wiiless in austin

.:why wii?:.

*editor’s note: i have gotten some awesome feedback that i’m a tiny bit on the wordy side, so i’ve hacked out quite a bit. oh the joys of learning how to blog correctly…

i would be willing to bet that if it seems a little mad to me…someone who really loves and enjoys video games…i can only imagine what the ‘wii insanity’ must seem like to the general populace. but again, even though i find it crazy, i still understand.

what is it about this little gadget that makes it seem like something that the world must have?

.:a child among men:.

it’s obviously not the fact that it’s any better than what it competes with from a hardware point of view. for all intents and purposes, the wii is just a re-packaged gamecube with a few add-ons…an SD memory card slot, USB ports, wireless connectivity, bluetooth.

it’s certainly not it’s general ‘home entertainment’ capabilities. the wii doesn’t have a built in hard drive so you can store things like movies and music. it doesn’t even have a DVD player.

and the games…well…it could be argued that the games aren’t anything to write home about either, given the massive technological advancements that have happened over the past five years in console gaming. nintendo is still riding on the franchises of its 8-bit days…metroid, zelda, mario, donkey kong, star fox. granted, they keep coming out with some pretty innovative games here and there, such as warioware*, viewtiful joe or ikaruga…

*editors note: i had it pointed out to me that i made a mistake. i originally had ‘katamari’ posted there, which is not true. katamari was orginally released for the PS2 in japan. my apologies! so much for writing posts late at night…

but, from a marketing perspective, i think it’s all of these things that the nintendo isn’t that is actually ending up being it’s saving grace.

.:everything that the wii is not makes it cool:.

1. let’s start with the obvious…the controllers. the curiosity factor alone is enough to make you want to check it out. but nintendo follows through where others in the past have not been able to, and that is nintendo is delivering a solid, well-executed experience when you get there. the controllers are nothing short of a simplistic marvel. we’ve talked about ‘VR’ experiences for years now…and while we’ve come close in the arcades, i think the home experience has been lacking very sorely in the immersion area. part of it has been the cost of doing something like this on the home level. the regular consumer is not going to go out and purchase everything you need in order to have a really immersive experience. but nintendo has remedied that nicely. it’s not expensive (relative to what you’re getting and relative to what else is out there), it’s intuitive, and most importantly, it enhances the game experience more significantly than ever before by making you, the player, feel like you have more of a direct impact on the game by knocking down the whole ‘controller barrier’ thing.

2. the wii is, at it’s core, a game system with the potential to expand on some really popular simple technologies today…not a digital entertainment hub trying to pack an entire home entertainment system into one single box. there is an intriguing social networking aspect. there is a web browser and built-in e-mail capabilities. it’s wireless and is easy to configure a connection to a wireless network. it’s easily portable. it’s got a cool weather feature. it’s got the ability to download all of the ‘classic’ old school games that you grew up with. and it’s got room for expansion in the form of the ‘channels’. all of this is bundled into a seemless package and is easy to configure.

3. it appeals to several markets that have either not been full realized or left by the wayside over the years.

there are the people that just want to play some games. period. cool graphics and sound and multiplayer is completely inconsequential. a fun, cool, easy-to-learn, casual experience is what is important.

then there’s a segment that has some interest in games, but doesn’t want to re-familiarize themselves with how to play them. take the guy who stopped playing games after college because he thought he was too cool for them. he has been off the boat for the past five or six years, but all of a sudden he wants to jump back in and feel good about his skillz. he grabs a wii, which still has those old familiar franchises available to him, and he’s back in training camp…working his way up from the original ‘metroid’ (which he’s having a blast with) to big boy school…’metroid prime’.

and then there are the kids. kids games, i think, have been grossly neglected over the past ten years. the industry has been so concerned with appealing to those gamers that have ‘grown up’ with the industry that they have a tendency to forget where it all began. and kids really don’t need to be playing GTA3 or rainbow 6: vegas or any number of other games that are for ‘mature’ audiences. nintendo still offers parents a viable option for letting their kids play some cool games without sacrificing ‘cool’ factor for the kids, and without sacrificing their own morality when it comes to some of the game that are out today. everyone wins with a nintendo.

finally…and most importantly…i feel like the wii appeals to the elusive female gamer audience more than any other game system has in the past. go to the nintendo wii site right now, and you will see several ’stories’ or ’situations’ where girls are using it. my friends girlfriends and wives are not averse to playing it. even my wife, who does not like video games at all, is a little curious, and that is saying a lot.

4. the wii is simple, and that is it’s knock-out punch. i was talking with a friend who was telling me he got one over christmas, and his grandmother was playing with it. can you honestly see dear old grandma picking up a 360 controller and start blowing away locust in ‘gears in five minutes?

looking at this from a purely marketing point of view, simple is a proven sell. the more simple something is, the better you feel about purchasing it if it appears to be something you can use. and the less time you have to spend learning about it, that equates into more time you have getting real use out of it.

look at the ipod and how it integrates with itunes. if you are a super tech dork wanting very specific things that only a tech dork would want…like ease of song transfer between systems or multiple devices, like integration with multiple pieces of mp3 playback software…the ipod is probably a little ‘annoying’ to you. but the genius of the ipod is that not only does it still appeal to those people depsite it’s ’shortcomings’…it appeals to the rest of the world who just wants to plug the thing into their computer and transfer stuff to it quickly and easily so they can spend more time doing what they want with it. in a sick way, the tech dorks derive some kind of pleasure at making things more difficult for themselves just so they can say they’ve accomplished something. but the majority doesn’t want to learn how something works…they just want it to work. and that’s what the wii is doing an awesome job at. you take it out of the box…you plug it in…you quickly set it up…and you are immediately playing games with little or no learning curve.

.:let your inner consumer take control:.

i am grudgingly proud and admiring of nintendo. i say ‘grudgingly’ because i feel like i should have kept the faith. when i heard about this whole ‘nintendo revolution’ thing from the get-go, i was not impressed. i didn’t have any faith in that it would be anything special, and i figured nintendo would be delegated to the same position sega was, which is making games for other systems. but nintendo did an extremely smart thing in not trying to compete for a market that is completely saturated by two proven high-end consumer electronics and software giants. i’ve personally thrown my hat in the ring with microsoft in that particular battle, but i will be purchasing a wii as well as soon as i can get one…and i’m excited about it. there’s a lot to like with the new little big guy on the block, and my faith has been renewed that nintendo is back in the saddle.

WoW and boredom

.:10 things to do when you’re bored during your WoW playing time:.

one of the genius things that you’ll find when you play world of warcraft is that every ten levels, no matter what character class you play, you will get some really cool new class defining ability or reach some kind of character plateau that makes you even more awesome-er than you were before. for example, when you reach level ten as a warlock, you can summon your very first pet voidwalker who will fight for you…lie for you…walk the wire for you…ya’ he’d die for you………….you know it’s true… *vomit*

when you reach level ten as a priest, you can resurrect your dead buddies. as a druid, you can turn yourself into a giant bear. at level 40, you can go and buy your very first sweet mount that will help you get to places much faster. at level 60, you will have enabled yourself to complete your entire talent tree…which means that you’ve customized your character to it’s full potential in one or two different areas of that classes abilities (i.e. as a mage, you can concentrate in ice and arcane…meaning you are at your best by dishing out defensive/crowd control/area of effect spells – spells that have an effect on enemies within a specific radius).

and those are just a few of the things…

why is this genius? because it plants the seed of incentive in your game-addled skull. it makes you want to keep playing until you reach that next stupid little goal. and of course, the priority of a game like WoW is to keep you playing for as long as possible sans getting bored…because when you start getting bored, your game-playing starts to curtail…and when your game playing starts to curtail, you start to come unplugged from the matrix. and when you come unplugged from the matrix…well…you don’t want to do that. all of your other elf friends will get pissed at you for that…

but ultimately, you can…and you will…start to get bored. especially if you are a person like myself who has a couple of level 60 characters, and the thought of putting yourself through the paces again to get those characters from 60 to 70 weighs heavily on your soul no matter what the rewards are.

never fear, though, fellow gameheroin addicts; i am here to provide you with REPRIEVE. i have devised ten things to do while you are grinding your digital you up the level treadmill when you begin to feel the twinges of boredom. take a break, logoff, close your eyes, and pick one of these things to do. after participating in them, they will re-ignite your passion to go kill more little pixellated bastards that will yield you the ever-valuable experience you so crave and desire…

10. watch the WoW southpark episode:

sorry if the video is dead…but with the power of the interweb, you too can go search it out and find it in one of ten million other places where it will be available. watching this will make you feel one of two things. it will either make you take a long hard look at yourself and get you thinking thoughts like, ‘oh my god…what have i done? i’ve wasted xxxx hours/days/months…years…of my life playing a game that provides me with no real return on life and…wait a second…i kind of look like i’m turning into the evil guy that the SP crew defeats in this episode…NOOOOOOOOOO!’

or…it will give you a chuckle and make you want to go and see if the ’sword of a thousand truths’ will drop on your next high-level instance run.

9. pay attention to your animals who crave your attention and are showing you how pissed they are at you by peeing on the floor, shredding your couch cushions and gnawing at your ankles.

despite what you think, your animals cannot…and will not…tolerate your ‘give me just another 10 minutes so i can get xxxx level/item/spell/widget’ attitude like, say, your wife or girlfriend/boyfriend might……..MIGHT. they want to do what they want now. they do not understand the game. remember…in real life, you are not a hunter who has a beast that you can just feed when they get upset. real life animals like attention. resist the urge to dismiss your pet when they are telling you they want to go out or they want to be fed. this is not good. you will go to jail.

8. shower. groom yourself. light a yankee candle or spray some febreze air effects - if you play WoW for extended periods of time, you will stink from the sedentary nature of your actions. remember…you are wallowing around in your own nasty funk. body funk is not sexy. looking like a slob will not get you the girl/guy. well…okay…i guess i ended up with a hot wife, but i started playing after i had her under the spell of my charm and my eventual downspiral into severe dorkdom began to rear it’s ugly head. but i still take the time to make myself look presentable. when you’re as pimp as i am, you have an image to uphold…and you should have that attitude too.

repeat after me: “i am a pimp. i can play games but i can still attempt to not be a social reject. i am worth it. and people like me, dammit.”

7. go and talk to a real person…like your mom…or your neighbor…or your friends that you stopped talking to months ago because you were busy making sure that your warrior got his next PVP rank - despite what you may think, chatting with people in the game does not really count as talking to a real person. talking in the game is like switching over to a brand new language…and talking to a completely different breed of person altogether. one time, i was trying to explain something to a friend who does not play the game. here’s a partial transcript for you…

me: in order to pwn ony, you have to download CTRaidAssist and make sure every noob has it installed. you also have to make sure that everyone has vent installed and access to the vent server. in order to make your way to her, you have to have a tank melee each guard and get aggro…wait for three sunders…and then ranged damage only…all other melee stays back. once you get past all the guards and to ony, even numbered groups go left, odd numbered groups go right. groups 1 and 2 are on the whelps. make sure that your MT turns ony towards the wall and gets aggro and then people can start doing light ranged. make sure your MT is fear warded…

friend: *blank stare*

you, as a player, might ask yourself, ‘why would you ever try to explain to someone who doesn’t play the game what you’re doing?’ i don’t have an answer to that. the fact of the matter is that sometimes you will slip. sometimes you will say things that only make sense in the context of the game to people in real life…and you will feel like an ass. so it is imperative that you haul yourself up out of the bed, up off the chair, off of your couch…and go talk to real people. they exist. real people are sweet.

6. read this blog - everyday. bookmark it. add it to your feeds. do whatever it is you have to do to get here…because i promise that i will give you the necessary 5 minutes of mental stimulation you need a day in order to keep your brain from atrophying into a pile of slop. as a fellow game player, i know that you need this. i care about you. yes. you.

5. watch fight club – you are not your WoW character. no matter what you might think, you are a human and you do not have special powers and you do not have a quest log that will yield gold and experience and you cannot legally hamstring/immolate/starfire/judge your buddies. or anyone for that matter. you are not special. and after you have watched fight club, go punch somebody* to prove that you are alive. and strive to look like brad pitt because he’s awesome**…and probably doesn’t even think twice about playing WoW…but i digress…

*andrew takes to responsibility for actually following through with this action. you may have your ass handed to you. you may get arrested. you may be an idiot. do it at your own discretion.

**despite how homosexual this may sound, i am not gay.

4. eat something other than food that you can eat while playing the game…like not pizza or doritos or chocolate teddy grahms or saltines or fishsticks or a hotpocket or subway - eating the above items on a regular basis while playing the game is not conducive to a body that loves you. jerod lies. all subway will not make you a thin trim nerd like him. for example, you cannot expect to go and order a 12-inch spicy italian sub on white bread with olive oil and bacon and cheese and half a can of parmesan and wash it down with a 20 oz. dr. pepper and a bag of baked lays and then magically lose 5 pounds for the day. no way, mr./ms. – you get fat.

try some broccoli. make yourself some soup and eat it with a spoon out of a bowl instead of putting it in a large coffee cup so you can still possibly type in the chat window and move while eating. eat a sushi roll with chopsticks. or better yet, go order yourself a nice full meal at a sit-down restaurant! bring your significant other along so you can talk to them! and don’t drink beer. sorry…beer and the game is not a good mix.

3. clean your apartment/house/computer area - most computer folks that i know are not exactly the most clean people i’ve ever known. some are downright slovenly. break the stereotype. once you’ve done number 8 in this list, perhaps you could follow it up with this one. put your CDs away. clean your area of the 7 day old ant/roach-crawling pizza boxes. vacuum up the dry cereal leavings on the floor. use some canned air to clean out your keyboard. remove the dust and dried spittle from your monitor (the dried spittle gets there when you yell and scream and foam at the mouth at someone for leroying a raid). use some cable organizers to make your area look kind of professional…like you do something else productive at your computer other than play the game.

2. go to a social event where there are people. lots of them – why? because you must understand that this is how much much of modern society functions…and being a part of modern society isn’t that bad. really! your troll and elf friends can wait for you. i mean…is it really that awful to go see a muse concert? or go see a broadway musical? maybe you could go watch a boxing match or a football game if the arts aren’t your thing. or you could go to a bar, have some drinks, tie one on…work the ladies/men…(insert porn bass line here). go catch a good flick with a significant other. or….OR…you could be very daring here and you could do a combination of things…like…for example…you could go grab dinner…with your significant other or friend…go have a few drinks at a bar…and then go see a movie. oh my god…that’s too much…ALMOST TOO MUCH. noobs need not apply.

1. use the force luke…or bob…or john…or sarah…or whatever your name is - use it wisely. use it sparingly. but use it. the force puts you in tune with everything. it helps you see the forest through the trees. it helps you become self-aware and able to make adjustments to your life when you’re royally ‘effing it up by doing grade-A retarded things like trying (and succeeding) to get to level 70 in 28 hours. obi-wan and yoda…yeah…they’ve got it all right. put down the blast shield and trust your instincts. seriously…if you’re bored, and you’re making yourself to play the game, use the force to understand that you might potentially have a problem. it’s a game, and your life will not end if you take a tiny bit of time to go and do some of the other things you used to do before this affliction called WoW came along.

not to get all preachy, but you are trading minutes/hours/days/months of your life at a time…for what? a bunch of prettily/cool shaped pixels to go on your pixelly not-real avatar? how absurd is that? play the game…enjoy it…level up…rock out…but do some other stuff too. do it for the kids.

WoW: TBC

i love acronyms. when i worked on P&G stuff, that seemed to be about the only way you could communicate with someone. so many of them were used, in fact, that there exists a master list which explains what all of them mean. i had to periodically check it just to make sure i understood what everyone was talking about sometimes…

but this isn’t about P&G, now, is it? no way…this is about the addiction. the game. i’m talking about World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

it’s out today…and for some reason i’m not really as excited as i’m building this up to be. i’ve actually played WoW for the past 2 years. i’ve had a really good time with it. i went through a period where i stopped playing for several months, but was lured back in at the request of a couple of people from work who really wanted to play together. that lasted all of about two weeks, but that was long enough for it to re-ignite my interest. and so i marched on with my sweet, sweet mage. i got her up to level 60, joined a cool guild, went and did some high level instances, got some decent stuff (though i’m admittedly under-equipped as compared to a lot of others) and did my thing there. but around christmas i started getting bored, and when i get bored with characters in games like this, i start creating new characters. i think i have character multiple personality disorder or something. as of now, i have a level 60 mage, a 60 hunter, a 42 rogue, a 34 paladin, a 34 warrior, a 29 druid, a 16 shaman, and a 14 warlock. i would be willing to bet that if i took all of the time that i put into those other ‘boredom based’ characters that i would have one character that would absolutely destroy just about anyone.

but you see, the problem is that getting to where you are completely decked out with amazing equipment requires a level of commitment that even my inner dork has issues swallowing. don’t get me wrong…i love these kinds of games…specifically this one. it’s a well thought out, well designed, well executed time sink in which 8 million people now throw their lives into. and that’s what makes it dangerous.

for those of you that don’t know what that level of commitment is…we’re talking about something that actually requires a veritable TON of organization just to pull off. not only do you have to have the software to play the game, but you also have to have a number of plug-ins that enhance your ability to know what’s going with the raid group you’ve joined. sometimes these raid groups can be as little as five and as many as forty people deep. and there have to be an assortment of character classes in order to be successful with the instances. and the large raid groups are really only feasible through a guild, which means you have to get in good with a guild that is actually equipped and has the knowledge to do these high level instances.

and then, of course, you have to have a way to communicate with all of those people; afterall, it can get pretty hairy trying to play and read everything that is going on in the chat window. so you have to get a headset and a program that allows you all join a chat server so you can coordinate your strategies. and then there’s the amount of time you spend in each on of these instances. some can take on the upwards of 2-3 hours to finish completely. and while the rewards are great for killing the bosses within the instance, there is no guarantee that you will get anything but a huge repair bill for your current set of equipment in the end. you aren’t guaranteed anything because the boss item drops are random, and they may or may not drop something you can use.

you have to sign up in advance for these raids, so you aren’t necessarily even guaranteed a spot…especially when there’s a lot of the same of your class in the guild. sometimes you have to be on an hour earlier than when the raid actually happens to make sure everyone is there. sometimes the raid that you planned for in advance doesn’t even happen because not enough people end up showing up…which means that you’ve just most likely wasted a weekend night for some of the really big instances. sometimes you’ll go on the raid and not get very far…and the list goes on and on…

so where’s the fun in this, you ask? i’m not exactly sure…but it’s one of the only ways that you can get better equipment to better thoroughly embarrass your foes on the battlefield. of course, there’s PVP (player vs. player), but that has its own set of problems, the foremost being it’s limited range of settings (capture the flag, capture and hold strategic points, etc.). it can get tiring doing those over and over and over again…and there’s the issue of playing with a group of PVP’ers that are actually going to do what is required to win rather than just play and do what you want. blah blah blah…

i admit that the game does an excellent job of setting your expectations to where you can do just what you want and have fun. case in point, i like creating characters and doing the quests and and leveling and getting new abilities, etc. etc. etc. i could do that and continue to have fun, but there’s always that stupid carrot being dangled out in front of you…the carrot that tempts you to want to step it up yet another notch. see, what the game ALSO does an excellent job at is making you just frustrated enough to want to take that step, and before you know it, you’re investing more and more and more time…

with the introduction to TBC comes the introduction of new races, and this gets my interest in starting up a new character again pretty high. but for what purpose? i already have characters that i have spent many, many hours (measured in days) leveling up and equipping. why do i want i want to go through the same thing over again…only to most likely have this same feeling happen again when i’ve got the new character to it’s max level?

i think that i probably sound like a drug addict who is coming to the realization that, yes, i am an addict and no longer just the ‘casual user’. or maybe i’m being a little too melodramatic.

bah…who am i kidding. i’ll end up buying the expansion and i will end up enjoying it up to whatever level i choose. despite all of the scenarios i’ve laid out above, the fact of the matter is that a game is what you make of it. this one has a little more incentive built in to play more just because you get to see all of the cool things that other people have, which leaves you thinking, ‘hey, that’d be cool to have that…’ sounds a little bit like real life, eh? except in this case, you’re burning time instead of a bunch of money on, say, a new iPod or a new car or whatever just because you saw someone else with one.