I think I’ve mentioned that I played Everquest for nearly 6 years, haven’t I?

I quit for a variety of reasons, and I tried other MMORPGs, but I didn’t find anything that came close to my experience with Everquest. Over the last year, I’ve toyed with playing it again. [Because I first played it over 10 years ago, I guess this might qualify as retro gaming.] As it turned out, some of my original guild and a couple of my fellow D&D game pals were thinking along the same lines. So, about 5 weeks ago, we met, talked about the classes we’d like to play, and set some ground rules to play it casually [1-2 times a week].

Coming back to the game, I found that much had changed [which didn't include the dreadful interface]. I bought into the original vision of Everquest, that forced grouping allowed them to create a difficult game with extreme risk and reward. It was one of the handful of games where I feared dying, that I put myself at risk even trying to go from one zone to another. Yet, when we took those risks, we found great reward in accomplishing what we did.

Yet, returning to the game, I found much that made me think that the Everquest I loved was gone. In sum, I thought the game had itself turned into a World of Warcraft clone, where levels came easily and fast and where everyone could solo. But then I discovered how much deeper the game is than I thought all these years.

easy like sunday morning

At level 10, my paladin had equipment that exceeded anything my old warrior had when he was in his mid and late 20s.

Money came easily. Again, by level 10, my paladin had 7000 plat. [Actually, I made most of that money in about 6 hours. I looted the crates scattered throughout the tutorial to build up to 40plat and used that speculate in the bazaar.] My level 57 warrior had 10,000 plat to his name.

Experience comes fast, whether it’s in the tutorial zone or in the ‘hot zones’ for high levels. Before our guild disbanded the first time, we thought it was good night if we got 1/2 to 3/4 of a level. Now, it’s not uncommon for our starting and high-level characters to level once or twice in an evening.

Players can now rent mercenaries, which they use to solo or to enhance their group. The mercs seem to be overpowered. For example, when our high-level characters had a couple of mercs, including a cleric, they rarely worried about mana levels and hit points for the mercs.

the epiphany

So, I began to think that this return wasn’t going to be as fun as I hoped. But two things changed my opinion.

First, last week, our very balanced group of 5 went out in search of some tough creatures. When possible, we ignored creatures that conned white or lower. We moved along, clearing out a building of its redundantly named undead creatures. Then we went out further, and I thought that we had found a good pull spot. So, we settled in, pulling yellow and red con creatures. The monk and I settled into a groove of chain pulling.

At this point, I realized how we had somewhat tired of the game . . . endlessly pulling and fighting like clockwork. It was too smooth, too monotonous. Someone suggested that we cross a bridge near us and make our way to some caves.

As we crossed, we drew the attention of a tough mob. Once on the other side of the bridge, we parked and fought it, only to find that another creature attacked. And then another. At one point, we had the original creature and 4 adds, which our enchanter was trying to mesmerize. To make it worse, our cleric had a critical phone call that he had to take. Our group was not wiped, but one character died as the rest of us ran for relative safety.

Even without the phone call, we probably wouldn’t have succeeded. In fact, it might have been worse. The key, tough, is that how the game changed dramatically just by moving a few yards in the game.

Second, over the weekend, a couple of the group played their level 60 characters along with two mercs. I won’t go into detail about their weekend-long adventures, but they did things, visited places, and fought creatures that we had never taken on with our characters before. In short, it opened a new aspect of the game.

When we first played the game, we rarely took on named NPCs, especially as we levelled up. The named ones were often too tough for our group, so we tended to fight by finding a safe pull spot and chain pulling what we could. Sometimes, we went into dungeons, but we rarely took on so many red cons. We found back then, that blue and white creatures were often enough of a challenge.

In both of these experiences, though, the key is that while parts of the game were easier, it was still a game of risk. Even with the mercs, the players found many, many close calls, even running for the zone in a couple of instances. The game still had its risks.

What I realized is the original game could be significantly tougher and, thus, riskier if they forced gamers to play in groups and [later, in multi-group raids], allowing them to create significantly tougher monsters than games before had. Yet, 10 years of improved equipment, a vibrant game economy, and various changes to the gamers allowed them to face even tougher challenges. The game now makes the player more powerful, but the player, especially those long in the tooth like my group, has to change, to go beyond the comfortable. Go now and try to clear the Plane of Justice. Those unexpected and exciting back-and-forth fights are what made the game, and they are still there. You can solo to an extent in the game, but you still need mercs, which you have to pay for and which are limited to one per person.

I think the game has some of the old issues as well as some new ones, but I have to credit the developers for building a more resilient, deeper game than I originally thought. And my friends, being who they are, continue to provide good fun themselves.

As a note, we were amazed to see that the changes include the destruction of a city by giants–the very interesting city of Firiona Vie, with its catapult defenses, is no more.

Maybe I have a high threshold. Or low expectations. But I enjoy games that try something very different, even if not fully successful. So far, I’m enjoying Silent Hill – Shattered Memories immensely, even with its flaws, which lie primarily with the controls. While good most of the time, there are times when the controls feel wonky . . . not working as I expected. Yet, these difficulties are what I actually like about the game in many ways, because the game is pushing towards a more immersive experience.

Glitches can break the immersion, but so can a game that is too easy.

For example, I’m running from the nightmare creatures, and I have to run in precisely the right place to pick up a flare. By then the creatures are on me, and I’m shaking them off, and I can’t quite turn to run towards the door. Or when I have to interact with a device and I can’t get in the right spot easily to do so.

In more than 6 hours playing, I’ve had three, maybe four, of these moments. Honestly, I can’t say that this is more than other games that I’ve played on the 360 recently. But I think the Wii controls accentuate the problem more because of the gestures involved. More physical, more noticeable.

However, I’ve seen several players complain about the lack of combat–that the Wii’s controls for throwing off creatures are too imprecise and involve waggle. I’ve also seen complaints that knowing where to run in the nightmare chase sequences is too hard. Some say that they’re too close to the creatures to use the phone’s map to see where they are and where to go.

When I read complaints such as these, I’m not surprised that Nintendo came up with the idea of in-game help.

But how hard is too hard? In this case, yes, I died a lot in the first chase, and in a later chase, I ran in circles several times [though I only died three times]. As is, the death penalty in the game is non-existent, because you restart at the beginning of the chase in full health. I also found ways to look at my map, even while being chased.

Yet, that feeling of desperation, of running almost by instinct, is the point of the game experience. Yes, Climax could have added waypoints in the game world or markers, but then, I find the indicators for the interactive objects intrusive enough. To add such direction markers would make the game the equivalent of paint by numbers. I think even adding combat would make the game easier.

The expectation that we should be able to run through a game successfully, without failure or even some frustration, is the desire to play a game that is soulless. It doesn’t ask us to give much of ourselves to play the game.

Certainly, too much frustration, and you’re having a miserable experience. Normally, I’d say that frustration from bad camera angles or imprecise controls is not good frustration. And I think Shattered Memories has those moments. But the design of the chase scenes . . . I think that’s a good frustration. For example, the original Fallout games were somewhat brutal in their difficulty, but that was a frustration by design and for a purpose, that tied into the theme of the games. Similarly, I think the disorienting chase scenes are excellent designs that thematically support the disorientation of Harry Mason.

As much as I appreciate Harry’s confusion, I’m nonetheless watching it, experiencing it intellectually. But in those chase scenes, the disorientation is visceral. That might not be everyone’s idea of fun, but I think it’s some of the best game design I’ve played this year.

In contrast, Arkham Asylum is a fun platformer, beat’em up game that I enjoyed, but I was never close to immersed in the game. The third person view kept me removed from the game, and I just never thought for even a second that I was Batman [as much as I would love to and wanted to]. For all the supposedly terrifying criminals in Arkham, I never once had goose bumps, not once felt trepidation or anxiety. And though I thought the different tasks in the game gave it a richness of gameplay, I’ve realized in contrast that Arkham Asylum‘s trophies and environmental hints for actions kept me removed from the Batman. I know some reviewers and gamers felt that they were Batman thanks to fight scenes and the detective mode, but it felt like most games, where I’m a puppeteer. Batman’s mental and emotional state was a faraway thing to me, something I saw only intellectually and never felt for myself. [And I don't believe for one second that Batman wouldn't be afraid of facing his enemies in an asylum.]

I’m not saying Shattered Memories is a better game than Arkham Asylum, but it does something that Arkham doesn’t, which is to pull me not just into the game but into the character–into the experience of being in Silent Hill and into the mindset of Harry Mason. That success supersedes the very few control issues that I encountered.

• I played Advanced Civilization with 6 friends for about 13 1/2 hours on Saturday, and it was blast, especially since I’ve not played an all-day board game in ages. It’s amazing how well Advanced Civilization stands up after all these years as an excellently balanced game. At one point, I had 3 calamities that threatened to wipe me out, but I was able to get back into the game and remain competitive. The nice thing, too, is that there was talk of starting up a D&D 4th edition campaign. [The computer game Advanced Civilization is available for download at abandonia, and it's a very near, if not exact, duplication of the board game, unlike, of course, Sid Meier's adaptation.]
• In that game session, I talked to several friends are game developers, and they confirmed not only how steadily the game companies in Dallas have continued to wane but how the recent cuts across game companies is going to affect the games we see, though not until 2010, given development cycles. Plus, the necessary credit for producing AAA games isn’t there. One large publisher is even concerned about the lack of new releases for the fall. [Again, I'm amazed that there's not more interest in producing up-market games for the Wii because of its relatively cheap development costs.]
• I had played through a bit of Zack & Wiki and then stopped to play other things. But I picked it up again on Friday, playing with the kids who were very helpful. Games like this are actually excellent multiplayer games, as even my wife sat down and tried to help with a couple. The reason is that the game, unlike RTS, RPG, and FPS games, doesn’t rely on controlling the character to have fun–a puzzle is a puzzle . . . as long as the gamer listens to others and respects their suggestions.
• I picked up Skies of Arcadia in trade from Goozex, and I’m looking forward to playing it. Having fun with Chrono Trigger has made me eager to play through those RPGs that i really didn’t give time to before. I found that Skies was actually rather available in different game stores as a used game. This could be one of those games that would probably make a good suggestion for a game club such as Michael Abbot’s [which I keep meaning to join].
• Playing games, especially board games, as a family can be tricky largely because my 6-year-old daughter is at a disadvantage. I recently ran across a very promising coop board game called Pandemic, in which all the players work together using the strengths of their roles to prevent the spread of a disease. Below is a video of the creator talking about the game’s design. [It's a little advanced for my daughter, but as a coop game, it's easy to help her along.] I like the fact that the game not only encourages but also requires lots of discussion, which is both good for the family and good to help teach the kids about strategic thinking.