The Right to Single Player: A trend of PC games having as requirement access to internet and limited period access.

Starcraft II from Blizzard, year 2010. Settlers 7: Paths to a kingdom from Ubisoft, year 2010 e Civilization V from 2K Games e Firaxis Games, year 2010. What do they have in common?

The fact that they all need to connect to the internet and above all an account. In the case of Starcraft II, you will have access to the game only for 60 days, after that, you will have to buy Keys to continue playing. What's wrong with that?

You remember the year 2000? As far as I have searched the games up until this time are not asking for the player to pay to play a game that was not intended to be MMO.

Remember Diablo 1 and 2 from Blizzard? In Diablo 2 you bought the game and was entitled to play for free single player mode and if wanted I could pay to play multiplayer. No more just?

I invite you to pay attention, now in PC gaming. It seems to me that there is a tendency to have games that access is limited and no longer you will be buying the game from the store, but only the media. That is, 60 or 30 days in the games in general. They will no longer be valid and will need to purchase credits or keys, so that the play continues.

It is our right as a player to require the price you pay at the store is the price we have to at least play the single player mode free. Otherwise we are only buying the DVD media practically.

If we bring the time of the games of yesteryear still like Phantasmagoria, just to mention, from Sierra, we see that the Internet was not necessary. My point is that, increasingly prerequisites are necessary and increasingly we have to spend money to meet our desires to play.

I draw attention to this curiosity of the players to pay attention and ask for PC games of today and their conditions. The goal will always bring the best benefits for us players.

There will be a solution to the projects of joining a single player games free?

 I conclude here raising the issue of game design.

Avoiding the same stories.

 Here is a list to game writers. Stuff that we should pay attention before writing.

1. Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says "I want to be at point B." Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)
2. Creative person is having trouble creating.
   1. Writer has writer's block.
   2. Painter can't seem to paint anything good.
   3. Sculptor can't seem to sculpt anything good.
   4. Creative person's work is reviled by critics who don't understand how brilliant it is.
   5. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.
3. Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
   1. New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist's attempts to explain local rules, is punished.
4. Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
   1. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
   2. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
   3. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
   4. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we've seen are part of the novel.
5. An A.I. gets loose on the Net, but the author doesn't have a clear concept of what it means for software to be "loose on the Net." (For example, the computer it was on may not be connected to the Net.)
6. Technology and/or modern life turn out to be soulless.
   1. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.
   2. All technology is shown to be soulless; in contrast, anything "natural" is by definition good. For example, living in a weather-controlled environment is bad, because it's artificial, while dying of pneumonia is good, because it's natural.
   3. In the future, all learning is soulless and electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.
   4. In the future, everything is soulless and electronic, until protagonist (usually a kid) is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who's lived a non-electronic life.
7. Protagonist is a bad person. (We don't object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.)
   1. Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they "deserve," which ends up being something bad.
   2. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).
   3. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed. (But reading about the awfulness is so awful that we never get to the end to see the redemption.)
8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.
9. A "surprise" twist ending occurs. (Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action. But note, too, that we've seen a lot of twist endings, and we find most of them to be pretty predictable, even the ones not on this list.)
   1. The characters' actions are described in a way meant to fool the reader into thinking they're humans, but in the end it turns out they're not humans, as would have been obvious to anyone looking at them.
   2. Creatures are described as "vermin" or "pests" or "monsters," but in the end it turns out they're humans.
   3. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene, and then suddenly reveals that information at the end of the story. (This can be done well, but rarely is.)
   4. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're born.
   5. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
   6. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, "Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!"
   7. A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen ("Today was the day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure"), but the nature of the Event isn't revealed until the end of the story, when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness. (Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one reason we're tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the mysteriousness annoying.)
   8. In the future, an official government permit is required in order to do some particular ordinary thing, but the specific thing a permit is required for isn't (usually) revealed until the end of the story.
   9. Characters speculate (usually jokingly): "What if X were true of the universe?" (For example: "What if the universe is a simulation?") At the end, something happens that implies that X is true.
10. Someone calls technical support; wacky hijinx ensue.
    1. Someone calls technical support for a magical item.
    2. Someone calls technical support for a piece of advanced technology.
    3. The title of the story is 1-800-SOMETHING-CUTE.
11. Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject.
12. Evil unethical doctor performs medical experiments on unsuspecting patient.
13. In the future, criminals are punished much more harshly than they are today.
    1. In the future, the punishment always fits the crime.
    2. The author is apparently unaware of the American constitutional amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment, and so postulates that in the future, American punishment will be extra-cruel in some unusual way.
14. White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy Simple Native Folk.
15. Story is based in whole or part on a D&D game or world.
    1. A party of D&D characters (usually including a fighter, a magic-user, and a thief, one of whom is a half-elf and one a dwarf) enters a dungeon (or the wilderness, or a town, or a tavern) and fights monsters (usually including orcs).
    2. Story is the origin story of a D&D character, culminating in their hooking up with a party of adventurers.
    3. A group of real-world humans who like roleplaying find themselves transported to D&D world.
16. An alien observes and comments on the peculiar habits of humans, for allegedly comic effect.
    1. The alien is fluent in English and completely familiar with various English idioms, but is completely unfamiliar with human biology and/or with such concepts as sex or violence and/or with certain specific extremely common English words (such as "cat").
    2. The alien takes everything literally.
    3. Instead of an alien, it's people in the future commenting on the ridiculous things (usually including internal combustion engines) that people used to use in the unenlightened past.
17. Space travel is wonderful and will solve all our problems. (We agree that space travel is pretty cool, but we'd rather that weren't the whole point of the story.)
18. Man has an awful, shrewish wife; in the end he gets revenge on her, by (for example) killing her or leaving her.
    1. Man is entirely blameless, innocent, mild-mannered, and unobjectionable, and he kills his awful, shrewish wife entirely by accident, possibly in self-defense, so it's okay.
19. Some characters are in favor of immersive VR, while others are opposed to it because it's not natural; they spend most of the story's length rehashing common arguments on both sides. (Full disclosure: one of our editors once wrote a story like this. It hasn't found a publisher yet, for some reason.)
20. Person A tells a story to person B (or to a room full of people) about person C.
    1. In the end, it turns out that person B is really person C (or from the same organization).
    2. In the end, it turns out that person A is really person C (or has the same goals).
    3. In the end, there's some other ironic but predictable twist that would cast the whole story in a different light if the reader hadn't guessed the ending early on.
21. People whose politics are different from the author's are shown to be stupid, insane, or evil, usually through satire, sarcasm, stereotyping, and wild exaggeration.
    1. In the future, the US or the world is ruled by politically correct liberals, leading to awful things (usually including loss of freedom of speech).
    2. In the future, the US or the world is ruled by fascist conservatives, leading to awful things (usually including loss of freedom of speech).
22. Superpowered narrator claims that superhero stories never address the mundane problems that superheroes would run into in the real world.
23. A princess has been raped or molested by her father (or stepfather), the king.
24. Someone comes up with a great medical or technological breakthrough, but it turns out that it has unforeseen world-devastating consequences. (Again, this is a perfectly good plot element, but we're not thrilled when it's the whole point of the story.)
25. It's immediately obvious to the reader that a mysterious character is from the future, but the other characters (usually including the protagonist) can't figure it out.
26. Someone takes revenge for the wrongs done to them.
    1. Protagonist is put through heavy-handed humiliation after humiliation, and takes it meekly, until the end when he or she murders someone.
27. The narrator and/or male characters in the story are bewildered about women, believing them to conform to any of the standard stereotypes about women: that they're mysterious, wacky, confusing, unpredictable, changeable, temptresses, etc.
28. Strange and mysterious things keep happening. And keep happening. And keep happening. For over half the story. Relentlessly. Without even a hint of explanation.
    1. The protagonist is surrounded by people who know the explanation but refuse to give it.
29. Author showcases their premise of what the afterlife is like; there's little or no story, other than demonstrating that premise.
    1. Hell and Heaven are run like businesses.
    2. The afterlife is really monotonous and dull.
    3. The afterlife is a bureaucracy.
    4. The afterlife is nothingness.
    5. The afterlife reunites you with your loved ones.
30. Brutal violence against women is depicted in loving detail, often in a story that's ostensibly about violence against women being bad.
    1. Man is forced by circumstances or magic to rape a woman even though he really doesn't want to, honest.
    2. The main reason for the main female character to be in the story, and to be female, is so that she can be raped.
31. Evil people hook the protagonist on an addictive substance and then start raising the price, ruining the protagonist's life.
32. Fatness is used as a signal of evil, dissolution, and/or moral decay, usually with the unspoken assumption that it's completely obvious that fat people are immoral and disgusting. (Note: This does not mean all fat characters in stories must be good guys. We're just tired of seeing fat used as a cheap shorthand signifier of evil.)
    1. Someone wants to kill someone else, and that's perfectly reasonable because, after all, the victim-to-be is fat.
    2. The story spends a lot of time describing, over and over, just how fat a character is, and how awful that is.
    3. Physical contact with a fat person is understood to be obviously revolting.
33. Protagonist agrees to go along with a plan or action despite not having enough information about it, and despite their worries that the thing will be bad. Then the thing turns out to be bad after all.
34. Teen's family doesn't understand them.
35. Twee little fairies with wings fly around being twee.
36. Sentient toys, much like the ones from Toy Story, interact with each other.
37. In a comedic/satirical story, vampires and/or other supernatural creatures come out publicly and demand (and/or get) the vote and other rights, but people are prejudiced against them.

You can see the original list here: http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction.shtml

Multiplayer: Losing a friend and winning the world

I was fascinated with the option of multiplayer game for the PlayStation 3 Uncharted 2. Have you ever played? If not, learn more at http://www.naughtydog.com/. Simply perfect. The gameplay can not be compared to any other gender. I am not a declared fan of FPS or any hybrid that has guns and bullets in the middle, but Uncharted 2 can be so a great game that it catchs up even with players with other preferences. Even RPG players like me do not escape from this masterpiece, winning, no less than 25 review scores. All perfect. In multiplayer mode, you choose your character, and may fall between villains or heroes. Every opponent that you complete a kill, you earn medals that give you points and money. And your level goes up as that. There are many modalities. The classic deathmatch, elimination and other recreational basis. I draw attention to the plunder, which looks more like a mixture of the flag game with firefight. Very funny.

Now I'm going to another game that has bullets in the middle. Resident Evil 5, Playsation 3. You may be wondering: Are you not going to talk about RPGs? And what does that Uncharted 2 have do to with it? Calm down, I'll get to it. Resident in his style has attracted thousands of fans and being an established brand is not afraid to add to the single player the option of cooperation with a second player. Both simultaneously playing the same story and cooperative mode, fully offline. The idea seemed good. I saw people playing in pairs at video stores and it reminded me of the time with my cousins when we played shooting games. And they always detonated me. It was the Nintendo 64 game Goldeneye James Bond. During this time, the screen could be divided up to 4 parts. It Was quite small, but all the cousins were playing and shooting each other. No need to talk of  the popcorn or soda, do I? Good times.

Now lets get to my point. Playing with friends and cousins is seeming to lose its space for the massive multiplayer mode in which I play with strangers. If there is cooperation or not, the online becomes a lonely land where the pleasure of playing with family or friends seems to be fading. We should get it all from representative avatars and virtual friendships. Many have no problem with that. I personally don´t have. I even prefer to stay alone in the world of imagination. The problem is that there is not just you and me in the world. When a Game designer thinks the Project of a Game, he should be prepared to have his game reaching for his target audience. If your audience also has the desire to play a game with two or more players at home, he must design to fit this profile as well.

I believe in RPGs is no different. The MMORPGS are there to prove it. I have my guild, knows the ups and downs, I am a PK badass but if there was the possibility of integrating a game mode in which the family or friends could CASUALLY play, I call the attention for the casually because the output for that many players find is simply call a friend to play a MMORPG and this will have to have dedication to follow the level of the group and even become addicted to it.

My opinion is that just as the cooperation of Resident Evil 5 was thought as well as the player two, as it use to be called, this should be added to the multiplayer in general. If in Uncharted 2 I had the option of playing with my cousin without needing that he also bought the game and the PS3, if I only had to handle the control so He could become the second player, it would be at least interesting. We could play with family and cousins in the same video games and online.

A creative way to think about score

You may be wondering what the hell is this picture? Well, this is a very good score from Asteriods, game developed by Atari at the time of Arcade´s Golden Age. And if you know the game you also may be surprised to learn that it is far away from the world record of 41,338,740 points which is won by John McAllister on April 6, 2010 after spending over 58 hours without stopping playing.
This is the arcade:

Right, just found that people really nerdy like you and me can accomplish about destroying many asteroids without letting the little aircraft explodes. So what? Well, at this time in the dawn of Atari, the games were so hard that the only objective were not see the end.  Even the programmers did not make the ending. This is it. Shoot until the aircraft explodes, counting with the human mistakes and tired body. The objective was simple to see who got the highest score and that was fun. On Snes we can also see games very hard, altough we can see the endings and be able to reach it (sometimes). Below, a classic score game: 



We can see so many FPS titles that the score is abouting teams. Score is really fun and estimulate the competitiveness. The problem about Score is that one way or another you reach your maximum point or your aircraft explodes or your Mario loses the last life. And those points may only be useful in the end and for comparison with others players or just to yourself pride. The game is over.


A creative way to think about Score being still useful during the game is the possibilty to convert it on benefits to the player. Example, lets take our genre RPG. If during a battle against monsters, the warrior survives and therefore acumulate points, those points could be used to convert on an important item to his survival in the dangerous world of adventure. Or itens that make the story move.


Proportionally, more points means best items and best benefits to the player. That way he will be estimulate to gather a higher score and he will see that his points has a funcion and they are not an ornament that most nowadays players ignore.


The Score Generation has passed, but the games still report points and remain counting. Even being an ornament with none revelance to the story the points are still there. Play, look and see. They are making their presence and reminding us that yesterday the Games were pure mathematics.


The challenge today is to give meaning and context to that mathematics.


 

An example of Simplicity

I'll start with a nostalgic game: Phantasy Star I. Around the year 1993, my cousin presented me a game that I had no idea that would change forever the way I see the games. And how fascinating they can be when you engage in a fictional reality where everything you want to do is just to participate more and more of it. See what end the adventure of Alis, Odin, Myau and Noah will come.

Putting the story as a strong point, we arrive at the most important that is its simplicity in gameplay. The combination of the player's motivation to see what happens next, with few commands / actions possible in the game universe such as: Do Alis walking on the map, when in combat Choose an option from the menu : Attack, Magic, Item, Talking, Running. That's it. This is enough to create an RPG so memorable and beloved by those who have played and know what I'm talking about. The player does not care if the options are few. He did not even watch it.

The fun is produced. The art even for a Sega Master System is beautiful is it not? Distinct. And who does not remember the tune of the mazes more difficult? Just below will drink a toast to you.

   

I brought up Phantasy Star I, my friends, to warn us of something. Surely you already have noted the games nowadays. Today, the RPG games are disposable. Increasingly empty, repetitive and long. What do you think happened, for example, with Final Fantasy after the edition X? There is even a reflection in sales. Search on google there will not be hard to find.

I bring to the discussion: Why do RPG games from the past like Final Fantasy VII, VI, Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star I are so good, call us so much attention and has a replay so appealing? While today's technologies as promising as the future PCI Express 3.0, bring us pleasure in the eyes only? (There are always exceptions).

Of course, I'm not saying to go back to 8-bits. It is not just a technology issue. It is a question of game design. What should the RPG today learn from these good old classics? What should be thrown away?

I believe that there is no final answer to this, friends. And without much thought and research we can not reach a consensus. Anyway, here is a thought. An idea called Simplicity. And maybe she can be a kick-off for the RPG today.

Since this does not happen, You Can Play the oldies you like.
Recall here the intro of Phantasy Star.



Cya soon.