The Summer Wind ...

... came blowin' in from across the sea

Time has moved on since the summer and we’re now smack in the middle of autumn. My summer this year was simply marvellous. I attended a conference in London in the last week of July and I was able to bring the family along. That was a magnificent experience. I always enjoy visiting London, having spent a year at college there. After that we had a two week vacation in Italy, followed by a week each at both my wife’s and my parents. Working in the educational sector in Europe is rewarding in more ways than one. Speaking of work, I’m back at the university, still pursuing my goal of becoming a tenured professor. So, personally and vocationally, all’s good.

I stopped all gaming over the summer to focus fully on my family. Upon returning home, however, I felt the urge to revisit some of my old-time favourites, namely three instalments of the Heroes of Might & Magic series. Heroes of Might & Magic III was the first turn-based strategy game I ever played, and, after a brief introduction, both my wife and I did play quite extensively. I might even go so far as to proclaim HoMM III my favourite game ever. Strangely enough though, in all my time playing this series, I had never even played the campaigns as I agree with TotalBiscuit that the true value of the Heroes series can really be found in the custom games. So it happened that I finished all the campaigns of Heroes of Might & Magic III to V including their respective expansions. Unfortunately, the series ends with HoMM V for us as there’s no way we’re going to succumb to Uplay. All in all I have to say that HoMM III remains my favourite despite its dated look. I know that some die hard fans will shout heresy when I state the following, but for me it is, in fact, a close call between HoMM III and IV. I must be one of the very few people who genuinely enjoy HoMM IV and consider it to be a very good advancement of the Heroes series. I’ll gladly admit that it has glaring flaws but I don’t think it’s nowhere near as bad as some people make it out to be. HoMM V on the other hand really feels like a cheap rip-off of WarCraft III (e.g. story and cut scenes) and plays like a 3D port of HoMM III. So I’m kind of torn here: I like many gameplay elements but found the story, in particular, to be rather lacklustre. I do, however, enjoy playing all three instalments, especially together with my wife.

Much has changed on the MMO front. WildStar went free-to-play and after reading what Bhagpuss had to say about the game, I decided to give it a try. I finished the tutorial and afterwards started exploring Nexus. I must have played for about an hour when I had enough. That game is just not for me. I remember when I first heard about WildStar I was rather intrigued. That changed quickly when I learned about the action combat and the telegraph system. I seriously hate twitch gameplay, so naturally I uninstalled the game right away. But at least I did give it a try and tested it for myself. Many voices can be heard as to why WildStar tanked and with it yet another MMORPG had to resort to a free-to-play model, most of them claiming that the game was too hardcore and that this is the sole reason for its failure. As I don’t believe in mono-causality, I wouldn’t want to fault any single aspect for the demise of any game. It usually is a combination of several factors. Consider e.g. that WildStar was indeed marketed as a hardcore game (40-man raiding) with a cartoony exterior and action combat. Any combination of those basic pillars could both attract and repel potential players. I for one would enjoy a cartoonish look and a hardcore approach, but I cannot come to terms with twitchy gameplay. Couple that with the fact that WildStar’s idea of “hardcore” means (or meant, not sure if that’s still the case to be honest) time constraints (Gold runs, Explorer path), count me out. Even if WildStar was the perfect MMO otherwise, combining all the elements that I want to see in an MMO like a game built around crafting with strong social ties and interaction, in a living and breathing world, those two elements (time constraints and twitch) would drive me away. I can imagine many people feeling similarly or altogether differently.

No comment on the next WoW expansion. I’m simply no longer interested in retail WoW and instead get my kicks from the Nostalrius project. They have launched a PvE server most recently. YAY!!!

The 4.0 patch of Knights of the Fallen Empire has almost completely ruined SW:TOR for me. I was hopefully optimistic after the koffee announcement, but all that is left now is disgust! More on that some other time.

Back in Business

Shintar, the Priest With A Cause is back! This time on a private vanilla WoW server. Not that she was ever really gone. Nonetheless, it was her post together with this very personal piece by Kadomi that sparked my return as well. Kadomi talks about her personal life and how it affected her gaming and blogging in some detail and while reading, I kept thinking: “Hey, this is very similar to my situation”. Here are two quotes (with my emphasis) that describe how I feel as well:

It’s not that I don’t want to blog. When daydreaming at work, or driving home, I have fantastic ideas for blog posts. Very briefly, work was slow enough that I actually wrote draft ideas into Evernote, at least working titles.

By the time I am home from work, I don’t want to sit down and write blog posts. A full post takes me an hour minimum, if not longer. After work, I want to lounge on the couch, play Candy Crush Soda Saga for a while (sue me), and do something relaxing. Now that I am in my 40s my interest in PC gaming is waning, because I would much rather sit on the couch in comfort than spend hours at my desk. Then there’s dinner to cook, my SO would like to spend time with me, the kitties have demands and bam, it’s bed-time.

Now, I don’t use Evernote, but I too have written down a few points or working titles that I would like to expand upon some day. I also don’t play mobile games for that matter and I’m not in my 40s yet. We don’t have any pets and I walk to work. But these are just minor circumstantial details. The simple fact of the matter is that blogging takes time and we’re both very busy and otherwise occupied.

I commented on Shintar’s post that I had actually stopped gaming altogether for over a year. There were several reasons for that and it was my choice. First, I simply no longer feel that I am among the target audience for video games in general any more. Virtually all recent developments are going in directions that I do not appreciate (e.g. mobile gaming, casual and “accessible” gaming, free-to-play, cash shops, DLC, Early Access, etc.). The World of Warcraft that I loved is destroyed. The “World of Loading Screens” (SW:TOR) that I could get on board with became a glorified slot machine selling hotbars. Console manufacturers have no interest in offering backwards compatibility because now they can sell the same game several times to the same customer. I have no intention of paying for any of this on general principle!

Additionally, my real life got a lot more complex. My wife’s second pregnancy was strenuous – not dangerous or complicated – just a lot more demanding than her first one. This meant that I had to manage our daily life (cooking, cleaning, etc.) by myself, all the while working (almost) full-time at the university. In general, I keep a tight schedule, meaning that my day is very structured. I get up at 6 o’clock every morning and exercise for about an hour. Afterwards I shower and get dressed and prepare the breakfast for the family. Then we enjoy a nice family breakfast and I head off to work. The trip takes about 20 minutes by foot and I always walk. I usually arrive shortly after 9 a.m. and start the work day with some administrative tasks such as checking the mail and answering e-mails. I teach my first class from 10 a.m. to 12 noon and afterwards have lunch with co-workers, some time between 12 noon and 2 p.m., depending on who’s coming and where we’re going. The next class is from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and then I stay until at least 7 p.m., sometimes even longer. When I arrive at home, I have to prepare dinner for the family (or at least assist my wife) and then spend some quality time with my wife and children. The kid’s bedtime is usually at 8:30 p.m. and then it’s just my wife and me for about an hour or two before we go to sleep.

This cycle repeats the next day, every day, every week from Monday to Friday. I do not mind this at all. I value consistency and structure very much. I’m one of those guys who could eat the same meal every day and still enjoy it. I don’t get bored easily. Looking at this timetable there are hardly any opportunities for blogging. “By the time I am home from work, I don’t want to sit down and write blog posts. [...] I want to [spend time with my family] and do something relaxing”. This excludes playing video games. I’ve written a couple of posts at work but I just cannot take the time to do that anymore. Workload is very intense. Becoming a professor is no cakewalk. I suppose I could write on the weekends, but we clean the house every Saturday morning and Sunday is the family day where we visit relatives or have a picnic or go out for a walk or do other stuff together. That only leaves Saturday afternoon as my personal free time. When I’m not teaching, all the work I do is computer work or paper work (correcting papers, doing research, writing articles, etc.) so I’m glad if I can do something else in my spare time, like playing actual golf. Even when work was less demanding, I’d much rather spend my time actually playing the games I enjoy instead of writing about them. This explains why I was such a poor SW:TOR blogger.

Nonetheless, I wish to take up blogging again and for the future my plan is to publish one post every week, possibly on Sundays.

Macky's Back in Town

It has been over a month since my last post because I was thoroughly enjoying my summer holidays. My wife and I went on an extend summer vacation. We started our trip by visiting her parents for a week, followed by three weeks in Italy and lastly stayed for another week at my parents. We finally returned back home last week. That makes about five weeks of awesome and mainly relaxing summer time. And I even have one more week of holidays to enjoy.

Anyways, now that I am back online I will start posting more regularly again, especially since time obviously did not stand still in the world of MMO blogs and it seems I did miss quite a few juicy pieces.

UPDATE!

It has been over a year since my last post. Mainly two events in my real life have kept me very busy. First, I was leading a research group funded by a government grant and while this was a very pleasant and rewarding experience, it simply meant a lot of work. Now that we are close to finishing our assignment, things have finally begun to slow down a bit leaving me time for recreational activities.

In even better news, my wife gave birth to our first child, a beautiful and healthy baby girl. I cannot even begin to describe how happy that has made me! If only the little angel would sleep through the night just once. Also, my wife finished her doctoral thesis a few months before giving birth and is now taking a break from working as a corporate consultant focusing fully on caring for our daughter. If things go as planned, my wife will resume working shortly after our daughter’s first birthday whereupon I will become a full-time parent for at least six months.

As I said, these events demanded a large amount of my time and energy which left me precious little time for gaming. I was playing SW:TOR maybe once or twice a week for about one or two hours, primarily participating in Warzones. That came as bit of a surprise to me considering that I rather dislike PvP, but Warzones turned out to be a very viable alternative to traditional leveling, especially for my Scoundrel healer.

Regarding gaming in general, however, this post has been somewhat of a wake-up call. My situation is very similar to the one of the author and I must say that I find myself thinking along the very same lines. The outside circumstances have changed and I longer feel valued or appreciated as an MMO player. There is simply no game in sight that offers exactly what I am looking for. My brother-in-law has gone back to WoW, but for me that ship has sailed a long time ago.

On a final note, the alteration of the blog title was necessary in order to avoid any association with one of the more controversial writings of the recent past. I think the confusion will be minimal as hardly anyone has ever visited my blog and others have re-launched their blogs several times. If I remember correctly, Zellviren had five different versions of his blog within a very short time.

The next couple of posts will likely deal with my wife’s take on SW:TOR which may come off rather harsh, along with some of my own problems I currently have with the game.

Introduction

The idea behind this post is to provide the interested reader with an introduction to my internet alias named Maldwiz. Since the name as such might only be meaningful to very a small minority, the focus shifts more towards the person behind the name, in particular towards the gaming experience of said person.

Our story begins in the year 1991, when a young boy’s parents decided that the time had come to purchase their first personal computer. Up to this day, the young boy did not call any electronic entertainment devices his own and was forced to look jealously over the shoulders of his friends, while they enjoyed themselves by making a small, stereotypical Italian plumber jump around. Then suddenly, at around his eleventh birthday, the parents seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that a personal computer would be beneficial to the child’s further education. Needless to say, the boy was more than thrilled.

In the months and years to follow, the boy would gradually mature and familiarize himself more closely with this new technology. It seemed inevitable that sooner or later he would leave the standard (card) games – that came with the PC – behind him and stumble across more advanced types of interactive entertainment software. So it happened that the very first “real” video game that this young boy – now a teenager – would be playing on his computer was none other than the infamous DOOM.

While DOOM was certainly a lot of fun the whole First-Person-Shooter genre never really “clicked” with Maldwiz. Something new was needed, something different. Luckily this came in the form of a real-time strategy game called Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. This game was very captivating because it required a different approach towards gaming, aiming more at strategy and tactics. First-Person-Shooter – at least at that time – never really required the player to plan ahead. Everything was more of a spur of the moment thing. Another aspect that Maldwiz enjoyed about the new game was the fantasy setting. It reminded him strongly of The Lord of the Rings, one of his favourite childhood books.

Naturally, Maldwiz also played the sequel Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and the related expansion Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. Those were just as great as the original. Later came both Diablo and Diablo II as well as StarCraft with its expansion StarCraft: Brood War. The final RTS game that Maldwiz would be playing was Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos with its expansion Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Please do not worry! There were also countless other games in between – some even in the real world, with actual human beings. Preposterous!

And then came ... World of Warcraft.

The numerous adventures in the online world of Azeroth, however, deserve their own post.

One final note: the company behind all those wonderful games, Blizzard Entertainment, did provide Maldwiz with over ten years of marvellous interactive electronic entertainment and he will be forever grateful for that experience. Rest assured, dear reader, that our teenage hero did not neglect real human companionship. He grew up to become a productive member of our society and is, in fact, married to a lovely woman. They might be expecting a child in the not too distant future.

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This post should have given you a bit of background information about my person and my gaming history. More will follow, although not necessarily similar in length.