The Complainer: Virtual Console

Welcome to the first entry of my new column, The Complainer. In this column I will selfishly and egotistically complain about things that are bothering me. Sometimes it will be stuff you find amazingly obvious, amazingly petty, or just amazingly amazing. Let's begin, shall we??

Nintendo is a company that somehow inspires in me great loyalty and a fervent belief in their new consoles before doing their best to squander my devotion. To be fair, this pattern has only emerged during the Nintendo 64 days and onward, but it's something I've fallen for time and again. Nintendo announces a new and innovative product, and I beat my chest (sometimes with both fists in a tribute to Donkey Kong) and offer up my guttural approval...then it comes out, I'm intensely happy with it for a short period of time before the reality sets in. First party games come out too slowly, and third party games are by and large garbage or can be had on other consoles. All of this is excepting their handhelds, which always build incredible software libraries despite, ironically, spotty first party support.

With the Nintendo Wii, this pattern took a new turn. A sharp, dangerously-curvy-on-the-side-of-a-mountain-turn. Not only has third party support all but dried up, Nintendo has irritating elements in place which make their first foray into console online play a frustrating experience. Friend Codes are awful, and Nintendo's continuous, slave-like devotion to their reputation as the "family friendly" console company creates a kind of ultra-safe, ultra-anonymous online experience that defeats the entire purpose of playing online. Sure, you don't get the opposite side of the spectrum (namely, the griefing and casual racism/sexism of Xbox Live) but is it worth it?? There's a happy medium somewhere. Why does every single game need its own Friend Code?? Why can't my console's Wii Code be my Friend Code for everything??

But I digress. What really gets my dander up is their complete failure to make the Virtual Console into what it could have been. Don't get me wrong. I know I can't expect every company to release every old game--especially SquareEnix, who would be more content to remake or repackage their big name releases--but I am totally mystified as to the process Nintendo goes through in deciding what will come out next. Their typically draconian relationship with the press and gaming community at large means that what gets released every Monday is a mystery to everyone. Insofar as part of the purpose of, I dunno, letting the press and others know ahead of time about game releases plays into the symbiotic relationship of publisher and press (we let you know about a game before its release, you help 'advertise' it), why does Nintendo feel it's in their best interest to withhold release schedules?? I honestly have no idea how they decide what is released when, because sometimes they seem to get the idea ("maybe we should release Metroid and Super Metroid around the time Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is coming out for Wii??") but then other times waste the opportunity (maybe there are licensing issues to work out, but the original Smash Brothers for N64 should have been a no-brainer to release near Smash Brothers Brawl). My impression is that a blindfolded employee is led to room where he or she must first try to dodge three baseballs (for every baseball they don't get hit with, a title is released) and then stumble to a wall where every potential Virtual Console title is written on yellow sticky notes. Whichever one (or two, or three) they touch first (and second, and maybe third) is then released.

I won't bother to go back and pick on the awful, awful titles they've released. What I will do is suggest you go look up the list of "comfirmed but not yet released" titles for Virtual Console on Wikipedia. There are genuine classic titles like Earthbound (a series that Nintendo of America seems to inexplicably hate and wish everyday that the throng of fans would shut up and go away), Phantasy Star IV (a Genesis RPG that's always been expensive to obtain), Shining Force II (my love!!), Mega Man 2 (now that interest has been piqued by the announcement of Mega Man 9, why not release it??), and Super Dodge Ball.

Also on the list are Boogerman and Clayfighter 63 1/3, two games that should never be played by anyone, ever, and should be painfully euthanized and taken off the release list. Sadly, they will probably see release before anything anyone who isn't legally too stupid to operate a motor vehicle would want.

Why I Quit World of Warcraft

I have this problem with videogames and my ability to be a cynical reductionist about them. For instance, I can break down a FPS and say “it's just a game where a combination of your reflexes and available toolset (in other words, weapons and items) allow you to overcome enemies and obstacles while moving through a linear path toward a set ending.” I can break down a RPG and say “it's just a game where you work toward making your numbers bigger than the enemy's numbers, through use of an available toolset (equipment, spells, items, abilities, leveling up, etc.). Even if you aren't moving along a linear path toward a set ending, there are only so many available endings possible.” This, of course, ignores the promise of X-hundred endings for Fallout 3, where X represents however many numbers they've promised in this month's interview or press release.

This cynical, reductionist eye, when turned upon World of Warcraft, gets a bit fuzzy. My impression in the beginning was that it was a mix of Diablo 2's “lootin' and levelin'” addiction cycle set upon a persistent, multiplayer landscape. But it's a bit more complicated than that. Literally, more complicated: World of Warcraft adds more layers of complexity on top of that formula. You aren't just picking a class, you're picking a race, too. You aren't going through a set of quests toward chapter endings and a final boss or bosses; rather, you're free to go anywhere at any time and do what you want. You also have more things to do than just “lootin' and levelin'”: you can do professions to make money, mess with other players even if you aren't on a PvP server, do dungeons and raids, try your hand at Arena or Battleground PvP, and quest to raise reputation with 'factions' so you can access their specific vendor items and equipment.

So, I found myself heavily addicted to the game for five months straight. I got a character to the current level cap of 70. I played a bunch of alts. I tried almost everything the game had to offer. And then...I quit.

The “why” of my quitting has a short and a long answer. The short answer is that it ceased to run on my laptop. I began to get an error saying that my display driver had stopped working. I ran through all the possible causes and solutions—overheated GPU?? outdated driver?? non-compatible, new driver?? game installation somehow corrupted??—before I finally gave up. I was talking to friends online at the time and I jokingly said to one that I was such a loser that I didn't quit WoW, WoW had quit me. But the truth is that I had given up on the game by then. And therein begins the long answer.

When I was a kid, I used to dream up the ultimate videogame. It would be like another world you went into, one that was always new and changing, so that it had no end. I loved videogames, but I was always a bit let down when they ended. Wouldn't it be awesome if Mario 3, Shining Force II, or Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis never ended?? Moreover, wouldn't it be awesome if these games were another world I could live in for hours at a time, instead of just a passive form of entertainment?? Obviously this sort of “living cyberworld that isn't a game, per se” thing is touched upon in much cyberpunk literature, not to mention The Matrix and non-RPG MMOs like Second Life. But I think World of Warcraft was closer to what I imagined, a RPG without an ending, one that you always had stuff to do in even if you were the highest level. However, it turns out that sometimes what you think you want isn't what you want at all. My main problem with World of Warcraft—and by extension, all MMOs in general—is that there's no ending to them. If you get to level 70, you still need to get better gear. You need to run daily quests so you can make enough money to raise up your professions, raise reputation with factions, to buy the epic flying mounts, etc. You need to run instances and raid dungeons to get better gear. You need to do Arena or Battleground PvP for weeks to get the better gear that these offer. But at what point do you stop?? Even simplistic older games you could replay over and over, either for the fun of it or to get a better score, had concrete endings. But World of Warcraft does not. There is no ultimate boss or piece of equipment or whatever you are working toward. Meanwhile, working toward that non-ending takes far, far too long.

I never wanted to admit this to myself, but World of Warcraft began to feel like a job. As I think anyone will agree, when something begins to feel like a job, you don't want to do it anymore. It ceases to be entertainment and becomes tedium. After a certain point, I wasn't playing WoW for the fun of it anymore; I was playing it because my guild needed me or I was wasting my money if I wasn't playing it or I wanted to see all of the content. I felt as if I had to play every available moment of my free time to maximize my progress in the game. I had to run daily quests because they were refreshed every 24 hours and if I wasn't doing them every day I was wasting my opportunity to make money and progress toward various goals. I had to play so much because if I tried to play the game casually I would take even longer to achieve anything in the game. A few weeks ago I tried to tally up in my head how much time I was spending on the game, and I figured out, roughly, that I was playing the game as many hours as I was spending at work every week, if not usually more. I used to wonder why time was flying by this year, and you know, I didn't seem to be writing as much as I used to, or reading, or playing any other games. Well, there was my answer: I had another job. I was, metaphorically speaking, 'working' for World of Warcraft. I might even have been addicted. I certainly got angry when I had to do other stuff. Paying bills?? Bah!! Eating and showering?? Bah!!

People often write or talk about games like World of Warcraft in terms of addiction, ironically or otherwise. Everquest was dubbed “Evercrack” for its pull over the lives of otherwise responsible men and women. Well, there is a definite cycle of addiction to WoW even if we don't want to admit it, although maybe it's not so much a cycle as a downward arrow. I will allow that it's possible to play the game casually, but I, personally, never felt like it was possible to do so, and nobody I knew in the game or outside of it ever did. Blizzard would never admit this, but you are discouraged (actively and passively) from playing the game casually because all the 'cool' stuff it has can only accessed when you plunk hours upon hours per week into the game. Even with all the time I put into my level 70 character, and my alts, I was only seeing vertical slices of the game. To experience every race, class, different class builds, all the zones and dungeons, all the professions, and the PvP content...well, it would take years. The game has been out for close to four years and people are still playing it. Literally everything interesting in the game requires tremendous time sinks to experience. For the sake of comparison, I spent around 60 hours to finish Final Fantasy XII, though I didn't do much of the optional stuff. In order to hit level 70 in World of Warcraft, I put in 312 hours. That is 13 days. And I still wasn't “done” with the game. I still had professions to raise up, gear to get, dungeons to run, factions to earn reputation with, etc etc. ad infinitum. I'm not even counting the time I played past hitting 70 or the other characters I was playing. This is easily two weeks of my life spent playing this game.

I understand that many people see this as ideal. “Hey, I only have to pay 15 bucks a month and I get a game I'm never done with or bored of!!” On paper it sounds good, but in reality it's nowhere near this glossy. Let's assume you aren't playing WoW and you buy one game a month. That's a solid $50-$60 a month you'll spend on a game, versus the $15 someone would on WoW. This seems like a bargain until you realize you are doing the same things, over and over, in WoW. Blizzard trumpets the fact that they're always adding new content, but seen under a reductionist light, it's still the same content with new skins. You're still collecting items or killing X number of monsters or going through every style of quest you've already done throughout the whole game. Ultimately it comes down to semi-clever ways of disguising the fact that you're just making your numbers bigger. People who've played this game for a year or more boggle my mind because I got tired of the whole thing in a few months. Even if it were possible to experience all the content in the game—let's say this took two years—would you really feel enriched by the experience, as if your money had been well spent?? Honestly, the idea smacks of addiction and monomania. People who explain why they play the game, and why they've played it for so long, start to sound like they're justifying their addiction to you and themselves at the same time. You just spent three hours of your life to get a helmet that lets you cast a spell four times instead of three. You just spent a week of your life grinding with a faction so you can get an epic flying mount that is a manta ray, though is otherwise functionally similar to your other epic flying mount. I wonder if people even think about this kind of thing when they're doing it. I mean, I had fun playing the game, but I realize now that the fun I had was mostly contained in the times I played co-operatively with other people, not in doing those ridiculous time sinks. And those co-operative experiences were always but a small fraction of the time I put into the game; the other 90% of my two weeks was put toward grinding. Pure and simple, I was paying $15 a month to do the same repetitive, mindless things over and over so that every once in awhile I could play a co-operative, multiplayer version of a dungeon from a single player PC RPG. Or, you know, Diablo 2 with more people and better graphics. Some of my friends play the game still, but I think they'd readily admit the only reason they do is because they know people who play. World of Warcraft is not an engaging enough experience on its own for more than the equivalent length of any other game without other players to spur you on.

Yes, reductionism of this sort can be applied strictly enough to any game until it's seen, bald, as a time or money sink. Entertainment of any form, whether it can/does enrich your life, is escapism and a way to spend time when you aren't at work earning money. Life is the stuff that happens between death and taxes, and entertainment is a large part of life. Scaling back a bit, even other RPGs are time and money sinks. But World of Warcraft is different, because it asks for more time and money than any other game but simultaneously gives the player little sense of accomplishment and no possibility for an ending. Everything you achieve is overshadowed by the next thing you have to do. You hit level 40 and get a mount. Great, now you need to get to level 60 (or, 58, I suppose) and get to Outland. Now you're in Outland and have your epic mount. Now you need to get to level 70 and get your flying mount. Now you need to somehow make money, get better gear, get your epic flying mount, and so on. Achieving all of these things, and playing with your friends, is fun if you're into this kind of game. But it was a hollow kind of fun. I look back on the money and time I spent on the game, and other than the friends I made, I feel as if it was all a waste. This is how the game can trap you: to walk away from it is to throw away all the “progress” you made because you never finished anything and you never can. Even when you cancel your account—a creepy process in which you aren't allowed to cancel without telling them specifically why you're quitting—they're sure to tell you that you can come back at any time and your characters will still be there. As with any good addiction, the possibility for backsliding is left harmlessly open. Except when you throw out your pack of cigarettes, the pack doesn't have “don't worry, you can always get another pack” written on it. And the bartender doesn't call your cell phone asking why you don't come in for a few glasses of scotch anymore.

Going back to my ideal childhood game, I've come to realize that a game with no true ending isn't a game at all. It's just another job or addiction even if it starts out fun. Maybe 'habit' is a better word for this. Going back to the smoking thing, people who smoke all their lives are never done with it unless they quit, completely and forever. Even when you finish a pack, you can always get another. Even if you finish a bottle of beer, you can still get more. It's the same with WoW. When you finish something, there's always something else to do. You're only done when you quit completely and forever. Let me repeat: a game with no ending is a habit because it doesn't stop until you quit. Many, many people may love the idea, but I find it unsettling and scary. It's fun for awhile, or can be, but when you're playing it just to play it or because you feel you have to, it's officially gone from a game to a habit. Hell, I love non-linear games, or linear games with replayability, but they still have some kind of official end point. You can mess around in Oblivion for hundreds of hours, too, but there's still an ending. You can replay Diablo 2 over and over, but it still ends when you finish off Diablo (or Baal) even if you keep going to get more gear or go to the higher difficulty levels. But there's no conclusion to WoW. It just keeps going, and adding more things to do, so that you can never stop because you haven't experienced it all yet. Progress is slow and they keep adding more road that you need progress over at the same time.

I want to end by making clear that I don't hate World of Warcraft. Or the players. Or Blizzard. However, I do want to say that I didn't quit because of technical issues or the laziness of a player who didn't want to put in the effort to get to the cool stuff. No, my main point stands free of any of this: World of Warcraft is a tremendously flawed game, one that is fundamentally built on being a giant time and effort sinkhole with no attainable ending in sight. I can't help but think of what I could have done with the two weeks I put into the game, even if it was just playing other games. And beating them. At least that way I could have a sense of finality and not be playing the same content over and over, for $15 a month, with no end in sight.

A race I can never finish is a race I don't want to run. A game that is a habit is not a game I want to play.

The Videogame Solipsist: Shining Force I and II

I'm not really sure where I first heard of Shining Force. It's one of those games that, somehow, comes into your life and you feel like it's always been there. I want to say that I rented it from the local video store because I thought the screenshots on the back of the box looked like Zelda, but I don't particularly think they do now. I guess I had a vivid, deluded imagination as a kid.

Shining Force I was the first strategy RPG I ever played, though I didn't know what RPGs were and my only strategy in the game was to kill everything regardless of any pointless peril I was putting my characters in. It speaks volumes for the easiness of this game that I never bothered to level grind as a kid because I didn't understand the concept. I just knew that a lot of my people died in every battle, and once mages ran out of MP they were worthless as anything other than bait.
People talk a lot about how 2D games have more lasting aesthetics and appeal, and it's games like Shining Force that I think of when this comes up. Though 16 years old, the game still looks cool even if the sprites aren't up to the later standards of, say, Chrono Trigger or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. For its time, though, Shining Force had incredibly large and detailed in-battle cutscenes. The characters animated well, and besides, the game had that awesome, fun dialog/choice/menu system, with cool animated icons instead of simple "yes/no/item/attack/etc." options. Though Blizzard is rightfully praised for their brilliant interfaces and--frankly--awesome looking icons/menus, Shining Force was an early game that even as a kid and not a critic I could appreciate on that level.If there's a problem with the game--and this is something that's endemic to the second game as well--it's that, the further you got into the game, the harder it was to train up new recruits. Since characters join your party at pre-determined levels, and even if you aren't actively leveling instead of just playing, they'll always be behind your other characters. Some characters overcome this by being so outrageously badass you force yourself to use them (see Hanzou the Ninja, above) while others--like Bleu the Dragon--require hours of effort to baby them up to your level. I'm told that he and the other 'useless' characters, like Arthur the magic using Knight, become incredibly strong if given enough time, but honestly the game is easy enough that it's not worth it.

At some point, Shining Force II came out. This was back in a time when you weren't always following release dates or waiting for sequels, so one day I saw it at the video store and excitedly rented it for a weekend. It was everything I'd wanted out of a sequel--bigger, more characters, slightly better looking, and a more free roaming style than the original game. I even woke up early before going to church just so I could squeeze some more time in with it because I knew it had to go back on Monday.

For any number of reasons, I never bought Shining Force II or received it as a gift. I suppose it's mainly because my friend Dave and I rented it so often, praying that other people who had it in the meantime didn't erase our save, that we felt as though we already did own it. To my knowledge I never beat either Shining Force until I was older, though I do remember playing someone else's save for a bit and seeing the very late stages of the game, marveling at how insanely strong and godlike the player's party becomes later on.
The most significant addition to the game--and the one that I wish more games would borrow--was in how you could use items to promote your characters to new, different classes. In the original game, all your characters had a set promoted class they could become. Knights became Paladins, Warriors became Gladiators, Mages become Wizards, etc. But in Shining Force II, you could use certain items to allow different promoted classes: Knights could become Pegasus Knights, Warriors could become Barons, Mages could become Sorcerors, Priests could become Master Monks, and Archers could become Brass Gunners. With the exception of the latter, these 'secret' classes were flat out better than their 'standard' counterparts. With the addition of the absurdly strong Peter (see below), they made the game even easier than the original had been. To be fair, Shining Force II offered a difficulty selection, though from what I've read all it affects is the intelligence and ruthlessness of the enemy AI.
Shining Force II's only flaw is that it's broken. As in, easy to the point of laughable. Enemy AI aside, the characters you get in this game are ridiculously strong even without the 'hidden' promotions. Peter joins your party no matter what, and he often can turn the tide of even the game's most precarious battles all by himself. Moreover, the main character of the game (you name him, so I'm referring to him in the generic) is a monster. The main character of the original was no slouch, particularly when you got to the end game's powerful, unique swords, but in the sequel he even gets a lightning spell that puts his MP to some use other than casting Egress to escape battles. On top of all of this, you get Mithril throughout the game. I never knew this as a kid, because I never found the hidden village, but later in the game there's somewhere you can go to 'spend' the Mithril to get amazing new weapons. This seems to be determined randomly from a pool of set weapons based on the character asking for it, but by abusing save states or diligently saving/resetting over and over, you could outfit most of your party with the game's best weapons.

Though I actually have played Shining Force III, at the great expense of my friend Dave, it never really caught on with us. There's something about the original two games that feels timeless and fantastic. I think I can see why they've never made a true strategy RPG Shining Force title since the third, mainly because if you add anything more to the formula it makes things needlessly complicated. Shining Force I and II may be simplistic and easy compared to any of today's strategy RPGs, but I love them for it.