Here is something that echo’s what HumanDebris touched on a little in his last post. I’ll take the basic idea of what he was getting at and tell my take on it. I’m only going to cover the specific genre of computer games, as that is the only kind of games I play right now. Gameplay and Stories. Do they co-exist or is one more important than the other? First I’ll let one of Doom’s creator’s have his say (from this article):

“Story in a game,” says John Carmack of Id Software, “is like story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.”…

Now personally just like with the quote above the story of a game is just something secondary to my experience playing a game. Of course it really depends on the type of game.

Recently I started to replay Soldier Of Fortune 2. And I found myself very irritated I couldn’t skip the little movies that setup the level in the game. Granted this game is a first person shooter and like Carmack said it’s not that important. FPS are games that just don’t need stories. Because when you come right down to those games core gameplay all you have is killing shit and finding keys and toggling switches. Take for example Half Life. This was a first person shooter that had a real story to it. And don’t get me wrong it is a great game. But honestly what do you do in it? You kill shit and find keys or toggle switches.

And after first person shooters we come to the real time strategy games. Once again I find that the story of a rts game is secondary for me. Again at it’s core it’s about killing shit and building bases, units, and harvesting resources. Now all of this can be done without a story getting in the way. That’s why these games are so popular to play online. I doubt if you get on Battle.net and play a game of Starcraft that your opponent is going to give two shits about the story going on in the game. He’s going to zerg your ass and make fun of you if you lose. The story doesn’t matter. It’s secondary to the gameplay.

That’s why you don’t hardly see co-op online multi-play as an option with these two types of games. When is the last time you ran through a fps co-op? When is the last time you played a rts game co-op through the single player campaign? In fact that’s why developers don’t bother with co-op im most of these games. Take Halo for example. On the X-Box it had a kick ass co-op mode. It was fun to play along with someone in the single player game. But does the Halo pc version have co-op? No. Because the developers knew it would be a waste of time. Can you even think of a rts or fps pc game that had online co-op play? I can’t. Especially fps games. Because once again it’s just not something that is needed. Story in a fps? Who needs it. Story in a rts? If you must.

Which brings me to role playing games. Online or off. It’s rpg’s that I even care if the story is good. But it’s because of the nature of these games that I care about the story being good. Because lets be honest here. The grind of these types of games needs a story to keep you from quiting. The grind is the constant treadmill you run as you kill things and do quests to get experience to level yourself up. That’s why I have such a hard time keeping myself going in Dark Age of Camelot. The story in that game is transparent. It just is fluff for the realm versus realm portion of gameplay. Which in Camelot is just a more advanced form of a first person shooter when it comes down to it.

Gameplay is more important than a good solid story. I don’t even care if the game has all the fancy 3d accelerated nonsense going on. Sure it looks nice, but to me 3d graphics are like the story of a game. It’s secondary to the gameplay. Of course this can’t apply to all of these games. While the Infocom text based games had both decent stories and gameplay that worked, I can’t see a fps being done as a text based game. Rpg’s work as text only games. But that’s again because of the gameplay behind that genre. Theres something about stats and percentages that just don’t need to be graphically accelerated to enjoy. So when it comes right down to it, gameplay is king for me. Story and even fancy 3d graphics are just secondary.

It’s a question that one time or another every employee thinks to themselves. I know I have in the past. I’ve thought to myself back in the old days “if these stupid fucks can do it, I can”, of course the option to become management never became something I had to worry about in the old days. But it is a question that a person asks themselves, even if they will not admit it.

Everyone wants to be in charge. Especially when your young and ambitious. It’s just the way it is. The problem of course is if you get rejected. Or even worse if your not even ever asked. I spent a lot of time being angry because I was never even asked to become a front desk manager. But as one ages and loses that fire that pushes you ahead you find out getting angry and spending time worrying about it just isn’t worth it. Sometimes it’s better not being a boss. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. My adventure in that la la land was more trouble than it was worth. It’s a lot simpler just being a peon. The pay you get just isn’t worth the all the shit you have to deal with.

And for someone to want to be a manager at the current hotel I work at is sheer folly. If your asked to become a manager at that place don’t walk away. Run! Run like your life depended on it. Of course the current staff at the hotel doesn’t have anything to worry about. There’s only one person at the front desk qualified to be front desk manager if the present one quits and they won’t ask him. And no I’m not talking about me.

The thing that I’m concerned about is that some people at the hotel are thinking about all this. Do your job and just put all the thought of becoming boss behind you. It won’t happen anyway. They didn’t ask anyone at the desk to be management before the new front desk manager came in. And they won’t ask when the new front desk manager leaves. And I would stop acting like a boss.

And while I’m on this subject. I don’t appreciate hearing from a co-worker about how I’m making mistakes at work, only to find out it was just a fucking desk clerk that was saying this. It’s not your fucking job to critique me. You would think that a person would have enough sense to worry about themselves. The situation can get a lot worse at the hotel. So concentrate on yourself and let the correct people to do the management.

Back to the topic of “video” games. Gawain has his own ideas and I don’t disagree with his overall point. But I do disagree with what he’s forgetting to say. Here is a sample from his post:

The reason is very simple. Like popular music, video games are now tailored to the lowest common denominator. The same people who think Fred Durst is cool also really really like polygons and lens flares and as many high quality particle effects in their video games as possible. And like all of Limp’s music, these games start off really great on the outside, and then go straight to shit when you realize that all they have is “outside.”

While the above could be very well true there is one thing he forgets to bring up. Why are the developers making these kinds of 3d over accelerated games? Other than the fact that the general game buying audience want’s that kind of drivel. I think the developers of these games are lazy. It’s to easy to have the 3d accelerated graphics be the star of the game.

Now I don’t think all of the game developers are like that. I would have to point you to the guys at Bethesda who have a game called Morrowind. You can’t say Morrowind is a cookie cutter 3d accelerated game. It’s a work of art and it has all the gameplay you would need. And I can think of a few other games that have 3d graphics and good gameplay. Granted there aren’t a huge number of them that I could list, so maybe Gawain is right when it comes right down to it.

I still think he’s overly harsh on Warcraft 3. I like that game and have to disagree on all the issues he has with the game. Of course I could be basing my judgment of Warcraft 3 by my wanting of World of Warcraft. I also have high hopes that WoW will fix all the issue he mentions about Dark Age of Camelot. We just have to wait for the game to come out to see if it fixes the treadmill problems of all other mmorpgs and I think it will.

After iming me every day since the initial conversation the kid finally got on my nerves:

Session Start (Turk:Wannabe Webhost): Fri Feb 27 04:52:25 2004
[04:52] Wannabe Webhost: hi
[04:52] Turk: hi
[04:52] Wannabe Webhost: can you host my forum
[04:53] Turk: no
[04:53] Wannabe Webhost: why
[04:54] Turk: have you even been to my site/forum?
[04:54] Wannabe Webhost: can I see it and what is the link
[04:54] Turk: so you don’t even know my url?
[04:54] Wannabe Webhost: can I see it
[04:55] Turk: you just picked me off the phpBB forum list?
[04:55] Wannabe Webhost: nope.
[04:55] Turk: so how did you get my aim name?
[04:55] Wannabe Webhost: phpbb forums
[04:55] Turk: just at random?
[04:56] Turk: or have you bugged others as well?
[04:56] Wannabe Webhost: nope. I didn’t
[04:56] Turk: so I’m special then
[04:57] Wannabe Webhost: I will block you if you say something else bad
[04:57] Turk: I’m not trying to be mean
[04:57] Turk: you imed me
[04:57] Wannabe Webhost: ok. so tell me… can you host my forum
[04:57] Turk: no
[04:57] Wannabe Webhost: why????
[04:57] Turk: because I said no
[04:58] Turk: I think blocking is a good idea
[05:02] Wannabe Webhost: ok
[05:02] Turk: Hotelblues.com is my site, learn about someone before you try to con them
[05:04] Wannabe Webhost: you put a conversation of me in your update
[05:04] Turk: yeah
[05:04] Wannabe Webhost: why?
[05:05] Turk: do I have to explain everything to you?
[05:05] Turk: how old are you?
[05:05] Wannabe Webhost: 11. and you are an idiot
[05:05] Turk: yes that could be
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: you are AN IDIOT
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: IDIOT
[05:06] Turk: I agree
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: IDIOT
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: IDIOT
[05:06] Turk: yep
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: IDIOT
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: IDIOT
[05:06] Turk: yep
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: IDIOT
[05:06] Turk: sure am
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: IDIOT
[05:06] Turk: I’m an idiot?
[05:06] Wannabe Webhost: and delete my conversation
[05:06] Turk: no
[05:07] Wannabe Webhost: ok. diiiif
[05:07] Turk: huh?
[05:08] Turk: remember I’m an idiot
[05:08] Wannabe Webhost: I’m blocking you **** idiot
[05:08] Turk: ok
[05:08] Turk: bye

All this is making think about toggling that setting in Trillian that only let’s people on my list im me. Oh and I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t let this get me mad, but it does. I’m getting to old to have to deal with a 11 year olds shit. He’s blocking me? Jeez that is ironic.

Well after 32 days, 18 hours, and 14 minutes of total played time in Dark Age of Camelot I finally dinged 50. I’ll update my little picture later (it still says 49) because I’m still playing. I oddly enough feel pretty happy for finally dinging. I guess I should be happy. Anyway now all I can say is “bring on World of Warcraft!”

So it’s March again. Which means I’m getting older again. And that is a sore spot for me. I don’t age gracefully, in fact I get worse at it each year. I don’t like getting older. It’s something I have to deal with. I’m just not very good at it.

I go through this kind of post every year. Maybe it’s my way of dealing with it. I can’t but feel that getting a year older just means I’m a year closer to death’s door. Maybe that’s what the problem really is. The big sleep isn’t something I’ve spent to much time worrying about in the past.

But now for some reason it’s been bugging me. I’ll wake up at night and just not be able to get the thought that I’m going to die out of my head. I don’t know why all of the sudden this is something that worries me. I’ll get over it I’m sure. I’m going to have to. It’s just the way it is. You live and you die.

In an effort to support Gawain in his crusade of not updating his site I have decided to join him in his silence. I will not break this “vow of silence” until he does. I say we all support the big G in this manner. Be it blog, diary, or website. Don’t update. Do it for the entire web blogging, diary, or website community.