I think I’m about halfway through the main Fallout3 narrative.  I just hit level 11 last night while finishing up the storyline bits in Vault 112. (I’m doing my best not to say anything that might spoil the game for people who haven’t played it so bear with me.)

It was after Vault 112 that I ran into the first game design issue that made me want to turn off my PS3—escorting NPCs.

Basically you are joined by someone who tells you that you need to go all the way across the map to get to the next part of the quest.  Um, ok… the game has taught you by now that you can travel instantly to any place you’ve already been, but this NPC takes off running at break-neck speed across the map and the story is such that I’m inclined to follow.  So we run and run and run and run and finally I’m like “fuck this guy, I’m teleporting my ass to Rivet City.”

So I do.  (being sure to save before hand incase I happen to break the game by doing so…)

I pop on over to where he told me to go, and he’s no where to be found.  I walk outside the city and note that I can see where he is on my little radar doohicky.  Rather than go back and find him, I decide to go talk to the scientist he’s coming to see.  Oh wait, there he is!  As soon as I talk to sciencechick he descends the staircase and proceeds to have a long conversation without any subtitles (which was awesome since I was playing with the sound practically off because my wife was sleeping.)

So now we’re joined by sciencechick to go off somewhere else.  Knowing now that I might not break the game by teleporting to the destination I do so.  Ok, so they aren’t here yet.  No worries, says I—I’ll use the “wait” feature.  So I wait 2 hours, nothing.  I wait another 2 hours and still nothing.  Super.  So off I go to find them.

I end up killing some super mutants (milk bottle to the face, sucka.) and the game updates my quest saying “go tell the people who were supposed to be with you that it’s ok to come in now.”  Um, sure.  Just one problem-I don’t know where they are.

I mosey around the building looking for where they might be hiding, or maybe a phone/intercom to call them and let them know that it’s ok to come in, but nothing.  I head out the door to save and teleport back to my house when its “OH HAI, HOW ARE YOU?!” there they are.

So now I have to “escort” them to the center of the building, which is possibly the most annoying thing in the world.  MMOs have taught me that when someone asks to be escorted anywhere you should expect ninjas to appear from nowhere and try to kill them.  So I stay close.  Here’s the issue with this: when your targetting recticle passes over the NPC, they stop to say something inane like “what can I do for you?” and pause for a full 10 seconds before continuing to move at the slowest pace in the history of the world. I know you can move fast, Mr. NPC-man.  I watched you book it across the wasteland for a good 10 minutes before I ditched your ass.  Stop talking to me and get to where you’re going… and keep an eye out for ninjas.

We get to the center of the building ninja-free, and they begin to mingle amongst themselves.  Um.  Guys?  Guys?  Over here.  I had a quest that you need to let me finish now please.  No, you can’t do anything for me.  Stop talking and finish my quest so I can go to bed.  Finally, he positioned himself in front o f a computer and I decided that maybe I should talk to him.  Voila!  My quest was done.

I went outside, saved, and went to bed.

Ugh.  Make interacting with NPCs beyond just dialogue not suck please.

While we’re on the subject can we discuss why/how I can teleport across the Capital Wasteland?  I appreciate it, don’t get me wrong—but how does it fit into the game world?  Has the radiation broken down my body like Sandman (from spiderman 3) allowing me to dissassemble myself and move through space at an increased velocity?  I wish they had explained it somehow.

I recently picked up a copy of Fallout3 at a Blockbuster going-out-of-business sale and have been having a blast over the last two days putting in every second I could spare playing.

I was reading through my feeds this morning when I stumbled across this post.

You can actual ruin a good part of the game if you ‘game’ it too much. By that I mean it’s easy to destroy most of the challenge if you stack your party with Cone of Cold-tossing mages, kite mobs around, or save/reload to make sure you get the ‘perfect’ dialog responses every time. Once I shut the gamer part of my brain off, and just played the game as it was meant to be played, it was a far more enjoyable ride that still remained a good challenge.

I realized that I’ve been doing this to myself for every single game I’ve played since I started raiding in WoW.  I spend countless hours researching on the internet to figure out game mechanics and other bits and pieces of “essential” information that allow me to succeed at playing.

Couldn’t 100% a level in Little Big Planet?  Look it up online.  Problems finding all the flags in Assassin’s Creed?  Look it up online.  Can’t figure something out in EVE?  Look it up online.

So here’s my new goal.  I’ve read the walkthrough for Fallout 3 through the end of the “Following in his footsteps” quest.  I know where to find the Galaxy News Radio, and that Three Dog is going to ask me to go get a satellite dish (from where I work in real life…)  I’m going to try and get to Three Dog tonight and from here on out, there will be no more guides for anything.  I’m going to relax and enjoy the game as it comes to me.  I don’t know that I’ll be able to apply this philosophy to all the games that I play (no loadouts from Battle Clinic for Eve?!) but I will not spend my free time browsing the interwebs for anything and everything about each minutia for any game I pick up.

Call it an early new year’s resolution.

I’ve alluded a few times on Twitter to this project “which shall not be named” and it’s getting to the point now where I can’t keep it all in my head and I want your help.  Prepare to be underwhelmed:

Where I work is thinking about creating a game.

Mushy and vague enough for you? (note: typing out the entire name of the place attracts our public affairs office’s attention… look here maybe: http://americanhistory.si.edu )

We’ve accepted the fact that while we have great content, unparalleled collections and (historical) resources-we could use some help to design a game.  To that end it looks like we’ll be hosting a sort of brain-trust with folks who are qualified to design games.  (Don’t bother asking me for an invite or an invitee list as I can’t supply the former, and I don’t have a final version of the latter.)

That’s a bigger step than most of you probably realize.  I think  that frequently educational/non-profit organizations like the Smithsonian assume that because they’ve got the content/message they’re qualified to design the perfect delivery.  What ends up being created is a not-so-compelling web-based activity that’s targeted at middle schoolers, but is so poorly executed that it gets pushed on elementary kids.  (nothing’s quite as brutal as honesty, eh?)

There are exceptions to the rule, but you’d be hard-pressed to qualify most of these activities as a “game” at all.  Which brings me to my point and question:

What is a game?

Here’s a wikipedia link since that’s the place most people will probably turn to first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game

I’m genuinely interested to hear any and all of your thoughts about this.  Some additional things you might consider:

Does a game require multiple players?
Does a game require the ability to interfere with other players?
Does a game need to be “fun”?
What’s the relationship between “play” and “game”?
To what extent can you accomplish (or task the player with) “work” within a game?

Your character name: Autumnn

Your real name: Dan Hoerr  (pronounced “Her”, it’s german-skip the first vowel)

The country you’re living in: US of A

How old are you: 24, coming up on 25 (January 9th)

What kind of work do you do:

I do web/graphic design and programming for the Smithsonian’s  National Museum of American History.  This includes the entire fleet of websites we support and also a few of the touch-screen kiosks that you see around the grounds of the building.

I’m well versed in HTML and CSS.  Understand PHP, Javascript, XML, Spry… a lot of things.  I’d consider myself a jack of all trades as the most important part of what I do is being able to communicate with specialists.

What other hobbies or interests do you have:

I graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in Interactive Media, so its safe to assume that I’m interested in art.

I love music, particularly metal & most things closely related.

My wife got me into diving, which I thoroughly enjoy.  Her father runs a dive charter out of Morehead City, NC: http://tortugacharters.net and I’m looking forward to next season when we’re not preoccupied with planning a wedding so we can get wet more often.  (Isn’t that what they call doing PCP?  ”getting wet” I’m remembering a scene from Training Day or something…)

I like learning about game theory and examining the “metagame”.

Do you have a personal blog or non-Eve website you want to share:

You can find some of my portfolio and some general thoughts at: http://autumnrayne.net I subscribe to the slow-blogging movement though and hardly ever update that front page.

My wife keeps a southern food blog here: http://biscuitsandsuch.com you can check it out and be jealous of what I get to eat.

I’ve been away for so long cause I got married and all that stuff.  Yay, me.  Anyway, I came back to just over a week left in Caldari Cruiser V (we’re aiming to own and fly a Tengu by the end of the year.)  After this I’m going to work up the shield skills to be able to train the defensive subsystem skills and also boost my overall defensive abilities.  I’ve said it before, but let me restate that the skill requirement design for the Strategic Cruisers is awesome.  While going through the pre-requisites I noticed a few holes in my overall skill layout that I may not have otherwise.  Kudos, CCP.

A more pressing matter on my mind these days has to do with TVs and consoles.  As an extremely generous and awesome wedding present it looks like we’re going to be gifted a flatscreen HDTV.  This is such an enormous step up from what we’re currently using that it’s almost embarassing.  15 years ago I remember my parents replacing their TV that had actual dials on the side with one that had buttons.  I’ve been using that TV for the last 6 years recently swapping it out for my sister’s old college TV that has a slightly better picture quality. (totally debatable.)

My wife and I have a medium sized DVD collection.  It’s probably a couple hundred discs between all the TV shows and movies that we’ve collected over the years.  Since the HDTV will be able to display 1080p we’re looking to find a DVD player that will upscale the quality of our existing collection.  The cost of replacing the movies with Blu-ray discs would be extraordinary and absolutely impossible.  I started looking into the possibilities and it dawned on me: why wouldn’t I look into buying a “next-gen” console?  (My PS2 was serving as our primary DVD player until a couple months ago when we also inherited my sister’s old DVD player.)  I did more research and developed a list of criteria:

1. The product must upscale existing DVDs.
2. The product must play Blue-ray discs (BDs)
3. The product must stream Netflix, Hulu, and/or other online services.
4. The product must play games.

Nothing on the market currently meets all of these criteria.  Let’s take a look at the contenders:

Xbox 360

Upscaling of DVD playback: yes.

BD playback: no (according to Microsoft this will never be released.)

Streaming: Netflix (with xbox live membership + netflix (which we have.))

Games:  yes. Of particular interest: the Halo franchise, the new batman game, and the fact that I already own a copy of Assassin’s Creed. (that I used to play on my father’s 360)

Cost: $300 + $40 (wifi add-on for flexibility) + extra controller (I already have Halo 1 and Assassin’s Creed which will be enough for now.) + HDMI cable

Notes: most everyone I game with online has a 360 and would be ready to kick my ass at anything I decided I want to play.  This includes my father.

Playstation 3

Upscaling of DVD playback: yes

BD playback: yes

Streaming: Hulu/Netflix don’t work out of the box, but with the addition of PlayOn it’s possible. YouTube

Games: yes.  Of particular interest: Little Big Planet, Final Fantasy series, Metal Gear Solid 4, playstation home, the new batman game.

Cost: $300 + $40 for “PlayOn” + extra controller + game + HDMI cable

Notes: my dad would be extremely jealous of my ability to play Gran Tourismo 5 if/when it comes out.  I bet that I could get my wife interested in playing Little Big Planet with me.  This would be huge. (over 9000, huge.)

Stand-alone BD/DVD player

Upscaling of DVD playback: yes

BD playback: yes

Streaming: some models

Games: no.

Cost: $200 – 400 with features listed.  + HDMI cable (I think)

Some folks on twitter have pointed out that the BD playback on the PS3 is of a lower quality than the stand-alone player.  I’m not really the sort of movie person who is going to run tests and try and figure out the best way to tweak the system.  I’m not really concerned about getting the highest quality HD experience.  The HDTV is going to be such an enormous improvement over what I’m using now that I’ll be drooling for months.  That said, I am looking to make a wise investment with the money.  If it turns out down the road that I made a poor decision I’ll be kicking myself for months.

Thoughts?  I’m leaning towards the PS3 as it looks like it will meet the most of my needs for the lowest cost.  I suppose I could always say “screw console gaming” and go with the stand-alone player, but I have the opportunity to get myself a current generation system, and it might be a very long time before we’re in a position like this again.  Note that fanboi-ism is acceptable, but please keep it civil. I do read and moderate every comment.