E3 Day Two: The Old Republic

Another day, another massive dose of content. I’ve come to the both exciting and depressing conclusion that I’m going to go broke sometime next fall with the sheer quantity of games that I’ve got my eye on. If you tally in that I was tempted to nick a 3DS I’m forced to decide between eating for the next three months and playing all of the new cool games that are showing up.

Top of that list for me would be The Old Republic. I always resigned myself to being a big enough Star Wars nerd that I’d inevitably be buying that game, and probably quite close to it’s release date(/hour) but it’s only now I’m truly starting to become excited about the upcoming release. It’s true that every new MMO insists that it’s finally going to give us a uniquely different experience, ‘unmatched by other old MMOs’, and they have a success rate with those promises that mirrors politicians. I’m more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to Bioware though on account of what their promises are and their past history in dealing with said game-play elements. To be brief they’re focusing on story, and yes, supposedly in such a manner as to be unique to all MMOs before them. Old line, customary sighs when it was heard, doubt springs eternal, etc. etc. Though they’ve showcased a handful of systems that seem to indicate they might not be lying their asses off, a shocking as that is.

First amongst them would be the dialogue options. It’s a wonderful step away from the old ‘accept quest’ button, and has been implied (yay! Promises!) to allow you to change precisely how you need to do each quest, as well as some of their outcomes. Now this might not mean much to the average MMO-player as most of us have developed a habit of just smashing the accept button as fast as we can to forgo the often horrible (and always trivial!) writing that shows up these quests, but it does have a bigger impact on the side of me that genuinely enjoys RPGs. I always pick a persona of sorts when diving into an RPG. It might be absurd, it might not be, it doesn’t matter. I find it makes the game more interesting to stick to whatever your character is meant to be instead of just trying to run the game as best as you can. The ability to play as a character will be something that no MMO has achieved before, and if it isn’t just an empty promise means there could be serious potential for a fun story to be had.

The story itself being the second of the big points in Bioware’s favor. Admittedly most of the plots of their games haven’t stepped outside of very conventional guidelines (Fantasy epic. Space epic. Fantasy Space epic.) the characters in them are generally interesting and well written. Furthermore the plots themselves tend to be well done, if not particularly original. What this gives me hope for, and fuels their next huge promise, is that the story of The Old Republic will actually be something I won’t immediately tune out – which is the norm for MMOs in general. Bioware has released a number of franchises at this point that have all nailed this element down in fairly competent manner, and it gives them a bit more credit.

Lastly there’s a group element that combines both of the above. It’s an announced feature that’s shown up in game-play videos so I suppose it’s less of a promise and more a question of how often we’re going to see it. It’s the idea that whenever you’re crusading about the galaxy doing quests with your friends you’ll all be able to engage in conversations with NPCs together. The system has been explained to work by having a hidden dice throw determine who gets to answer which question as you plod along in your adventure. Once again this probably isn’t something that’ll appeal tremendously to people who aren’t into actually assuming the role of their character, but since I’m not only planning to do so but also intending to level with a group of like-minded individuals it has real potential. It not only gets the old RPing juices flowing for how we’ll handle the various situations, but effectively means this is the first MMORPG where the ‘MMO’ part is more than just seeing other people playing what is basically a single player game at the same time.

Of course all these things might fail to live up to my expectations, the only evidence I have to hope they won’t fail spectacularly is Biowares track record. I consider KOTOR to be particularly encouraging as it shows they can run a good story in the Star Wars setting, or at least a better one than most of the other writers dicking around with that source material these days.  

E3 Trailers Galore

E3's here in all it's glory and the gamer media has gone into a frenzy. It's not without reason, this year they've even put up a counter for sheer quantity of new videos in total and in the last hour. It's gotten a bit absurd, but as an advid gamer I can't really be grumpy over it - it's just too exciting.

Hell just to give some degree of understanding, I'm typing this up late on the 6th. As in barely one day worth of content and there's already huge trailers out for some of the bigger titles. Personally I've been impressed by both The Old Republic and Assassins Creed cinematics. Sure, these trailers don't really show gameplay, but they accomplish two things really well. 1) Convey the intended feeling of the coming game really well and 2) put flashy impressive pre-rendered graphics in front of long time fans to get them pumped for story. In that regard they've done a superb job and have me eagerly awaiting their releases.

If my expectations are correct then we'll likely be seeing both titles sometime between September and Christmas. When you add in Space Marine (and y'know, that pesky university thing) it's going to be a busy few months for me. I'll come back as more and more E3 trailers blow my mind, until then I'm going to go drool over what they currently have.

Spirituality

End Note: Almost none of this is coherent. Given the topic at hand I find myself almost incapable of editing it to improve that situation. Treat it loosely as a collection of personal reflections and it may make more sense.

And thus introspection turned towards the topic of spirituality. It’s been on my mind for the last little while in light of my recent attempts to focus harder on personal training. I’m just going to ramble a while here and try to define myself. Expect more than a bit of wandering. It’s worth pointing out here, nice and early on, that spirituality in this context could effectively be replaced with the phrase ‘peace of mind’ without any major inconsistencies. I simply prefer to say spirituality.

I’m not actually certain on how accurate of a title that really is, though. But then again, I know the definition of what spirituality is will change from person to person, so maybe it’s as close as I can get to the truth. What I’m trying to focus on is almost an aspect of religion, but freed from any of the constraints of organization or labels. You see, I don’t adhere to any religion in particular. I don’t follow the tenets of any of them except by accident and personal preference rather than any loyalty to a church. This doesn’t mean I’m entirely focused on the here and now however, nor that I ignore the mind and (for want of a better term) soul when striving to improve myself. Personal philosophy is a part of it, but not the whole. Finding peace within yourself and bolstering your will to make a change in how you act can seem to come from the outside almost. An odd process of meditation leading to the development of personal commitments is an element of what’s going on, but narrowing down precisely how it functions eludes me.

A recent example would be my attempts to push my abilities in performing the horse stance in Kung Fu. For the untutored, it’s effectively holding yourself mid-squat for as long as you can to increase the necessary leg strength to perform the various moves of the art. When doing so I realized the main issue I was going to run across was my own mind. It was what you’d call a ‘head game’. Undoubtedly the action does hurt, but your limits in capability aren’t anywhere near where your brain will stubbornly tell you to give up. It’s in facing this issue that I turned to spirituality. It’s a measure to enforce personal control and push myself beyond my previous limitations. It has proven notably effective. Scarcely a week since I started, when I struggled to hold the pose for a minute, I’ve managed to build the required endurance to hold it for four and a half minutes. I endeavor to reach the five minute mark tomorrow. I can identify the part of me that wishes to break off and quit, and I silence it. Resolution comes from the commitment, as if stopping would be to fail something more than just myself.

I’ve always had the habit of taking moments to reflect upon life and how things are going. It’s the source of my tendency towards introspection, but it’s also where a great deal of my confidence comes from. A wellspring of optimism I generally don’t exhibit in public is present whenever I’m quietly considering the course of my life. A consensus is reached in my mind; if a goal is set it will be achieved. Difficulty will be encountered. It’s not only accepted at this point but genuinely expected to the point of shock and confusion should it not present itself on time. But success is always assured – in some form.

This is not a belief in God, or an enormous ego. I’ve lost the former, and know the latter. It has a different role in my life and I can see when it comes into play. These cases are distinguished by its absence. Humility coupled with determination to go as far as I can. I believe in no outside being guiding me along as I do whatever’s at hand, simply the knowledge that I will do it.

I strengthen these thoughts and feelings with the quiet moments I have. I posted about them some time ago; the quiet walks in the forest, the atmosphere in Chapters. There I think the distinction comes from religion, even in the abstract sense. There’s no outer force, only nurturing an inner one. The sense of commitment to something other than myself may come from the various layers of consciousness – I’m not certain. It might be that the upper level of thought is so often associated with the will to give in that I’ve separated the will to succeed into some other part of my mind, one whose presence is invoked with the feelings of spirituality. It’s not clear to me; this goes beyond the usual inspection of the various levels of motivation, and I’m too tied up with the feelings involved to properly divide them.

A part of it is the will to find experiences. I wish to understand what it would be like to do things that don’t flow within the normal course of my days. To borrow from the example of the horse stance above, it’s a goal of mine to be able to train it strong enough that I might wake up one morning before the sun has risen and walk to a nearby hill. On the hill I’d intend to do my stretches until the very top of the sun began to rise over the horizon, then I would adopt the stance and hold it until the sun had fully risen into the sky. There’s no purpose to such an experience bar having it. I seek these things out because of curiosity I’m sure, but it feels like there’s another element to it as well. I enjoy walks through the forest at night. At first I thought that was simply to conquer the fear of the darkness that you can get in the middle of the night when all the lights around are blocked by trees, but even after that was accomplished I found solace in the walks. I’ve always found it easier to think in darkness. Another example was when I bought a piano. I have no formal training what so ever with the device and by consequence am quite inept with it. I find playing it relaxing, but that doesn’t entirely explain the investment of over a hundred dollars. I do things on whim a great deal, but usually at less personal cost. I wanted to try and create music, see what it would be like. Find out if I could lose myself slowly playing it. An experience.

They say a mind expands with the number of things it experiences. If the analogy between spirituality and peace of mind can be held up this might explain the urge to try these things. We draw from our past to decide how we’ll handle the future. Perhaps this is just a need to have a greater pool to take from in response to the ever more complex possibilities the coming years will have.

All I can say for certain is that I find the examination and interaction with these feelings is what brings spirituality to mind for me. It’s nothing like a brief or witty phrase that other people have used to sum up their feelings on the subject, but it’s as close as I can come to an accurate explanation of an otherwise impenetrable topic for me.