So they aren’t.

What about my least favourite games? Well, I don’t really have the patience to tackle JRPGs anymore, unless they review very, very highly. It’s not active hate, I just don’t love them the way I did as a kid, when the longer the game, the more the value.

Real Time Strategy is another genre I don’t have much love for – I enjoyed Company of Heroes and World in Conflict, but I tried to play through Warcraft 3 to get more of the World of Warcraft background story, and I just couldn’t do it. The style of play seems foreign to my gaming skill set and just not enjoyable to me.

I don’t like 1 on 1 fighting games, either. I don’t want to remember a million moves, I don’t enjoy the blocking techniques, and I don’t like getting my shit fucked up by a guy hitting an 80-hit combo that I can’t do anything about.

Perhaps my biggest pet hate crosses genre lines: aggressively mediocre games. I’m not talking about the truly crappy like Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, E.T. or Altered Beast, but the games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, that have a framework of competency that leads you to believe they could have been something good, but have all the life sucked out of them.

My least favourite game? Halo. I’m not fond of FPS on a console at the best of times, so take this with a grain of salt, but I found this game massively uninspired. It had a colour palette like it was CGA all over again. Its way of ‘extending’ the game (and thus the value) was to make you run back through the levels, in reverse. And this was the company that made Marathon. They had a good track record. They knew better. Of course, it sold by the truckload and has a devoted team of fanboys. The series sells massively. It rated well. What do I know?

Picture shamelessly ripped off from IGN.com. If it makes you feel any better, I cropped it myself.

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One of my characters meeting some dragons.

If you’ve looked at my about page, you’ll see I first started writing about games, or more specifically, a game, on WoW Drama, a website about World of Warcraft. Along with my friend Kingfox, the gracious host of this site, and some other friends and acquaintances, for a brief but eventful period we catalogued some of the ridiculous drama that WoW can bring about. Crying over digital loot, theft of digital loot, threats of lawsuits, trading sex for in-game favours, it’s all there. Unfortunately, distractions happen, and we’ve let the site rot.

This week is the 5th anniversary of WoW‘s release. When it comes to time spent on a single game, bearing in mind the immense amount of time spent with my cartridge games when I couldn’t afford to buy others, nothing even comes close for me. While I initially balked a little at the per-month fee, having played other, earlier MMOs that were less compelling, and MUDs that were compelling but free, that fee has actually saved me a lot of money over the years, because now I usually buy months-old games on discount, with only the few that I massively anticipate getting the cash from me on release day. It’s become the million-pound-gorilla of the gaming industry, shading every game that has come afterwards, MMO or not.

It has added immensely to my lexicon, introducing me to words(?) like ‘kthx’, ‘kgo’, ‘trufax’, ‘pst’, ‘diaf’, and new uses for ‘epic’, ‘wipe’ and ‘fail’, among others. It has also been the most personally relevant example of John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, although any game with randoms on Xbox Live can come close (I love when kids tell me what they’ve done to my mother, when their voice clearly indicates that they lack the equipment necessary.)

The graphics, being cartoonish and stylised, have aged relatively gracefully, in the way cutting-edge graphics rarely, but not never, do – for instance, FarCry still looks pretty good, but go look at an original PlayStation game to see how once cutting-edge 3D graphics age. Go on, look, I’ll wait. The rest of the game can creak a little – it chews RAM like it’s going out of fashion, struggles when there’s many people together in a small space, which, being an MMO, you have to anticipate will happen on a regular basis, and the way the patch system works means if there’s a glitch (and there will be), the repair system may or may not work, and even after a fresh install, the patching process will only work if it feels like it, not that I’m bitter about having to reinstall 5 FUCKING TIMES before the patch took after my latest inexplicable glitch.

There’s been some design mistakes over the years. The 7-days-a-week PvP grind of the original honor system. 40 man raids involving 10-20 hangers on, with the logistical nightmare of trying to organise people. Trying to turn WoW into an ‘e-sport’ with arenas was a recent mistake. I personally feel that charging money for race changes, faction changes, server changes, name changes, and so on is pure greed chocolate sauce on top of the sundae made of delicious money, but I don’t have to use any of these services, so that’s pretty much a philosophical difference.

I’ve taken breaks from the game before, due to overseas travels, burnout on raiding or a feeling of treading water, but Blizzard keeps upping the ante, and I keep coming back. I’ve been to Blizzcon – and I live in Australia. I’ve met people from the game – drank with them, slept on their spare beds or couches. It’s not the only game I’ve played that I’ve met people from, but there’s something to be said for anything that can bring you together with the like-minded for a drunkening.

In short, WoW has sucked up more of my time and money than any other game, ever. I can’t see any game, no matter how good, ever having the same time or mind-share for me. And despite its flaws, I love it.

For the record, FOR THE HORDE!

****

This week also brings the 21st anniversary of the release of the original version of Snatcher in Japan.

Having only sold a few thousand copies in the US when eventually released on Sega CD, Snatcher is like the Velvet Underground of games – It’s now revered in hindsight, and influential, but commercially it was a failure.

If you’re not familiar with it, Snatcher drips with atmosphere. Think of a wholesale lifting of Blade Runner with a dash of Terminator and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One of my favourite games of all time, and well worth a play – if you can find a copy.

Happy Birthday, Decka…er, Gillian.

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