Of Strategy and Late Posts

Hey, folks. It's the Hill Giant again. We've been lax in posting, as the whole three of you who might read this have no doubt noticed. I'm not going to make any wild insinuations that this will change anytime soon, but we are endeavoring to perhaps deliver content a tad more consistently. No guarantees, but at least it's effort. Now, on to stuff you may care about.

In case I haven't made it clear in my previous post or two, I am a huge fan of strategy. This is not to say that I am well-versed in RTS games such as Starcraft, but rather that I enjoy breaking down the inner workings of whatever game I happen to be playing and seeing what makes it tick. And there are, unsurprisingly, a few consistencies throughout pretty much the whole of gaming. Most notably, there's a human element. If a group of human beings is given a win condition, a lose condition, and the freedom to make choices, you can bet that there will be vast differences in how they go about things. The preferences can be see in a game as basic as Mario Bros. Do you go for the terrain-generating goodness of the Ice Flower, or the coin-spawning kill power of the Fire Flower, or do you alternate consistently? Do you use powerups before every stage, or do you jealously hoard them? Do you stick to the ground or attempt to find a high road? The list goes on. In general, these are called play styles, and I wanted to break them down as far as competitive games are concerned. This is talking about gaming in broad strokes, so I'll also describe broadly. Please note that not all terms here are industry standard.

Wondering what the deuce I'm talking about? When people compete, there is always more than one way to the goal. The choosing of more than one option is what lends a dynamic feel to competitive play. Understanding how we can break these down is pretty important. In a nutshell, we'll be talking in the broad categories of offense, stall, balance, and control. These are elements that come together to make a style, and styles are generally categorized by what is favored or ignored here. It is worth noting that in an ideal game, all of these elements could be used viably. Ease of play is always a factor, but two players of equal skill should be able to play however they want.

And to clear up any misconceptions about what it is, control, simply put, is the ability to make decisions in a game. When control play is not a factor, each player has about equal decision making power in how the match goes. Control play is the spending of resources to be able to gain more decision-making power, either by attempting to restrict your opponent's choices or to make your own choices more absolute. Many people will complain about it, say it's frustrating or cheap, that it's the only effective way to play, and other such nonsense. Fact is, control is part of games and it is just as dealable as any other thing. One must always bear in mind that control uses resources just like anything else. When resources are spent on control play, there should be a shortage in another area.

So, to start things off, let's talk offense. Offense, I've noticed, is a hilarious thing. It's often called a n00b tactic due its near omnipresence among inexperienced players, so it fades out after a while of play, but it generally suddenly comes highly praised by the veteran players. The premise is simple: aggressively pursue the win condition. In many games, that means trying to kill everything on the wrong end of you.

Offensive play manifests in many different ways. Perhaps the most notable is hyper offense (also called beatdown), a high-risk/high-reward style that forsakes almost every other game element to generate offensive pressure. The philosophy here is that the best defense is a good offense, and the best offense is still more offense. "Glass cannon" is a term generally associated with hyper offense, and the style favors very low-maintenance pieces with a fast and favorable output. Hyper offense works by trying to keep the opponent from having time to respond and trying to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible, often resorting to damage tactics that may have a downside to capitalize on the greater up-front. In general, the style is foiled by being able to consistently weather its onslaught and prey on its lack of defense. (Note that having a lose condition doesn't make the style bad; it's just what a player needs to bear in mind.)

Bulky offense, or offensive tanking is a rather different approach. Instead of favoring glass cannon tactics, a bulky offensive style will rely on much less flimsy sources of power. Downside attacks are used much more sparingly here, as your damage dealers are presumably in for a long haul. As opposed to hyper offense, bulky offense generally loses speed, damage, or both to be able to deal its damage more often. As such, the onslaught can be easier to weather in the short term, but it has an easier time functioning over long periods of time. Setup is a much more viable trick in bulky offense.

In some games, there's a thing I like to call reverse beatdown. Where as hyper offense tends to take a "mine's bigger" approach, the thought here is more along the lines of "yours is smaller". Reverse beatdown relies on trying to weaken or mitigate the stats of your opponent's pieces to plow through them. It's just as aggressive as other offense styles, but it tends to be much harder to maintain and is very appreciative of control elements. The general weakness here is that the components of a reverse beatdown strategy may not be able to stand up to the opposition's full strength, so plan accordingly.

What's that? You don't want to just sit there and hit things? There's a style for that. Whereas offense aggressively pursues the win, stall tries to make your opponent lose. This is not just semantics; this a vast difference of approach. Whereas offense just tries to make the best of the time it has and pursue its own victory in that time frame, defensive play tries to run out the clock (sometimes making one is necessary, depending on what you play).

Pure stall, or walling is the legendary prolonger of all things. It's like hyper offense put on backwards; it tries to do a whole lot of sitting there until the opponent rolls over and perishes. Whether this is by decking out, residual damage, or other means is up to the game and the player. Pure stall attempts to weather any and all assaults without batting an eyelash, either by reducing damage to nothing or healing it off. This does come at a price, though. Pure stall is often loath to attack, if it's even able to. Much like beatdown has glass cannons, stall has components completely bereft of the ability to deal direct damage, and pure stall will probably favor the improved durability of these things. Like all stall, pure stall is dealt with by breaking through its defenses and attempting to leave it with things that cannot wall what you have remaining effectively.

Given the sheer difficulty of playing pure stall (a pretty universal constant), some players like to be a little more proactive in their defense. Defensive tanking comes in here. Offensive tanking and defensive tanking may favor the exact same resources, just applied differently. The difference is most notable in a game where a tank can set up to deal damage while taking hits versus digging in and eventually striking back. Conversely to offensive tanking, your primary job is still to weather blows without being offensively impotent. Similarly to how bulky offense eats it out of speed or damage, defensive tanking eats it out of speed or defense, but generally has vastly superior damage to its pure stalling counterpart.

Defense can do a very different schtick by integrating control elements and speed. Quickstalling, also known as annoyance (not a judgement call; "annoyer" is an actual designation), is the bizarre art of trying to outpace foes and render their win attempt moot. Quickstall runs out the timer by not letting your opponent establish a solid presence in the first place. Annoyers tend to rely more on their ability to move faster than sheer bulk, and can usually be dealt with easier if you can actually establish momentum against them.

Now, if I made it sound like offense must oppose defense and vice versa, don't take it that way. Offense and defense are generally crafted with opposition to the other in mind, but would be remiss to not offer answers to their own strategy. The fun bit is that if all playstyles are equal, then any match defers to whoever applies theirs better. Offensive styles will try "wallbreaking" defensive ones, while defensive ones will try to stall out offense, but stall wars and the "who can beat the other to death first?" game do happen. The rules of engagement don't change any when both players try to accomplish the same end goal, but the general dynamic of the match does.

And on the topic of preparing for all strategies, we can discuss balanced playstyles. While a good offensive or defensive style is able to respond to a wide range of threats, nothing says versatility like balance. Balanced play combines elements of other playstyles with some of its own to attempt to respond to a wider threat range or have more victory conditions. Since balance is not widely discussed and labeled in my experience (they just call it "balance"), I'm gonna make up some terms as I go. You have been warned.

Balanced play comes in many forms. At its most rudimentary, one can literally combine pieces of other playstyles to make a new playstyle. Polarized balance, or chimera play is where the elements of both offense and defense make a resurgence trying to work together. This form of balance is relatively easy to play, but it's very hard to master. The offensive things hit things like they would normally, and the defensive things just soak damage as always. The hard part is knowing when to use them. The downside to a chimera strategy is that it tends to develop a "lynchpin" piece that the entire strategy is leaning on at any moment. This piece can change as the match progresses, but losing it could make everything else topple with it.

As for the incorporation of its own unique elements, balance may call on things whose versatility is intrinsic. Inherent balanced, or jack-of-all-trades style aims to combine things with a wide range of talents. The old phrase does tend to ring true, though. The jack-of-all-trades style is generally the master of none. Much like tanks lost potency in exchange for being less one-sided, a good game will not have something that does everything exceptionally well. The hard part of inherent balanced play is learning to make do with things that don't excel at anything. The upside is that the inherent lack of focused excellence tends to be the only weakness, but working around that is the true difficulty of this style.

Balanced offensive and balanced defensive are basically the use of the respective playstyle with thought given to threat management. Alternatively, it's the use of a balanced style with a distinct offensive or defensive preference, respectively. Not much to say here; it's the tank factor on a broader level.

I would be remiss not to mention the "ultimate n00b strategy" here, also known as trash can style. Trash can play is simply a combination of anything that's on hand, not necessarily falling under polarized or inherent balanced styles. This is called a n00b strategy due to "combine it and see if it works" phase most players go through, or even the "if I put all my best stuff together, I'm sure to win" mindset. There is a mastery to be had here, though. Trash can play can utilize less obvious synergies, turning a ragtag bunch into something effective. The general lack of cohesion will generally be there, though, and that can be exploited.

Now, for all the other bits I hadn't gotten to yet. I touched very briefly on control play as a style, and the reverse beatdown and quickstall strategies are facets of offensive control and defensive control. The idea here is to apply control strategy to generate offensive pressure with more ease, or to help run out the clock. What's the difference, you ask? It's how you go about it. Reducing or healing off incoming damage is stall, but making the attack not happen in the first place is control. Hitting so hard their defense can't take it is offense, but removing the ability for something to defend itself is control. It's not any kind of ultimate style; it's just a methodology.

Balanced control deserves a mention here. This is my playstyle of choice, but I don't have much to gush about here. Balanced control mandates that you not forsake your ability to actually respond to threats in your quest to make them not be there in the first place, and I find this works best as a variant on trash can play. Sounds easier than it is, but the upside is the sheer difficulty opponents have countering. Of course, balanced control tends to have the lynchpin problem of chimera play, only worse. The trick is to attempt to keep disabling you from being an option.

You may also hear of gimmick strategies. A gimmick is just a cute trick that you can do in game context, but they can be devastatingly effective. Gimmicks fall into many categories, such as the one-trick pony, the one-off strategies, surprise factor, and lots o' setup. The term gimmick does not mean "non-viable", but they tend to be the most high-risk/high-reward strategies; if left unchecked, their effects can range from wacky to devastating. In other words, a gimmick will attempt to change the rules of engagement in a unique and difficult to handle way. In general, though, they are easier to counter than "consistent" strategies. Don't forsake them because they're trouble; stop and enjoy them. Even if they don't have consistent payout, you are playing to have fun, so try something you enjoy every once in a while.

Sadly, no game is perfectly balanced. Most try, and many can come close, but, especially in collectables games, mistakes are made. Insinuations of things being overpowered or underpowered are thrown around all the time. They're nebulous; understanding what's bad and what's cheap requires a base understanding of what is intrinsically good.

In general, when a game element can perform up to par with most comparable game elements, it is intrinsically good. Determining this is harder than it sounds, but you get a feel eventually. That feel helps define other game elements. Cheese is what performs better than comparable pieces with no or too little downside. Cheesed things are also called cheap or broken. When something is just better with no help at all from the player, it's intrinsically broken. When fair components are exploited by a player to create a no-win scenario, that is cheesing out or munchkining. For example, a character in a fighting game who is better than every other character at everything is intrinsically broken, but taking a character whose entire moveset pans out ok when it's all used and just spamming a single, hard to counter move because it can create an infinite loop is munchkining. Now, this is not to be confused with synergy effect, when things are combined to be more effective together than they were apart. The general test here is whether something can be beaten by a fair sampling of things, but it's hard (synergy), or whether it must be specifically countered or cannot be countered at all (cheese).

So, what makes something bad as opposed to everything else being cheap? Simply put, percentages. When the large majority of a game is at a specific power level, things that simply cannot perform to that standard are intrinsically bad or outclassed, whereas things that are overall weak, but still outshine every other game element at something particular are gimmicky. But, this is relative to a percentage. If something cheap comes up, and everything else is dragged UP to its power level, then it's no longer comparatively cheap, right? This effect is called power creep. It also occurs in collectables games when strictly better things are released to deliberately outclass what came before, thus "forcing" sales.

All of this being said about play style and balance, let's talk about this "metagame" thing you may have heard discussed before. A game is an environment in which players use resources to attempt to achieve a goal for fun. A metagame is the study of how people are playing the game on any scale. Metagame analysis dictates what's good and bad based on a combination of intrinsic worth and how other people play. While this doesn't sound like a bad idea, it has a darker side.

Advocating a metagame generally means the popularization of certain game elements. This can cause other elements to have trouble performing, not because of being inherently bad, but because of the omnipresence of a specific thing. (And let me just say that in games with literally hundreds of options open, a singular thing should not be in every match ever.) This leads to an effect called metagame distortion, in which the viability curve (the sampling of usable elements in a game) is thrown off and diminished because the environment no longer permits some things.

It's hard to explain this without being specific, so let's look at Yu-Gi-Oh! for a moment. And I mean old YGO, back before even GX. Trap cards are one of three big card types in the game. The idea is for them to be delayed, but potent and usable out of turn. Traps started off with some pretty powerful ones, but they had to keep getting better. Why? It's not like the traps getting outclassed were bad per se. But, the competitive scene advocated the need for Jinzo in every deck. Jinzo is a monster who made Trap cards literally not work. As such, decks would only include the one or two Trap cards in the entire game that could possibly stop Jinzo from hitting the field in the first place, and those so ludicrous in power level that you'd be remiss not to include them. The answer to make people use traps again was to keep printing better ones. Again, it's not like traps were ever bad. But the competitive metagame created an artificial need for these cards to be better.

Now, you may point out that the need was not artificial, and that the omnipresence of Jinzo made it real. And that may technically be true, except for 2 things. First is that there is never a requirement in the first place for Jinzo to be in a deck, or even owned by every player (it was Super Rare, after all), just the expectation that he'd be present in EVERY GAME. Again, this should not be an expectation in a game with thousands of cards out there. The other problem is that the creation of better traps meant more decks would need an answer to them. Like Jinzo. The problem is exacerbated by caving to the distorted metagame, because trying to rationalize Traps like that makes Jinzo a bigger fixture in the metagame than before, except power creep happened along the way, too.

Story time aside, the answer is to play games in a way that works for you and is enjoyable, not the way everyone else says you should be playing them. Creating a restrictive metagame is just bad for the gaming experience as a whole, I think, especially in options-rich games. I also encourage gamers to experiment with different play styles; a break from your norm can be both fun and informative, and being able to adopt a new style effectively is a very useful skill.

That's all from me for now. Happy gaming!

The Apocatoilet, Hoverbikes, and Burt Reynolds...

ok on November 15, 2011 at about 10am I was fist in the door to pick up a copy of Saints Row the third.

I had the story of the game beaten by that Thursday (even with my limited play time schedule). I have to say, I loved it, I have not had this much fun playing a video game since ... ... well I think since the last Saints Row game. I give it a 4.75 out of five.

and here is why:

ok I will endeavor to do this with as few spoilers as possible and will focus mostly on gameplay stuff and not on story: suffice it to say I loved the story to no end and that part alone gets a 5/5.

this game is sheer unadulterated FUN!

The second game for those who missed it followed your character (the Leader/ Boss/ generic non gender title) as they rebuilt the Third Street Saints and retook the city of Still water from three rival gangs and a corporation. It was wacky, cooky, fun. You could do things like drive a septic truck around and spray sh*t on houses (for points!), streak (for points!), and blow up stuff (for points) the list can actually go on.

In between games the Third Street Saints have become celebrities (as the star wars style word crawl set to the 2001 theme explains at the beginning of game three). You wind up in the city of Steelport with a new Nemesis, "The Syndicate", a group consisting of three gangs working together to destroy you, "The Luchadores" (a Mexican wrestling themes game), "The Deckers" (CYBERPUNK!) and "Morning Star" (slick mafia). This game is heavily influenced by science fiction, including a Tron style in the computer battle that incorporates a text adventure and an old Atari game. This may seem a little weird considering the past two games, that while outrageous, were still grounded in relative reality, but that shows the real genius of Volition by the fact that "Saints Row the Third" still feels like a "Saints Row" game.

Some of my personal favorite activities from the second game are sadly absent (Fuzz- a COPS parody, Septic Avenger - the aforementioned Sh*t Truck) but they were replaced with some other fun stuff, most notably "Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax", a parody of over the top Japanese gameshows that has you running through a trap laden maze shooting people in mascot costumes.

Also new to the game are several choices through the story missions some are mearly choosing a boost to one aspect or another (get more cash in the game or get a more respect, get a discount on weapon upgrades or vehicle customizations) while some are important like which of the two ending do you go for?

Respect has also been revamped, it's no longer need to start missions, now it's a level up system that lets you purchase up grades like less bullet damage (which can eventually become no bullet damage) and nitrous in every car you get in. This was actually pretty fun and I like it.

There are some (by some I mean alot of) new weapons too. Laser rifle, Predator Drone, Air Strikes, Electric Grenades, and my personal favorite the Apocafist.
The Apocafist is a pair of boxing gloves that look like enlarged fists and when you punch people with them the people f*cking explode! It's awesome.

We paired this weapon with a clothing option that makes you a toilet and dubbed the B-Horror Movie result the Apocatoilet. More on the Apocatoilet in later posts.

There is much talent in this game including the lovely and talented Sasha Grey as the voice and likeness for Viola (who I won't give away too much about but let's just say she's great), Hulk Hogan as the ex-Luchadore wrestler Angel, and Burt Reynolds as ... ... ... Mayor Burt F*cking Reynolds of Steelport! Oh and let's not forget he sends you to fight zombies! Burt Reynolds sends you to fight Zombies!!! (ok that is my only spoiler :P) If you don't know who the great Burt Reynolds is, go to netflix, the Internet, or you local still open video rental story and get your hands on Smokey and the Bandit.

This game is Crude, rude, wacky, silly, immature, and (as I've said many times) fun. I highly recommend this Sandbox crime game to anyone who likes to be stupid and goofy from time to time, or even if you just want a really good action game, the plot is good, the new elements are fun, and even the new controls work well. This game is enjoyable, and at the same time does not completely invalidate the game that came before it (a mistake that many sequels make, if I play the new COD do I really need to pick up the last one again? no because it's the same game with diffrent maps).

4.75/5

Now if you'll excuse me the Apocatoilet needs to punch a teleporting cyberpunk schoolgirl with a giant electric hammer in the face ... ... fracking specialists.

"Blood In, Blood Out" ~ Saints Row

When Life Gives You Lemons....

Buy Portal 2 (if you can). I can't be much clearer than that. The game is one of the best I've played. It incorporates everything from the first Portal in addition to a number of new mechanics that make for some very interesting puzzles. The game is also filled with creative dark humor and a better explanation of the story in general. I was also surprised to find that the co-op mode is part of the story as well, so don't neglect it.


If you're still not convinced...


Lemons


In other news, I finally got around to post elite four stuff in Pokemon white and found that there is a lot of it. Some of it is plot related, but much of it involves finding new people to fight to level your team and filling up on money, items, and Pokemon. I still had the problem of being under-leveled for dealing with some of the battles, but in time my team started to catch up. I've been told though that the elite four is in the 70s the next time around, so right now I'm just concerned with getting a few more levels. I did manage to get a hold of a ditto though, so I might start breeding at one point, but my white forest does not have Aron at the moment so I'm a little disappointed.


-Shunloselo

I Am Not a Hill Giant

First off, I would like to say that I have no idea how the hill giant seems to always have so much to write. I'll say right away that have have no intentions of matching him.

On another note, I figured I'd take this time to do a quick rant on the games I've been playing recently since I've got the time.

1: Digimon World: Dawn

Honestly it seems a lot like Pokemon since you get to bring a party of six monsters with you to fight other monsters that are either wild or following other tamers. Just like Pokemon, the battle system is turned based and awards experience so that you can turn your monsters into stronger monsters. This is about where the similarities end. One of the biggest differences, and possibly the most important, is the ability to degenerate your monsters, or return them to a previous form. Degenerating and digivovling both reset the monster's level to one but keep some semblence of its level-up stats, so its possible to max out the stats of a digimon by chaning its form as much as possible. The downside to this is each form has a level prereq. and it can take a long time to get the high level forms multiple times. The game also has a farm system that allows the player to raise another 32 digimon alongside the ones in his/her party. It's true that the ones on the farm don't grow very fast, but at least its something.

2: Pokemon White

Since I mentioned it in the last post, I figured this would be a good follow-up. I haven't touched the game too much after taking out the Elite four and completing the main plot, but I at least took the effort to visit every area at least once. I will say that I like the changes that were made to the machanics and enjoyed many of the new species. I was really regreting that I could only bring six of them with me. On the other hand, I found that many of the final forms had this annoying tendancy to be a different color from the rest of the line. For example, I felt that axew and fraxure were a great shade of green. It was completely unessecary to follow it up by making haxorus yellow. I didn't stop me from using it, but being a person who chooses his Pokemon mainly by looks, it really is annoying. There was also the issue of the Elite four/ Champion battles capping at level 54 and having my first post game battle be a rotation battle against three level 65s (My highest at that point was 51-51), but I still haven't lost any of those battles so it might be better that way anyway. (Hurray for serperior)

3: Portal

I know this game has been out for forever, but I got a chance to pre-order Portal 2 and got Portal with it, so I took the time to beat it. And then I beat it again. And again... The game really is short, but it is a very well made game with great puzzles and nice dark humor. For anyone that hasn't played/heard of it, I would highly recomend giving it a try, or at least checking out the trailors for Portal 2.

4: Blood Bowl

Completely different from every other game I've mentioned, but just as fun. I don't play much in the way of sports games, but there's something to be said about a bunch of lizardmen beating elves into the ground just to get thier claws on a spike covered ball (5 casulties and 1 death FTW). This game really does take a lot of pratice and studying to get good at it, but with the 20 different races in the legendary edition, there is room for you to pick and choose the strategy that fits you best.

That's all I have for now, so I'm going to end it before I reach Hill Giant length. Good luck and happy gaming.

-Shunloselo

Something Actually Gaming Related

OK, so my introduction here was a bit long-winded and not particularly on-topic, but us Dancing Bottles types are a bit ADD. I'm actually very prone to wax philosophical when I get a notion rattling around in my head for too long.

So, onto games. I beat my copy of Pokemon White version recently, and the whole thing got me thinking...why does Garbodor have bad mouse ears?

Seriously, though, it got me thinking about villains. For those of you adverse to spoilers, read no further, because I'm about to spoil the plot of every Pokemon game ever. (The random 10 y/o kid wins!)

OK, while Pokemon is never a franchise renowned for its plot, I'm gonna stick with it as an example, because it offers us many different types of villains, fewer people mind Pokemon spoilers than, say, Final Fantasy, and N is who got me thinking in the first place.

We can start with the word "villain," which in and of itself seems to convey an evil person. This is not necessarily true. A villain is really just somebody who opposes a hero. They come in many flavors. Pokemon favored an evil villain early on, in the form of Giovanni. Here was a ruthless man who was running all of the organized crime in the Kanto region, seized control of the largest corporation in the country in an attempt to blackmail the CEO into mass-producing the best capture tool known to man for exclusive use by his criminal grunts, ordered the production of the monster known as Mewtwo, and ran all of these operations out of his Gym in Viridian City. After his sound defeat, he sees the error of his ways and vanishes, leaving you to clean up one last mess of his in Cerulean Cave.

These days, we get N, who appears before you, speaking to your Pokemon, speaking of liberation of his "friends" so that humans can never hurt them again. He talks about how his ideal will eventually drive apart people who love Pokemon and the Pokemon they love so much, and how this breaks his heart. When he clearly has the upper hand, he tells you how to oppose him, and asks you to stand as the legendary hero of Unova and try to defeat him, so he can be sure that his ideal is strongest before he completes his plan, which he's only doing for the good of Pokemon so they can be perfect beings again. So, what gives? How did we go from the perfect mafia boss to PETA and still have a working antagonist on our hands?

Villains have some important components. These include (but aren't limited to) character, motive, and plans. Giovanni was shown clearly to have all three, with a personality befitting a mafia don, a very understandable motive of wanting more money and power, and plans that involved a lot of brute force and intimidation. He worked well. N, on the other hand, showed a very kind and empathic personality, a strong desire to liberate Pokemon from perceived suffering, and he planned to reenact the legend of the hero who rallied all of Unova behind him without the need for force. While the two are both polar opposites, they both exist as viable villains because they can fulfill important criteria of being such. For similar reasons, Teams Aqua and Magma fell flat, because they couldn't. Their characterizations were bland, their motives were frankly stupid (a desire to destroy all/most land/water in the world is in no way realistic), and their master plans were to awaken the ancient beasts of legend (with the wrong Orbs) to fight to the death like it said in the legends of old... The same legends that mentioned the fight would be stopped by Rayquaza and his GIANT SPACE LAZOR... And we're left with a facepalming player and hero who has to clean up after a pack of morons.

We as players crave villains we can understand. We don't have to agree; it's often better if we don't. But there is also a market for villains we don't get. Team Aqua and Team Magma were in that category, but failed to deliver us an experience. For villains who did, we can turn to the likes of Cyrus and Cipher. Cipher was a great villainous organization, but it's not because we got their motives. They were hauling in innocent Pokemon, turning them into heartless killing machines, and giving them away to a poverty-torn region, rife with street rats and crooks, and utterly devoid of wild Pokemon. To what end? We're not sure. But that was scary. The plan was something that worried us, because we could extrapolate it to logical conclusions. Maybe Shadow Pokemon had a trigger that would make them obey Cipher. Maybe they were establishing a black market to finance a larger machination. Who knows? And Cyrus? How are we supposed to understand a man with no emotion whatsoever? And the scary part with him is that he WON. His plan was flawless, and only foiled by something he thought didn't exist. We couldn't understand where he was coming from, but he was a terror, because he almost undid the whole world.

Now, moving off of Pokemon, we can put this discussion into the scope of villains as a whole. Villain-crafting is needed in pretty much any series, all in assorted scopes and backgrounds. From the standpoint of a would-be game designer and frequent DM, I can cite one huge pitfall I often see with villain design, and that is the favorite archetypes. Villains have trends, it seems. Some people have a favorite build for the persona and motive, or for how the plans should go. And let me tell you, it gets stale. Villains are so variable. One of the most refreshing moments for me was when, after a long string of complex personas, complicated motives, and borderline agreeable philosophies, I got to a villain who was ready to end the world because of a simple inferiority complex. He was immature, but not totally unrealistic. Remember, not all villains are pure evil, but they can't all be good or ambiguous. Jok the barbarian probably doesn't threaten the world, but the Unholy Goddess Tr'anik probably doesn't care about the remote peasant village. Hell, not all of them even need to pose a threat in the classic sense.

So, in short, we at Dancing Bottles advocate diverse, three-dimensional villains, so keep some of these basic concepts in mind when designing or analyzing villains. For our own projects, we've tried very hard to keep our villains feeling quite alive and variable. For designing your own villains for any purpose, I highly recommend checking out Rich Burlew's take on it instead of just listening to me ramble.

Until next time.

-the Hill Giant

An Unsolicited Philosophical Rant

Greetings to any who may be reading this. It's not often I put my thoughts out for the consideration of the Internet as a whole, and certainly my first time doing so here, so I owe an introduction. Around here, I'm known as the Hill Giant. Just to dispel any preconceptions that may be anchored to such a moniker, it's worth mentioning that I'm currently sitting in the kitchen typing while I cook myself a meal, am wearing a giant fuzzy bathrobe, despise any sport not named dodgeball, and I'm here to talk philosophically. In a nutshell, yes, I am somewhere between 6'9” and 6'11” and weigh well over 400 lbs. (been a while since I last got measured), but I lack the sort of persona one would expect to go with the stature. And that, dear readers, leads me to what I wanted to discuss today.

You ever hear the people bitching that there is no justice in the world? You hear all the stories about the people who work their asses off and still can't make ends meet to feed their starving children, while some fat white guy in a suit rolls around in more money than some countries have to their name (which he got just for being born). But, you don't hear about the people who do good, honest work and live comfortably for it. You hear about Microsoft gobbling up smaller businesses, killing jobs to expand their shoddy software, and trying to establish a monopoly, but you don't hear about Steve Jobs starting in a garage, overcoming the challenges in his path, constantly innovating, giving his loyal customers what they ask for, and being hugely successful for it. And the list goes on. I'm not going to inject too much of my stance on the above issues, as it's rather irrelevant, but their existence should shed some light on a huge discrepancy. If the world is just, why are good people struggling by on a nonlivable minimum wage while 90+ percent of the wealth is with 2% of the population? If the world is unjust, is it just coincidence that the woman who went through college and aimed for a decent career, never giving up and always giving her all, can support her family comfortably for her effort?

The world is always sketchy, wrought in enough shades of gray to constitute a colorblind Crayola box. And yet, we as humans crave the world in black and white. If it could be presented to us an an easy pop-out book format where “right” and “wrong” would jump out of the page at anyone who could be bothered to pull a handy little tab, I'm sure many people would happily take that. So, what gives? Humans are fond of sweeping this discrepancy under the rug by painting a worldview of their own. Everyone has one, and I'm no exception here. There is, however, an underlying problem with worldviews. I say “painting” because it tells the process and the shortcoming, and that shortcoming is just like an artist's canvas. On it is the wondrous world that the artist set out to capture, with everything that was wanted neatly contained. What lies beyond the canvas, however, is unseeable. It seems a safe assumption that the rest of the world mirrors the small portion snapshotted with the canvas, but there's no guarantee. In other words, we see the world in the context we want, and we make these “blind spots” where our canvas runs out. I mean, look at the unjust world example above. The person who wants to see the world as unjust will see the minimum wage people, forced to forever toil for not enough money, but not the people earning a good living for solid effort, and vice-versa for one who wants to see a just world. Organized religion can make this blinding process even easier. After all, there's a convenient book telling all the practitioners what is and isn't good, and what is unknown to the book is either God's newest blessing or some heinous blasphemy, depending on whether or not the old dude in the pope hat likes it. OK, so maybe that's a bit harsh, but point is that these blind spots are there, and can often times border on the ridiculous.
To offer an example, working my job at a convenience store, I once had a black man enter the store, talking blatant Ebonics into his cell phone, iPod blaring hip-hop on earbuds that weren't in, wearing a sports jersey that looked fresh off the high school campus, sporting a plethora of excessively gaudy gold chains and pendants, and he sauntered up to my register and asked for some blunts. I will reiterate that all this man needed to be his perfect walking stereotype was a 40 of Big Bear in hand, and yet, when I asked for his ID for the cigars like I do everyone else, he openly accused me of only asking because he was black. So, here's a man who stood before me as a walking caricature of his own race, and yet he found me racist for a) being white, and b) inconveniencing him. From my side of the counter, the hypocrisy was so blindingly obvious, but he was too absorbed in his own perception of my supposed prejudice against his skin color to notice how ridiculous he was being.

And this brings me to my next point. Worldviews don't just dictate how we react to information, but also how it gets to us in the first place. They give us a context that we filter everything through. This goes back to that whole painting metaphor I was using. Let's say I have a painting of a white adult male, with long brown hair, unkempt robes, and a beard and mustache, sitting cross-legged with his arms open, talking to a bunch of people sitting around him. I paint this man on a blanket in a park in what appears to be 1960's America, and he's a hippie, clearly discussing, peace, casual sex, weed, and whiny protest music. I paint him in ancient Israel and put a holy yellow glow behind his head? Oops, turns out it was Jesus. Distortions happen because we try to put a context to new input. And the worst offenses of this happen when people try to define what's beyond their canvas. If you ask some groups, there's the people they know, and then everyone else is this brainwashed myrmidon, working until they die, unintelligent, consumed by “the system” and forced to buy any product that there's a commercial for. And yet, I have never laid eyes on this myrmidon species that the goths speak of, and the people I come into contact with at random strike me as a more diverse lot than emo kids ever will be. I'm starting to think that these poor drones are like trans fats; they aren't found in a damn thing, but one morning everyone decided to proudly proclaim that they don't contain any to look better. Nevertheless, these “counterculture” groups will all emphasize how each and every constituent member is unique by all differing from this fictitious stereotype in the exact same way.

Where am I going with all this? It's hard to say. I think what I'm getting at here is that people make asses out of themselves by letting narrow and individualized standards define the whole world around them. I've had somebody try to tell me that national security is a joke because one man at a major airport forgot to turn on the metal detector at the start of his shift, and was immediately fired when his mistake was noticed (and yet, according to a research project I did last semester, our enhanced security has saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives). I've heard complaints that the government doesn't respect our Constitutional rights from the same people who expressed lament when they found out that even crackpots like the Westboro Baptist Church were protected by the First Amendment. (Let me say, I think Westboro is a very incorrect, crazed, and disrespectful group who are very deserving of karmic just desserts sooner or later, but as citizens, they do have the rights as us.) Hell, a substantial majority of people see my stature and that I pack Tab A as opposed to Slot B in my pants, and say I should have a deep booming voice, listen to hard rock and metal, have a love of football and basketball, and be able to bench press an SUV. A good 50% of these people immediately assume I'm gay when they find out my voice is a bit softer than they expected, that I listen so gentler music like 80's rock and 90's pop, and that my hobbies include role-playing games and cooking. Why? Because the context associated with my appearance doesn't match how I am, so a reason is quickly produced.

Gamers are often accused of living in their own little worlds. We're said to be escapists, crafting realities to our liking so we don't have to deal with it. In truth, we just catch flack for being honest about doing what everyone else is doing. And perhaps we do it deliberately and with purpose. As I've mentioned, I am aware of the problem of human worldviews, but I can't claim exception to it. That would be pretentious. But, I think people need to understand that they all live in created worlds. People need to open up and understand the worlds of those around them, too. While I can't hold hypocrisy against the unaware, I can attempt to open eyes. Look at the people around you, and most of all, look at yourself. The truth of things is subjective, and it's created by everyone. There is always a bigger picture than you've painted for yourself to look at. Never forget that.

This has been my two cents, also known as the delirious ramblings of a big guy who thinks too much. And with that, I'll sign off until next time, when I bring you something actually gaming-related!

-the Hill Giant

BLOGTOPUS!

... that is all.



all hail the mighty Hobotopus and may we all know his great bum kindness.


"The name's Ash, Housewears." - Ash Williams, "Army of Darkness"