It Keeps Happening

I hate these posts.  I hate making these posts, because I hate that I have reason to make these posts.  Because I don't honestly think I have a reason, but I can't deny that I'm just miserable sometimes and that they come and go and it's surely indicative of a problem, but it's not a problem I can really fix.  I also hate that, but that goes without saying.  I also just dislike using this blog as...well, a blog about -me- instead of a blog about things that I just so happen to have an opinion about, but I guess sometimes it's just unavoidable.

In all honesty, the problem is that I'm fighting with Depression, and by that I mean the real kind of it, not just "I'm sad all the time".  Of course, I don't have an actual diagnosis saying that because of a rather convoluted cyclical problem that starts with the fact that I don't have insurance.  I don't have insurance because I don't have a 'real' job that offers it, and I honestly don't make enough money to buy it on my own, which is going to be wonderful in a week or so when I have to sign up for it regardless and just figure out where the extra money is going to come from.  Which is basically "okay, well just get another job", which I would do...but I don't drive (yet).  Public transportation doesn't exist where I'm at (aside from school buses, but well) so that's out, and I've been counting on others to get to and from the job that I do have.  "So just start driving" is the sage advice there and it's fantastic and all, but it's not as if I've just decided for the past few years "nah, I don't want to drive" because I have some sort of luxury, but rather that I've had a very real anxiety about driving ever since the possibility was thrust upon me.  That could be solved with anxiety meds, I'm sure, but I can't get meds because I don't have insurance because I don't make enough money because I don't have a good job because I don't drive because I can't get anxiety meds.

It's lovely, isn't it?  I've been working with it, and by 'working with it', I mean slowly attempting to dull myself to the chest-tightening panic that sets in when I envision myself with hands upon a steering wheel.  In a sense that it's not going anywhere, I'm just trying to pay attention to it less.  Surely, this cannot go wrong.  Progress has been alright - I think I'm to a point where I can begin the awkward "holy shit I'm driving, I'm going to die any minute now, please every deity that has ever existed don't let me die" phase of -actual- driving, but that is going to take a bit of doing still.  Thankfully, I have a vehicle for when such a time occurs, but that means insurance which means -more- money that I don't yet have, so, well, it's going to be a fun few months here to start the year.

The issue with what's been going on isn't even the random bouts of, yes, sadness that occur, but rather the soul-crushing reality that I just cannot be excited when I'm in these fits, and occasionally just in general.  A lot of my earlier writing came from a place of extreme verve, that's obvious enough, and that's....how I write.  I put excitement into it, I put passion and energy into what I write.  I'm not just throwing words down, I feel like I'm crafting something when I'm truly 'in the zone' as they say, and that's quite the rush.  I can't do that these days.  I can fake it when something comes along that gets close to cracking my shell, like Drakengard 3, but in all honesty I can't bring myself to just be out-and-out excited and happy about it and that kills me.  I want to be able to sit here and bounce happily in my chair with the mere knowledge that the game exists and is being localized and I will actually get to own it, but I just can't.  Even typing that, I'm just sat here with a listless expression while I'm just struggling to form words in my head to go on.

It's not that I can't emote anymore, that I'm joyless or anything.  I can still laugh, I can enjoy games, I can find some form of fleeting peace and I can feel some sense of fulfillment from various sources.  It's just that...everything is muted a bit.  Everything is colored with the knowledge that I'm just eventually going to be at these low points again and that just sort of kills it.  There's not a lot I can do when I'm like this - I find it difficult to motivate myself to do anything, and it's even harder to actually create afterward.  So even if I play a game or read some news or watch a video, basically anything that I could make a talking point of, actually doing that...just doesn't happen sometimes.  And that 'sometimes' has been happening a lot more often, which is why I finally decided that maybe I should be a little more open about things.

I'm sure it's not too much of a surprise to you folks, as I've honestly touched on the subject before, but I don't think I ever just outright admitted just how bad it was.  Hopefully all that jargon about confronting and accepting things is truly the fastest way to get over them.  Maybe we'll find out.  All I know is that I am very tired of being tired, and I would like my energy and feelings back sooner rather than later.  That would be nice.

sorry, folks

Good Lord, This SimCity Thing is a Disaster

I am pretty sure I don't exactly have to elucidate the situation that is SimCity, as it is a thing that has been at the forefront of pretty much everywhere.  For good reason, too, since it is a case where this thing has been, as I say, wobbled so drastically that it's ripe for mockery and derision.  Not a single facet of this entire experiment has been particularly -good-, but merely yet another vessel through which we find yet another reason to collectively put our palms to our foreheads and sigh in something of a mix of disappointment and confusion.  It's hard to think that EA and Maxis, who have been doing this Sim thing in various forms for decades, could have gotten it so wrong with this installment, one that was meant to be a reboot, to bring the series back to 'glory' as they say.  And yet, they did.

If you -have- somehow missed out on the whole deal with SimCity, I would like to know what sites you frequent to ensure that.  More to the point, I can give a little bit of a run-down here so you're definitely caught up and just so we can all rub it in just a tad more.  When the game launched on March 5th, same day as Tomb Raider, the initial flood of players did just what it does with every game that requires online and crashed the ever-loving hell out of the servers, completely putting them out of commission.  Which, since the game has that pesky always-online DRM, requiring an internet connection to constantly affirm that you are totally playing a legit copy of the game, means that nobody got to play it.  Or, at least, very, very few people got to play it.

The problems only expanded as two days ticked by and the game was officially released everywhere aside from North America which caused an even bigger server strain which meant even more people 'owned' SimCity and could not play it.  EA issued a statement saying they would be adding more servers to address the issue over the next couple of days, yet here it is, the 10th, and not a whole lot has -actually- changed.  Presumably more people have, indeed, been able to play, but 10,000 people over 1,000 people is also still -more- so 'more' is honestly not indicative of a clear percentage of people who own the game and can actually play it with a degree of reliability.  Which is, of course, a Bad Thing™.  You know you have a problem on your hands when the company actually asks people to stop promoting the game until it works right and disabling parts of the game to expedite that process.

On the eighth, there was an official update about the situation as well as a little bit of a peace offering.  On top of dedicating 120% more server space, everyone who bought SimCity will be eligible for a 'free PC download game from the EA portfolio' which is a sort of nebulous statement.  Common sense would dictate that it's a pre-determined title, but the wording leaves it open to interpret that perhaps you get to -choose- a title (up to a certain dollar amount, likely, which will preclude 'new' releases).  We'll find that out on the 18th, when players will get an email with details on just how to redeem their game, but either way, free stuff is free and that always goes a long way to placate folks.  It's certainly not something you'll ever find me complaining about unless the situation is far more drastic.  "Oh, I'm sorry, I broke your leg in three places, here have a free PSN game" or the like.  I will assault you with my crutches, sir.

Now, we're being assured that 'the worst is behind us' which sounds very nice, of course, but it's not, really.  I never really understood people openly rebelling against this game, against this concept until this whole thing.  Until all of it made me realize just what the critical flaw of SimCity is:  Whether or not you get to play the game is wholly dependent on EA.  We talk about digital licenses and 'loaning' games to you, not actually 'selling' them and by and large, there's some truth in that, but this is just blatant.  Look up how many games EA turns the servers off of ever year and see just how new -some- of those games just happen to be.  Not, like, year old new, of course, but similarly not decade old either.  So for your $60 investment (or more), you only get to play this new SimCity for as long as EA is willing to hold servers aloft for it which is certainly not going to be more than....six years, I'll say.

There is no way to play SimCity Offline and an idea to do an Offline Mode has already been nixed as a possibility, which of course wouldn't normally preclude it from being possible eventually, but I highly doubt it.  The reason provided, you see, is that the actual simming part of SimCity is apparently done server-side (to incorporate other players into it and the like, all those lovely 'social' features that require it being online) so your game is less a game and more a conduit for input.  And, of course, it's pretty much persistent.  I've heard stories already from people who were locked out of playing the game for a while, only to come back to disaster and unrest because, well, the city went on even though you couldn't continue to play it and guide it.  That, to me, is the most damning thing about the whole situation, and is one good reason why I would never personally look into procuring the game for myself - but also because, as stated, that's a technical impossibility.  It's just absolutely baffling how they took SimCity as a concept, a single-player thing, and turned it into this.  Absolutely miserable.

Pros and Cons of My Game Ideas

As of the time of writing this, I have found that one of the harder aspects of achieving my New Year's Resolution will be simply deciding on just which project to pursue for it.  As I presented in the last post, my Resolution post, I have two different types of games that I have milling about in my head that one of which, with any luck, will be an actual thing by years-end:  A Table-top RPG system (akin to Dungeons and Dragons, Vampire:  The Masquerade, Exalted, etc.) with the lore and such, or a Trading Card/Tactics/Board-style hybrid game in the vein of Metal Gear Ac!d that would, presumably, also have a bit of lore surrounding it depending on what form it takes.  There's cons on the surface of either project that basically amount to "Making a game is pretty tough", but in thinking about it, each game has their own various drawbacks, but also their own rewards that the other probably can't replicate.  I imagine really parsing them both out here will help me make sense of which I should really go with better than not.

The Card Game:

The obvious first issue with making a Card game in the way I'm envisioning is basically that it already exists in the shells of Metal Gear Ac!d and Metal Gear Ac!d 2, which means that I have to design it specifically around not being either of those games as much as possible because 1) this has to be my own thing and 2) I don't want to 'rip off' anything.  Being able to say "inspired by" while people can acknowledge it's a different thing (beyond the fact that it'll use things that aren't Metal Gear) is the goal, obviously, but having kind of a restriction in that vein is a troublesome one.  If only because I can't remember a lot of MGA besides fun and grinding for more cards obsessively, so I don't remember the ups and downs of the system in place there.  This means that for every mechanic and idea I have, I have to make sure it's not a rip from the games in question, because, again, this has to be at least mostly original on my part.  Which also means that I also have to determine what would, theoretically be a 'straight-rip' and what's more or less just a viable open idea.  More or less the difference between figuring on 'numbers on cards = movement value' being 'okay to use' or 'nope, too much theirs' and the like.

The other big downside is obviously that for a card-based game to be viable, there has to be a lot of cards which I may or may not be able to really make up.  For one, I'm not much of an artist, so I couldn't do the visualizations and would just, instead, have a bunch of cards made up with a spot for images that aren't there, leaving me to have to have someone else make those.  Then again, that's mostly cosmetic and I should more focus on the mechanics of it all, but I have to figure out at least some of this stuff beforehand, if just for a mental picture.  Still, knowing that a lot of cards are necessary, possibly in the 100-200 range depending on how I take this, makes it a slight bit intimidating thinking about making any of them since there'll always be the looming "One down 132 to go" feeling hanging over me.  Maybe I'm overshooting a bit, or overestimating just how difficult making that many cards would be, but I'm not quite sure.

The last real big Con against this idea is the fact that it's whole concept in my mind is a bit nebulous, at least when it's compared to the setting of my RPG that is.  It wasn't until just earlier today that I really got a glimpse into the 'world' I would like to base the game around and I was fairly surprised by what I was looking at.  More or less what I've settled on is having it set up so that the lowest amount of players is 2, where one will control the 'Main Character' (of which there will probably be a few, each having their own pros and cons) and the other player will control the 'Opposing Force',  (which will probably work on the 'strength in numbers' philosophy as so many game 'armies' do) where the ultimate goal for the MC is to get to a certain point, pick up objectives, kill a certain person (or persons) on the board or whatever else they decide on, whereas the goal of the OF will generally be to wipe out the MC (though there are possibilities for other things).  Other players would be handled differently in sort of a Free-for-All basis where just because one person plays OF and two people each play an MC doesn't mean those two players are working together.

The upside here is that in just writing this and talking to Saki-Chan as I do so, I've expanded a lot on my original idea in various ways, so the last con there is less true, but only slightly so.  As well as that, just thinking all this up has me so excited that I can't keep my ideas straight and it's got my brain working overtime.  In general terms of viability, I imagine this would be the idea out of the two that's more apt for being more approachable; something where the rules are a little more set and concrete over a Tabletop RPG, and it leads more for quicker play sessions, though they could be as drawn-out as the players wished, depending on the objectives set and the factions/characters used.  So I guess the condensed version of the Pros section would be that it's more accessible, more portable (the idea in my head currently is being able to have a pack thing for one or two decks, a figure or figures depending on what you use, and a couple fold-out maps), and more flexible in terms of session time meaning players could determine their own level of time invested.

The Tabletop RPG:

The first and biggest issue with making a Tabletop RPG is that, by its own nature, you have to make your own world and lore which implies every little bit of detail you'd infer from that statement.  Every character has to be able to come from 'something', to have their own baggage by virtue of being one thing or another, and to have their own advantages for the same reason.  The world has to live and breathe before you hand it to players for them to shape their own portion of it in their image, because first it has to attract them with that life to convince them to create in it.  You have to offer your world as an outlet for them to plug into, not unlike a video game, whereas giving them enough tools and freedom to use as much or as little of what you've made for their own whims.  And in that same vein, you have to understand that some people just aren't going to like certain aspects, so you have to leave it flexible enough to work around those aspects or exclude them outright.

The con in itself is worth like five or so because it's the umbrella for every part of the game that you have to create which is an issue in itself.  Mechanics, characters, how enemies work, what is the world made of and what happened in its past, you have to make everything but a plot the characters have to follow because that's where the GM steps in, and they could want to step in at any angle, meaning you have to leave things open enough for them to do that easily.  I'm struggling to find ways to make that more apparent, but all I can think of to do is to just state that and reinforce it by saying it again in different ways.  You almost have to play a game with yourself of getting things to the point where a theoretical starting point for most campaigns would be (insomuch as 'the world looks like this, currently', where is where most GMs would take it from, since that point generally offers the most flexibility.  Where others will want to take a more 'changing/reinforcing history' route.) and by that point, you have to have everything else set in stone which might point out its flaws in doing so meaning you have to double-back on it all.

I guess the good part of this is that I already have some of this stuff figured out.  I have a world in concept already which is flexible enough to let me have a past, the moment things started happening and their 'end point' which is that theoretical starting point for most campaigns.  It's not perfect and it needs fleshing out, but it has more substance to it than the Card game since this isn't the first time I've really thought about it.  In truth, I've had this idea for upwards of....maybe a year, actually, and have only put small efforts into making it something more than it is.  Ideas for this and that have been put down on the overall map of the game, but I need to make them more than they are, to make them actually viable things rather than a 'neat idea' for a mechanic, or theoretical approaches to a certain action like crafting or something like that.  The fact that it's started is welcome, but the expanse of work is probably greater than I could expect with the card game, if only in the theorizing of everything.

Still, the overall reward would be greater in that I'll have made something that will always be more than it is; because it's a world incomplete on purpose the people who buy into it and get into it will always get more out of it than you could give them were it anything else.  You're giving them a means to create an adventure that they'll always remember and always associate with what you started and that's going to be a feeling you'll never really be able to quantify well enough.  Only if it's executed well enough, that is, as nobody wants to play, to make something, with shoddy tools when there are plenty of other more viable building materials out there.  While that's true for both game ideas I have, I feel it's moreso with this one, since I'll certainly be creating more for this than the card game, which means there's more to lose if I don't manage to get something good going.

I have my work cut out for me regardless of which option I go for.  The fact that I want to go after both, that I'm literally sitting here near-trembling in excitement at the prospect of creating this or that for either game just as willingly as the other is a good sign for me though.  I'm really ready to go at this with both barrels once I know what I'm going at, which means that I'm pretty optimistic about my chances here.  Hopefully that optimism helps actually create, instead of just getting me worked up about something I can't put together.  I'm pretty confident though, seeing as the last thing I decided to go at like this was this blog.

KinecTV? Buh?

So I was going to do a post here about going back to Playstation Home complete with pictures of my adventures since it's switched to the remodled layout and is thus, different, but in lieu of sitting there and watching every area tick away in downloading, I decided to switch between TV and HDMI settings to have a little fun with Storage Wars all day.  Unfortunately, switching back one time lead to some.....pretty drastic graphic distortions which freaked me right the fuck out and sent me turning off the device.  After a minute of cool-down, I turned it back on to see that the familiar sight of the Sega Room Dynamic Theme behind the Xross Media Bar, completely untouched by aforementioned distortions.  I immediately turned it back off, of course, and would be willing to lay the blame completely on Home itself, rather than my PS3, but I'm not sure.  You'll find out, I can assure you that.

But, regardless, without being able to do that, I've had to scramble to find something else post-worthy and this was just weird enough of a proposition for me to throw in on.  It seems if Joystiq (and, by proxy 'The Daily') are to be trusted, Microsoft is planning on integrating Kinect into Televisions in the near-future which by itself is not all that outlandish.  However, the fact that Sony is brought up as one of the TV Manufacturers is enough to bring it into the realm of mention.  Of course, this wouldn't be Sony as in their rivals in the game market Sony, but Sony the TV makers Sony.  (Sony.)  And it's only mention-worthy because you would think that Sony already has plans to try and integrate Move into their new TVs (or at least whatever the motion capable device that launches with the PS4 will be) and thus this wouldn't happen.

However, if this is true, which it by no means is right at this moment, you have to wonder just what this means for PS4.  It would be ridiculous to suggest that SCE (used as a general term for all of the Entertainment division) would really let this deal go through without a fight and then A.) not use the Kinect Cameras (which would mean dropping move entirely or retooling it, making all the existing wands and such likely obsolete) B.) Launch the PS4 with Move (or the 'next step up') that requires yet another external camera, since I don't see Kinect+ or whatever you want to call it (as there's a chance it'll use the improved Kinect for Windows model or something even more improved than that) being open enough for both Kinect and Move functionality.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that I've never really seen a situation like this, where all the cross-breeding that parent companies do with their child companies rivals has created such a quandary.  Sony computers run Windows which is fine enough and expected even, mostly because Sony doesn't have their own OS made up to try and step into the OS market (which would be a fool's move, honestly.) which is the most common example you'll find when the cross-breeding I mentioned is brought up.  So whatever comes of it will be an interesting case to refer back to after it's done and over with.  I really don't know what the "best case scenario" is here, as, with several improvements, Kinect is likely the motion control device you want, but without those, the Move is still the most precise one out there, s'far as I know.  I think there's a place for both of them, and I doubt there's going to be a world where that place is "Co-existence".