Honest HTC 8X Review

I recently got ahold of the HTC 8X.  Someone didn't give it to me or ship it to me as a favor or shameless plug.  I actually USED the phone for day-to-day usage for the last couple of weeks.  It is great.  There are some issues, but I will cover those as well.

Oh Apps, where art thou?!
The first, and most alarming thing, you will experience when moving from iOS or Android to WP8 is apps.  Some apps are great, others not so much.  There are several THOUSAND apps available, you won't want most of them.  It is hard to transition because there are so few apps that were built for WP7, let alone the new WP8.  You have to rely on homebrew apps that require some sort of assistance accessing some kind of mobile backend to help you do anything.  I am amazed that they even get some of the stuff to work.

Coming from Android I had a few apps that I REALLY wanted to work, so far I have found manageable alternatives, but they aren't as good as the real thing.  Google Voice, Play Music and Picasa are all non-existent on WP8.  Not a single Google app for any of those exists.  3rd party homebrew apps do manage to give you most of the access you are used to, but in a kind of weird way.  Gooroovester manages to get my Play Music stuff mostly right.  There are several Picasa apps, but they are all limited in some way on the features available.  The Google Voice apps are a toss up.  Some work, some don't, some crash, some will try to forward all of your texts through Google Voice.  For the time being I am content, but not happy.

WP8 MUST get solid apps working from these people.  Get Google on board, get other developers on board and motivate them to make these apps.  We have the ability to compile two versions at once for desktop apps... why are we not doing this?  Get Facebook and Twitter involved, you have them both deeply integrated into the device with the Me and People tiles, get some apps on the phone and get it done RIGHT!

Speedfreak
This phone isn't just gorgeous, light and thin... it is FAST.  The WP7 phone were slouches, but this experience is raising the bar significantly.  Imagine the speed and power of a Galaxy S3 without the bloat of Touchwiz, a slightly faster NAND and an OS catered to getting shit done RIGHT NOW.  That is pretty much this phone.  My old Galaxy Nexus was awesome and it was pretty fast, but it doesn't hold a candle to the speed and responsiveness of this device.  WP8 was designed specifically for this hardware and, moreover, for this resolution.  It looks good, it feels good and it couldn't be faster.  Things open like they should, move like they are supposed to and you almost forget the old days of waiting while things did stuff.

With the long development time on this mobile OS Microsoft had time to tune it to the specs that it wanted.  Take a look at the other WP8 phones out and you will see that even the 99 dollar offering that is the baseline, barebones model is just as powerful... it just has a less spectacular resolution and display.  After spending time with this phone I almost giggle when I watch people open up apps now, not because I am trying to stop from crying because I probably can't use that app, but because they have to wait for it.  While I do wish I had more "things" on my phone, I also don't think I'd sacrifice the experience I have now for them.

iPhone Killer
This thing isn't going to take over the world.  The Nokia Lumia 920 is my first choice.  Even though I have the 8X, I'd rather have that phone.  Hands down.  Period.  I have the 8X because I am on Verizon and Nokia decided to do a six month exclusive deal with AT(and)T.  That means I won't own that phone.  Because that puts me 1/3rd of the way through my upgrade cycle before I can get my hands on one.  This phone is nice, but it isn't THAT nice.

The feel of it in your hand is unmistakable.  It feels great.  It is very light and very thin.  It rivals the new iPhone in almost every way.  This phone has a screen that is now considered small (4.3 in), but is still larger than the new iPhone.  The maps app is also way better.  Like... a lot.  At the end of the day even comparing the two devices is silly.  One is made to be an all-in-one media device, the other is designed to be a productivity monster.  The WP8 phones have plenty of bells and whistles, but they are all about easy integration first and foremost.

Hope for the future
Holding this phone I think about what Microsoft could do with the mobile industry and I am thrilled.  I think they have taken a huge step forward for themselves AND the rest of us.  Apple wants to keep it closed and keep everyone out.  Google is willing to let anyone play.  Microsoft is taking a combined approach and is asking everyone to come visit, but making sure you know that there are no VIPs.  Microsoft is still kind of in it's own ecosystem and if you don't wish to play along, they don't mind.  Could you imagine if Microsoft took a Google approach and simply stopped allowing device drivers for Android to install in Windows 8?  I'm sure there would be a boatload of upset people, but I bet that'd make Google change their tune about development.

Once Microsoft gets some better apps from better developers out and once they put more focus on the ability to compile code for both ARM and x86 at once, we are all going to be winners.  Whether you like Microsoft or not and whether you want to consider them a technological power doesn't matter.  What matters is that they are shaking up the industry more than it has been in the last almost decade.  With Blackberry poised to fall on it's face, Microsoft is there to pick up the pieces and be the best choice for business and productivity.  This should be pretty exciting!

At the end of the day...
At the end of the day we all know that only one thing matters.  That is how I felt about the device on several levels.  How do you rate a smartphone?  Well, I left some pros and cons in my usage below.

Pros
Ease of Use:  Having an old Hotmail or an Xbox live account makes things a lot easier, but even without one the process to get in and start playing is fairly simple.  Everything is very intuitive and I am pretty certain that the average user would be able to pick up the device and understand it very quickly

Size/Weight/Feel:  The phone feels amazing.  It is thin, light and gorgeous looking.  The size may be a little small for people coming from current generation Android powerhouse phones, but the phone is a dream to use and handle.

Fairly seamless experience:  Syncing is a breeze in Windows 8, but even on Mac it is very pleasing.  The latest software allows syncing music with iTunes, as well.  They did a great job on the new apps AND making the phone so easy to transfer files to and from.

Cons
Apps:  We need more apps.  Like, a lot more.

Battery life:  While battery life isn't as miserable as it is on some phones, a heavy user can easily drain this thing and have you wishing you had more plugs to charge this thing up.

STEAM! Y U NO SALE WHEN I HAZ MONIEZ?!

Today I got a gift.  A Steam gift.

I got a 60 dollar game as a gift.  It was amazing.  I may not get a chance to play it a lot, but I sure am happy to have it.  One of my longtime e-friends gave me an early Christmas gift while he was enjoying the Steam Autumn Sale.  I was unable to enjoy... because I has no monies!

I really enjoy the Steam sales.  I can get a lot for a little.  I will be ready next month for the winter sale that runs through Christmas.  I can't wait.  I hope to only score a couple of games or expansions, but it should be good stuff.

The hardest part is figuring out what to get my e-friend...

Why I (mostly) gave up on Android Pt. 4

And... number four...

Carriers
Why do the carriers matter?  BECAUSE THEY DO.  Take a look at how well AT&T did because they had the iPhone.  Disregard the fact that the GSM network is better for an actual mobile user.  Disregard the fact that people continue to flip their shit about CDMA restrictions.  Disregard the fact that T-Mobile still doesn't have an iPhone and still has unlimited data (and in some places a better HSPA+ network).  Carriers matter, trust me.

Verizon dropped the ball so fucking hard that Google didn't even make the new Nexus available on CDMA... at all.  (Sprint loses, too.  Poor Sprint.)  I am pretty sure that if they continue to be the fucking hateful bloodsuckers that they are that after the Moto contract expires that Google will pull that exclusive contract.  Imagine if Google could make a Motorola Nexus and offer it to carriers with their own stipulations.  WIN!  Imagine, now, if Google stopped Moto from making all of those sweet DROIDs for Verizon.  You'd have... a couple of Samsung lawsuit phones and some garbage LG phones.  AWESOME!  No that the RAZR M of the HD versions of the RAZR and MAXX are all that great.  Actually... the RAZR and MAXX themselves were kinda shitty.  Since the Droid X Moto has kind of been mediocre on VZW.

T-Mobile started the pure Nexus thing and I think it'd be same to hedge some bets on them.  What I'd love to see if Google go in and buy them... and then buy Sprint.  Have both GSM and CDMA and use that with your new Fiber powerhouse to go across the country and provide us with quality service for reasonable prices and making a fucking killing.  I'd buy into it.  I can't wait until the Google Fiber is available.  I might just set my fucking Comcast modem on fire.  Dicks.

If I ever go back to Android it will be for a Nexus.  I want the pure experience.  I want the bloatfree guarantee.  I want to know that people are going to develop for it.  I want to know, moreover, that the Carrier won't fuck it up again.  Fuck you Verizon, assholes.

Why I (mostly) gave up on Android Pt. 3

And a third part to the Android rant...

Apple
One of the biggest things stopping Android from really moving forward is Apple.  Apple doesn't seem to want to innovate in the mobile market.  What this results in is a whole fucking lot of arguing and some lawsuits where people argue over things that don't matter and award each other large sums of money that provide upper-management with better vacations.  I'm not mad at Apple for making money.  I'm mad at Apple for stifling innovation for half a decade.

Apple makes a shitload of money.  They dominate all of the more important parts of mobile technology.  Smartphones, tablets and "ultrabooks".  Want it to be easy, portable and easy to use?  Apple has you covered.  In the case of the ultrabooks.... I'm not sure I'd call it that easy to use and you may run into some trouble when everyone else and your IT department uses PCs.  The iPhone and iPad are far and away some of the best devices in their category in terms of polish.  Apple only releases one thing and they control it from start to finish.  If it is a flop, it is on them.  They are invested more in the product than Android is.  Even the Nexus 7 isn't the best device it can be.  Cutting costs and getting your name out there are great, but for technophiles like myself... it sucks.

If it isn't a lawsuit then it's an advertisement.  If it isn't an advertisement then it's a huge pile of money to get someone to adopt the phone.  Sending out iPhone to celebs = win.  Embedding iPods into the culture = win. Android is so far behind it isn't even funny.  They are making up ground, but how many shitty, el-cheapo devices are people going to get before they give up on?  That 50 dollar tablet from Walgreens isn't going to wow anyone.  Apple does a pretty good job at convincing people that they NEED to play 600 bucks for an iPad.  How?  I don't know. *full disclosure: I'm getting a Surface and have owned a Nexus 7*

Why I (mostly) gave up on Android Pt. 2

Part two of my Android rant......

Marketing
Companies that make the phone are pushing for the devices to do well.  Samsung and HTC normally do a good job.  Carriers have also joined in on the fun... but Google doesn't even try.  Google doesn't put dollars toward advertising and marketing, because it doesn't have to.  It isn't making money on Android.  They let the manufacturers have control and this might come back to hurt them later.  Snarky commercials about how the iPhone sucks and waiting in line is lame are awesome and all, but what happens when someone fires back at that green robot?  Nothing.

A good example of how little Android gives a shit is the recent case against Samsung.  Google could have at any time jumped in and flexed a bit of it's muscle, but it didn't get involved.  The best form of marketing is the publicity generated from that... and Google doesn't do marketing.  After the court said that they owed Apple a billion dollars I'm sure people knew what Android was and how it was close enough to Apple (and in most cases less expensive) to warrant a billion dollars.  Why not go get a Samsung, it's basically a cheaper, less cool Apple product... right?  BEST MARKETING EVER.  Too bad that came at the cost of innovation....

Apple not only controls their commercials and marketing, they control what features are showcased.  Google needs to step it up and get in on this game.  Again, they need to take the reigns and start laying down requirements if they hope to keep winning people over.

Why I (mostly) gave up on Android Pt. 1

I have been a big Android fanboy for a while.  I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.  Then when I did, I couldn't wait to customize it.  Then when I hit the ceiling there I couldn't wait to unlock it, root it, ROM it and go nuts.  Once I was a pro at that I realized how much I didn't like the feel of anything but the stock experience.  They hire a bunch of people to make sure that they get it right and for some of the stuff... they do.

Fragmentation
I have been fighting this argument for a long time and now I totally get it.  There are still people in contacts that are NOT EVEN RUNNING 2.0!  There are still people using 1.6 IN A FUCKING CONTRACT!  There are still loads of people stuck on 2.1.  The advances from 2.1 to 2.3 were massive and changed a lot of the experience and things that the OS could do.  Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of awesome available, just a whole lot less.  The fact that so many people are still sitting on phones that are stuck at 2.3 is sad enough, the 1.6 guys really tug at my heart.  I understand that not every phone can utilize these new features and I'd never hope that Android took such a closed approach as Apple, but we have to find a middle ground.

El Cheap Sucks-a-dick brand Android phones are ruining the experience.  The basement bargain phones aren't good.  At all.  There are still bad Android phones.  There are still people locked into contracts using Thunderbolts, Charges and Galaxy Stellars.  Those are all 4G devices... and they are bad.  By letting so many makers make phones they can get them into more hands.  More makers means more small customized bits of the device.  A switch here in settings.  A UI tweak there.  One Android to the next can seem completely alien.  This is NO BUENO!

Google needs to put on the big boy pants and tell the carriers to fuck off and the phone makers to invest more into the devices.  A good phone is worth it and once the market is filled with good phones, the negative stigma might life AND they might manage to get everyone upgraded.  Every phone can't be a Galaxy S (insert number) branded device of a Nexus.  Those seem to be some of the more popular and better selling devices, also some that seem to stack up well against Apple.  But... when you're pumping out year old garbage Android phones that won't ever run the best software you are crippling yourself.  2.3 was awesome compared to 1.5, but is hilarious compared to the leaps made in 4.2.

Good hardware.  Good software.  Upgrades for your phone.  Without these things, the brand is going to begin to stagnate.  People have heard of it and think it looks cool, but it won't continue to flex it's dominance if it can't continue to do well as people move to second and third contracts since the phone has been out.

The latest WoW expansion feels alive.

I know that I kind of get sad about the state of the game, but the fact still remains: nothing is better than WoW.

Nothing.

Not RIFT, not SWToR, not LoTRO, not DDO, no AoC, not EQ2, not AION.

WoW is it's own entity.  A lot has changed in the game, but a lot has stayed the same.  I am pleased with the new expansion and some of the things that it gets right.  I am sure that I will talk, at length, about most of these features of the next 18-24 months as we wait for the new expansion to come out.

The expansion FEELS alive.  People are in the new zones.  People are in the old zones, thanks to cross-realm technology.  People are playing and doing things and it makes the world feel full of life.  The fact that not all of the zones are destroyed, broken, or otherwise a fucking trainwreck makes it nice, too.  The overall feel of the game is very fall-esque.  It looks gorgeous with the colors and leaves everywhere.  The huge fields of green and the fact that so much of the game is about delicious fucking beer.  BEER.  Mmm!

It is nice to actually log into the game and not be greeted by horrible and depressing scenario.  However, you will do some dailies... FOR A LONG TIME... that are in a very sad place.  It is kind of black and shitty, but, you won't be there forever.  The Golden Lotus dailies make you remember how beautiful the game and this expansion can be.  I am still in awe when I fly through it.  It is breathtaking.  It brings back some old feels that I had back when WoW was still new and unexplored.

I like it.

New Job = New Busy

I finally scored a new job.  I even managed to find something in the mobile technology industry, too.  It's not glamorous, but it is something where my brain can get a work out and I don't have to be on my feet 10+ hours a day.

I recently started a new job working as tech support for mobile phones.  I guide people through issues like setting up a device or troubleshooting issues with it.  I work through backups and restores.  I handle app installations and explanations.  I don't do a lot of tough stuff, but depending on the person it can become very stressful.

While this new job is MORE MONEY AND LESS HOURS I have to drive to and from work about 45 minutes each way and I normally have to leave at least an 75 minutes before work, to make sure I can make it even if there is a wreck on the interstate.  Interstate driving is it's own stress, but the rest of the job isn't too bad.

This does, however, make my life very busy.  That results in no posts, mostly because I haven't had a chance to play many games.  I've been bounced around in my schedule several times.  From training to floor work my schedule has been changed at least 5 times.  Days, nights, in-betweens.  Once I move into a more regular schedule I believe that I will find some time to play some games and actually be able to say things about them again.  This is especially exciting because GW2 AND MoP are here (well, 3 days for MoP).  WOOO!

I look forward to not only playing again, but to actually being able to vent again.

Google Currents really sucks.

I spend a lot of time drooling over the next cool thing that Google decides to do.  I have run into a few instances where Google is clear ahead on a project and it ends up canceled because they can't find a good place for it in their ecosystem.  Google Wave was a clear example of this.  It could have been very useful if it had been introduced to the proper niche.  I feel that in a corporate environment it could have been interesting.  I think that as a social media addition it could have been very cool.  It didn't make it and I have to deal with it.  Oh well...

Google has something now that acts kind of like an RS reader.  Google Currents.  You can sign up for numerous magazines, e-zines and countless websites.  The app is then supposed to bring you the top news to you.  It is supposed to be tailored more toward your tastes based on what you signed up for.  In the end, it just sucks.

Most of the stories are simply trending topics.  Some of which aren't even the most current news.  The way that the app displays these things is hilariously bad.  The pictures are wrong most of the time and the generic pictures that it puts up when it can't figure out what to put is even worse.  The headlines aren't displayed in a manner where you can really figure out what the story will be about.  It's really all kind of sad.  Add to that there are UI performance issues and it just slides downhill rather quickly.

There is a lot that can be done to infuse this app with the life that it needs to be a real winner.  To be something that Google would be proud to put their name on, but I'm not sure if it's being done.  I don't see a lot of talk about Currents and considering it is so new and is supposedly taking the place of the Google Reader... I'm not sure I have a lot of hope.  Don't get me wrong.  It CAN be good, it just needs work.

With some reductions in UI lag and how easy it is to pick a story/feed/trending topic the UI can be helped.  Offering different versions of styles based on phone or tablet would go a long was as well.  Allow stories or videos to pop up in a browser or in YouTube, don't keep them within the app (this has been a MAJOR issue for me).  Put some work into actually making the entire package usable and orient it more toward the individual user.  I have given you ALL of my information.  You know me.  You can tell me how much traffic there will be on my way home, but you can't give me topics that REALLY interest me?  Come on Google!

Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend

This is the first time I've been able to play in the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend events.  I wasn't cool enough or invited to any of the others.  Apparently I had to pre-purchase the game, not just pre-order it (which I did as soon as I could).  I'm not really big on giving a company money for a product when a release date isn't even available.  Just my "thing".

That aside, I was super excited to see that I had finally made it!  I finally got my shot to to give the game a go.  This seemed like the best time, too.  This looks the last event before launch AND it finally gives us a look at two of the classes people have been very excited about.

I don't really have a lot of free time, so I didn't get a chance to play a whole lot.  I got a couple hours last night and I am going in for some more tonight, but I've got enough that I can get out some first impressions.

The game looks boring.  Visually it is absolutely boring.  The models and game world doesn't look bad, far from it.  The game just isn't an over the top super polished masterpiece that we are used to seeing.  The game runs on a very wide array of PC specs and seems to pretty much cater to the ENTIRE audience of those who can run the first one.

I played a Ranger and a Thief.  I was excited to play both and I think that both classes will be very good.  I will probably give them both a shot.  The game has moved on from the originals class system (or multi-class system).  There isn't a whole mini-game of making the best class based on certain abilities, that has been replaced with a weapon system that is fluid and absolutely awesome.  It might just be some of the most customized fun I have ever had.  I'm not sure how it progresses as you level, but in the lower levels (sub 15) it is great.

The Ranger is your normal ranged class.  You can get in close and do some work depending on your weapons, but it isn't nearly as fun.  What sets the class apart is how neat some of the ranged stuff is for them.  Using melee weapons does give the class a very interesting feel, but it isn't what I want when playing a Ranger.  The pet aspect is also very fun.  Picking your own pet and allowing it follow you around or attack.  There are even weapons that make your pet better.  It will be fun to see how this class plays in all of it's different ways at max level.

The Thief is probably the class I will play first.  A sneaky-stabby class that can also use a gun.  It's like my Witch Hunter fantasy all over (best class ever in WAR).  Hopefully I will get to play this class for a good amount, though.  =P  The class looks like a blast and the only reason I didn't play it as much as the Range is because I found out that I hate the Sylvari.  That aside, it's fun.  The seamless gameplay between gun and dagger is so amazing.  The fluid motions and the easily understandable use of abilities is a breath of fresh air.  I am very happy with the entire experience.

It's the Steam Sale!!

The time has come and it's summer.  It's hot.  AND.... it's time for the Steam sale!

I honestly couldn't give less of a fuck.

There is one game that I even care about getting.  I want to pick up Half Life: Source, so I can have ALL of the Valve games.  Other than that I don't really care about anything else being offered, at all.  Most of the games either aren't appealing or just don't place on my list of things I want to play.  I still have a ton of games that I haven't played on Steam already.

I do play a good amount of games.  I play all sorts and find different kinds enjoyable.  Contrary to popular belief I am not just a bitter, hateful fuckhead.  I do enjoy games.  I just REALLY hate games with huge budgets that don't hold up on their end.  Failed promises, piss poor optimization and dumbed down console controls will kill a game before I even get to play it.  So what if I'm picky, I think I should be allowed.  When PC gaming are shelling out 300 bucks for middle-of-the-road video cards every two years or so, we are allowed.  When we are dropping 200 bucks for second-tier CPUs on the same time table, we are allowed.  When we fork over the SAME amount and receive so subsidy, that's shitty, and we are still allowed.

I still love Steam as a platform.  I am still excited that they have sales.  This particular sale is lackluster because.... WHAT HAS COME OUT SINCE CHRISTMAS?!  What amazing game has come out since the holiday season (their last sale).  Not much has popped up on my radar and with Guild Wars 2 coming up in six weeks, I can't see spending too much on games I might never play.  A new WoW expansion will be out shortly after that and that 40 dollars will have WAY MORE content than just about anything Steam currently has on sale.  I understand that entertainment will be different, I just find it so hard to care about this.

I'm more excited about getting a tablet.  I bet I can play a ton of cheap ass tower defense games on a tablet, too.

How to make Spotify better

I have been a fan of Last.fm for a while now.  I do not care for Pandora, however.  Pandora seems to be VERY random and put a lot of strange things on my list.  Why am I hearing Rhianna on a list of 80's music?  Why is Beyonce on my Less Than Jake station?!  It makes no sense.  I feel like Last.fm leanrs my listening habits much better and is able to give me music more focused at what I am looking for.  Last.fm always pays attention to what I've listened to and can play back those songs as well.  ALL OF THEM.  Well, anything that they have the appropriate rights to.

I have switched to Spotify for a little bit now.  My brother seems to like it and a lot of people are on the bandwagon.  It isn't bad, but it isn't all that good, either.  I have compiled a list of things that I would like to see added that would make it more well-rounded and worth of it's 10 dollar a month fee.

1. Love/hate, upvote/downvote.

2. More variation based on selected radio.

3. More easily manageable playlists (online/offline).

4. Support for MORE artists.

I have used Spotify for many things, but one of the things that I really wanted to do was find artists similar to those I already enjoyed.  It is very hard to find good music these days and Spotify doesn't make it any easier.  On top of the mediocre radio (which is supposed to lump like groups together), it moves further away from band similarities and almost becomes hilarious in some situations.  The "New" and "Popular" songs and albums are hilarious.  I was hoping that a music provider with such a huge tie to social media would at least understand what I enjoyed.  It doesn't.

If they could somehow find a way to implement Last.fm type features into this, I'd buy it 100%.  It isn't all bad, but it's bad enough that I can't help but wait for improvements.  If those don't come, I'll be ditching this service.  I just hope others are smart enough to do the same.

E3 always disappoints

Not that I can blame E3, though.  The move to consoles for most games doesn't rev me up like it used to.  There were some good looking PC games, though.  There just didn't seem to be very many games that thought about PC first. =(

Planetside 2 looks solid.  The gameplay footage looked very tight and the action looked intense.  The world looked gorgeous.  They already had a good thing going with the first game, bringing that sort of thing over into a new generation (PlanetSide just celebrated it's 9th anniversary) is very exciting.  I am sure a lot of things have changed, but the constant pressure to act and feeling of war still seem to be there.  I was very pleased that it didn't turn into an all out suckfest, because we all know Sony isn't the most reliable publisher out there.

Borderlands 2 also looked pretty good.  I know it isn't a title exclusive to PC.  It still looked pretty damned fun and hopefully they will build on what they learned from the first game.  While it was a good bit of fun, the connection issues killed the game.  That and the fact that you had to play it more than once to actually enjoy much of it.  Hopefully they also release some creative and fun DLC, much like they did the first time around. I still don't care too much for the cell-drawn art style, but as long as they have fixed the FoV and some of the frame rate issues, I don't really care.

The new Unreal Engine looks... unreal.  I have been a long time Unreal fan and this new engine is nothing to laugh at.  This thing is a beast and boasts some pretty impressive tech.  I can't help but wonder if they will make another Unreal Tournament or if it will be focused entirely on Gears of War, since that is the cash cow for them now.  I still hope that they bring back my favorite way of playing Unreal (XMP, multiplayer from Unreal 2).  It's a long shot that we see any new Unreal news, but here's to hoping!

Assassins Creed III seems to have everyone spellbound.  I don't really see it myself.  It does look cool, but I'm not sure that as a PC gamer that I give a fuck.  Sometimes those games just don't transfer to the keyboard very well.  I'm a lot more interested in.....

WATCH DOGS!  This game looks like it could be really, REALLY, cool.  It has been a long time since I saw something and said "Holy fuck, this is running on a tricked out PC and it looks awesome as shit!"  Seriously.  A LONG TIME.  The game looks neat and with it running on a PC now, I have high hopes that it will end up there eventually.  I really look forward to this and I might actually check up on it and follow it's progress for the next year or so until it ships.

I'm too much of a team player.

I rely almost entirely on others to have my own fun.

I have to play with people.  If I don't, I don't have fun.  I prefer to play with others that I know in small groups. The old days of of 5v5 or 8v8 competitive play was perfect for me.  When I have 3 or 4 other people with me I find myself very excited and performing at my best.  My strength is being with other people.

I'm a good healer.  I'm a focused tank.  I'm passable DPS.  I'm an excellent support player.  I'm a mediocre shot.  I'm a fairly capable strategist.  I'm a quick thinker.  I bring all of these assets to the people that I play with.  I am at my absolute best with others.  When I play with others I attempt to make up for what they lack.  If someone is a tank, I'll heal.  If someone is going to be a support class, I'll be a badass and take down as many people as I can.  I always try to round out the group to give us the best chance to finish our objective.  That means: I like to win.

In any team activity the final objective is victory.  I want to celebrate with others, too.  Completing an instance. Winning a battleground.  Owning some fools in CTF.  It's a rush, it's fun.  It is amplified when I have other people to share success with.  Even when we lose, it provides motivation.  I don't want to lose, then other people don't want to lose.  BOOM!  Now you have the motivation to not let others around you down.  It doesn't always have to go swimmingly, but it's nice when it does.

I don't always have to lead a team, but I find that a group of people dedicated to one particular strategy and willing to take orders works best.  I don't mind making tough calls or executing quickly in a tight spot.  Making decisions on what to do or where to go, I suck at.  Asking me to pick a map or decide where to go is bad.  Allowing me to take control and call the shots once we get there is a win.  Not always an actual win, but I always do my best to manage the people I have to get the job done... or as close to done as I can.

I wish I had more people to play with these days, because I seem to be running incredibly short or enjoyment.  Maybe it is because I am too picky or because I can't get everyone together on the same page.  I miss the old days of having people available all the time and everyone enjoying the company of each other.  I don't know what it is or how to fix it, but I sure do miss playing with other people.  I kind of think that if I can find more people to play with that I might just give up the hobby entirely.

G4 is dead. Finally.

Adam Sessler recently left G4.  As much as I respect him and think that he was really what kept that shithole afloat, I was sure that him leaving wouldn't kill them.  Kevin Pereira, however, will.  He has announced that after E3 he will be leaving.  Maybe there is a God after all....

For years I have railed on about how shitty G4 is and about how it is pandering to stupid fucking assholes.  This could easily be a death blow for them.  While it might sound weird that someone who loves gaming so much is cheering for G4 to die, you have to understand how shitty they are.  G4 generally shows 16 hours of infomercials and Cops or Campus PD.  Another 2 hours is devoted to past shows that may or may not have been good.  Two more hours highlight everything that is wrong with gaming.  The final 4 hours contain content that might be relevant.... if you played on a console.  So, basically, the network is shit.

G4 went from having tech-driven shows to shows about shitty pop culture.  They went from having 4-man LAN competitions hosted by guys who looked like they were on steroids to the endless cycle of Cops.  They lost out on many talents over the years from ditching some of the good TechTV shows to basically shitting all over the Screensavers.  What a fucking nightmare.

A lot has changed in game, and a lot has change in G4.  I guarantee that in the next year they will close their doors.  With the face of the franchise walking away and the brains behind everything leaving before him.... oh man!  It's fucking over!

Grievances: Tribes: Ascend

I have been playing a lot of Tribes: Ascend lately.  It allows me to go quickly into and out of matches, without losing a whole lot of momentum.  I can miss out on part of a game and pick up pretty quickly.  With a new baby and a lifestyle change this is very helpful.  I didn't feel like the BG grind in WoW was built for this, nor did I feel like the pacing of BF3 allowed as much flexibility.

In the last couple of months Tribes has changed considerably.  The game got a sexy little overhaul in the terms of classes and UI and it got some balance and further UI improvements.  A lot of what has happened with the game has been positive and I'm pretty excited, however, I still have a list of things that need to GTFO.

Experience.  Today I sat in a game that was 4-0 for almost 20 minutes.  It wasn't hard to get their flag and there wasn't a whole bunch of D.  We didn't get the flag because the experience would be greater if we simply let the game end at 4-0, but made it last forever.  There wasn't a reason to cap out because the experience is based so heavily on the amount of time that the map is played.  What this means is that while I wanted to set up turrets and defend a base, everyone else was racing vehicles.  While I was hoping to get some competition and have some fun, the entire other team abandoned their base and raided ours in heavies.  We could have probably played 2 or 3 games in the time it took for that one, but we got somewhere around 25-40% more experience for just waiting it out.  That sucks and should be addressed immediately.

Hitscan weapons.  The automatic rifles in this game not only take away from some of the feel, but they pretty much blow.  Take a great deal of the immersion away from the Tribes universe.  Bring back the old Chaingun and get rid of this mess.  Several classes are able to easily exploit the gun, due to the nature of their class.  It's really very annoying.  A lot of people claim that it is ruining the game.  While I am not happy with it, it far from ruins the game.

Team-based cohesion.  The game needs to motivate people to do things.  Showing up and getting points is cool, but people want to be motivated.  A HoF and an Tech running D make a great duo.  Allow them to sync up their efforts to make it more beneficial.  Let the Tech heal the heavy, let the heavy provide a shield for turrets.  Allow teams to make sense.  Providing a bonus to the team based on who is going where and what class or loadout they have should provide something.  A Pathfinder certainly makes a good capper, while a well played Raider can make getting to the flag much easier.  Make people want to participate with each other to win the game.  One-man-army syndrome could easily take over a game like Tribes: Ascend.

And finally... community.  We need to lay the groundwork for a GOOD community.  The fucktards at TribalWar should not represent the best that we have to offer.  There should be a strong community that wants to participate together, instead of troll and hate on each other.  I'd much rather get my ass whipped in a game where the best players mad sure that they evened out.  I got to participate in a TDM that was 92-0.  NINETY-TWO.  That's retarded.  That wasn't fun for anyone involved.  If that was your first experience in a game... would you play it again?  I doubt that I would.

The game needs work.  As the game stays in beta longer and longer I almost wonder what is pushing back a release date.  I appreciate getting a complete game, but I am also a little uneasy about how long we have talking about this game.  I am also concerned with how it will play out in the long run.  I really hope it's for the best, I'd love to see another great Tribes game.

Z - Zealots

They are everywhere.  People who flock to and worship something.  It's almost sickening.

Apple has them.  MW3 has them.  WoW has them.  We mostly call them fanboys, but some of them go far beyond that.  They are fucking zealots.  They don't even believe in anything else.  This type of thinking is keeping gaming from moving forward.

For years we have seen Apple time and time again release something so easy and simple and pretty much like other stuff that we already have and make billions.  The hardware isn't great, the experience is closed and lacking and that people who mindlessly follow the product are unbearable.  What makes them do it?  Conditioning.

They see cool people doing it and they want to be cool.  Nerd is the new trend.  We have been dealing with shitty fashion sense for more than a decade now, but this is a new high.... or low.  Who knew that such awkward behavior could so easily become the next cool thing.  It isn't about be buff or wearing something nice, it's about looking like you took a shit in Mr. Rodger's closet and then rolled around in to get dressed.  The new is not to be cool.  We have this entire generation full of English and Philosophy majors who are educated, but can't find jobs is relevant fields.  They want to be nerds and feel like unique snowflakes, but they end up just being idiots.  Go figure.

But enough about hipsters....

The cult of Apple is one of the largest.  That doesn't mean there aren't more.  The Modern Warfare games have a bro-following that is pretty crazy.  If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it.  How many times can you buy the same game?  Seriously.  SERIOUSLY?!  Disgusting.  However, they eat it up.  Every single game, they go and buy it and feel like it is the new console messiah.  This is the new shit, the best shit!  The same rehashed garbage and they eat it up.  If you try to bring up other games that are better on different levels, they can't hear it.  Drunken brawls have been started just for mentioning that BF3 has sweet vehicles.  Try to convince them that World at War wasn't the first WW2 shooter and you are in for some real fireworks.... bros.

In the end we need fans, good fans, but we don't need these kind of blind cultists.  We don't need people following just for the sake of following.  We need informed consumers that are buying a product they believe in because it is the best one for them, not because they feel comfortable with the logo on it.  We need people making a conscious effort to decide on a product.  The products should ALL be good and strive to be original. Making the same game over and over does not fall into that category.  Coming out with a new smartphone that is already a year behind the technology available is another one.

The only way to stop this kind of thing is to hope that society will wake up.  Your 19 year old daughter doesn't need an iPhone.  That flip phone works just fine.  She doesn't need a camera phone to take more duckface pictures of herself.  She can't possibly put to use the capabilities of that phone.  It is a status symbol.  Bros, put down the Call of Duty.  Embrace something else.  There are great games that you are missing out on because you can't let it go.

X and Y - Fuck these letters

I had a baby and even though the dates on these are correct, they are wrong.

I pre-typed a lot of these and I was going to release them throughout January.  That didn't happen.  What happened was some of them came out on the right schedule and others didn't.  I don't know why... they just didn't.  Of the few I didn't have typed, this is them.  X and Y are shitty letters to pick topics for.  It sucks.

So, I will use this space to tell you about having my baby.  I got to witness the entire thing.  Induction, breaking her water, them shooting her up with drugs several times, the entire labor and seeing my son's head and then body come out.  It was all very touching.  I spent some quality time with my wife and she cried... a lot.  Women do that sometimes.  I'm totally tough and didn't.  I got to hold my baby before everyone else.  It was pretty awesome.  He took him to the nursery and got him weighed and checked out.

The baby had a sore on his head when he came out and he ended up being sick enough to be readmitted the day after we left the hospital.  He spent 5 days under a heat lamp and his mother spend 2 days getting a treatment for some sort of illness that she had due to her clotting disorder and then being pregnant.  So, my baby AND my wife had to be readmitted.  Awesome.  I ended up taking an extra week off of work and that still didn't feel like enough, especially since we had to go back.

The baby is doing fine now and everything seems great.  He was born the day after me.  We actually went up to the hospital on my birthday.  I'm pretty sure that he would agree that X and Y fucking suck.  I doubt anyone reads this, but if anyone ever happens to... this is why everything was delayed this year.  And it is a damn good reason!

W - What do we do when it's over?

The question I often ask myself is: what happens when I don't play games anymore?

I can't really answer it.  I don't know if that will every be a reality for me.  My wife understands that I love gaming.  She understands that it is not only an entertainment outlet, but also a social one.  She hears me talk about dicks and shitting on dicks with my headset wrapped about my head all the time.  Sometimes she chimes in, most of the time she just shrugs it off.  It's just who I am.  It is part of me and it is what I do.

When it's over... WHAT AM I GONNA DO?!

The though crosses my mind from time to time, but it's not something that sticks with me.  Instead I worry more about other things in my life.  I manage a bunch of kids and work for a grown up frat boy.  It puts a lot of stress on me to be a grown up in that sort of environment.  There is lots of finger pointing and blame swapping, but it all boils down to getting it done.  I approach games in the same way.  I don't care who fucked up or who is to blame, I want to get it done.  Winning isn't an option, it is what is happening.  I want to win.  I don't need to be the all-star, but I want to be on the winning side and I try as hard as I can to get there.  FPS, MMO, RTS, it doesn't matter.

I wonder sometimes if my son will understand.  Will he want to play with me?  Will he enjoy gaming?  Will he be a console tard?!  I have a lot of things in my life that aren't gaming and I plan to get those all taken care of.  I know that I might take a break, but I will always come back.  Even if it's to hit the sticks on some Madden or level up a couple characters in the next WoW expansion.  I am pretty sure that my gaming life isn't going to end ever, or at least for a VERY long time.  Thankfully we live in a society where it is more mainstream than it used to be.

V - Virtual currency

Every game seems to have it now.  Is it EA bucks, Acti-Blizz cash, or Steam Pipes?  Does it really even matter?  It isn't buying us anything that we shouldn't already get.

These inflated currencies are the driving market for some pretty big businesses.  Some companies will even sell you the currency themselves to make a buck.  Sometimes you have to risk it just to get a little something extra.  It all seems very sad to me.  Sometimes it isn't even a normal currency.  TF2, for example, had a thriving economy based on HATS.  Now that Valve has pretty much decided to sell everything that kind of economy has dried up, but Valve is rolling in the dough.

I think it might be time to rethink how we allot these currencies and how easy it is to replicate.  If you really want to stimulate an economy you have to make it where people cannot exploit it easily.  You have to offer something just as good, but for free.  WoW has done this with easier to obtain gear and dailies.  Previously gold and item sellers would make a ton of money simply selling off items or gold for money, now that these things are relatively easy to get ahold of, those markets have shrunk.  There are still gold farmers and sellers, but not nearly as much as there once was.

Taking a look at some of the free MMOs you see that they actually sell their own currency.  It is hard to keep an economy honest when at any time you can jump on and turn your real cash into game cash almost instantly.  I make decent money and my wife does even better.  We have plenty of cash and I enjoy a lifestyle that allows me to enjoy new games with pretty decent hardware.  If I chose, I could easily afford loads of virtual currency to spend on whatever I wanted in pretty much any game I played... but I don't do this.  I would much rather save my REAL money to get REAL shit.  I drive a Cadillac and one day I wanna drive a newer and nicer one. I'm gonna save up some money and get this one paid off so that I can do just that.

At the end of the day it is easy for me to distinguish between virtual and real currency.  To some people they are the same thing.  I don't understand why someone would do it, but I do understand making money off of it.  I almost wish I had gotten into this business earlier in my gaming career.  I would have loved to farm gold on the side.  Maybe that could have paid for my Cadillac.

U - Undeserved rewards

I am constantly seeing a trend in gaming: undeserved rewards.

Imagine that you go into a match of Tribes or BF3 or even, god forbid, MW3.  Now imagine that just entering the match gets you nearly the same rewards as the person with the best score.  You don't have to do anything, just showing up will get you through.  All you really have to do is show up and wander around and you'll get the same experience, gold, tickets, whatever currency the particular game uses for advancement.  How fair is this? Not very.

I remember the good old days where all you had was your KDR.  People looked at that and were amazed.  Then there were the games that were based on an overall point system, so that people like myself could still benefit.  We weren't all guts and glory, we didn't run out guns blazing, but we contributed.  I appreciate getting things for free, I really do.  I enjoy having to work for things, but there needs to be a line where you decide what difficulty level you want to have.  Do you want a system like BF3 where you must unlock everything for every weapon?  What about a BC2 system where class unlocks would give you the benefits you wanted?  How about a Tribes: Ascend system where you have to level each class and then weapon and then armor and then perk all separately?  It requires work and dedication to get any of those, but it all depends on how you like your rewards.

I feel that farm too often we are simply rewarded more for showing up.  In WoW, for example, just showing up can get you damn near the same points as the best guy on your team.  The Feral Druid with 50 HKs, 20 KBs and 2 of 3 flag caps should get far more than you just for "participating".  It's dumb.  SWToR has a similar system in their open world PvP.  It is frustrating.  While BF3 makes you work for what you get, the system still isn't perfect.  The rewards should match the work put into them, but the work shouldn't be daunting.  I shouldn't dread getting a newer and better weapon, just because I have to "level" it again.

Moving forward we need to find a happy medium.

T - Testing phases

Whatever happened to REALLY testing games?

Remember when you got into a beta test and you played the game and it wasn't just a shitty demo of the game?  You used to have to play it and leave feedback.  You would fill out a form or file a ticket when there was an issues.  Developers updated a blog or had a newsletter that let people know what was being fixed or what kind of issues they saw.  You used to lose your characters pretty regularly. They would give you new ones to test something specific or ask people to play a certain class and see how something worked out.  It was a lot of fun and it was how testing should be conducted.

How are they testing these games now?  It seems that more times than not people are finding exploits, not reporting them and then using them for their own games at release.  This doesn't make for fun or exciting gameplay and it doesn't make for a competitive or interesting environment for others.  It just sucks.

I've been in many, MANY betas over the years and I always try to give feedback for things that are appropriate.  I want to see new things and places, but I also want to see a product come to market that is the best that it can be.  I actually gave up my access to the SWToR beta, because I wanted to experience the game fresh on release.  I didn't want to burn myself out on it and then not want to play anymore.

I recently purchased a pass with Blizzard that ensures that I am a beta tester for the next expansion.  I am not sure what that really means, but I sure hope that their testing is more like what I described above and not the standard method used now.  I'm not sure when it begins, but I am deeply excited to see something fresh and new in WoW.  I am also looking forward to providing feedback to improve a game that I so dearly love.

S - Stop buying shit!

If we keep lining the pockets of companies that make shitty games, they will keep making shit.

We need to finally stand up and speak out... with our wallets.  Stop spending 60 bucks on a game that you know isn't finished or optimized.  Stop funding companies that continuously let us down year after year or release after release.  Stop buying into the hype and open your eyes!

BF3 might be one of the biggest flops that I've seen in recent history in the FPS genre.  Yes, MW3 was a huge disappointment, but we all knew that it would be.  BF3 hyped the game as a PC experience and then left out features that we desperately needed.  No way to talk to your partner in co-op?  Awful.  Awkward unlocking with guns coming from multiple places AND THEN CHANGING multiple times within a couple months of release?  Poor planning.  Anti-cheat methods not working and servers being flooded with hackers.  Unacceptable.  Many players being wrongly banned due to servers having to apply EXTRA protection from hackers.  Absolute failure.  BF3 might have some great gameplay and some very nice features, but that doesn't excuse it from sliding downhill so quickly.  I was a huge fan of it, but quickly lost interest based on some of these glaring issues.  Hopefully they can fix these in this coming year.

SWToR is another game that has had it's share of issues, especially those that went overlooked in the beta.  When you release an MMO that is so furiously hyped for so many years and it fails to meet even the lowest of expectations, you have done it wrong.  No guild bank in 2012?  Are you fucking crazy?!  Where was the vision here?  Why does the entire game feel like your movements are slowed and laggy?  Why does the entire experience feel like the first half of the game was carefully planned out and the last half was smashed together quickly so that it could be pushed out of the door?  It is frustrating to no end!

Those are two PC games that I pre-ordered in 2011, because I thought they were going to be very good.  It turns out that they were very mediocre and I've now simply gone back to other games.  Tribes: Ascend, a free-to-play FPS game that is still in beta AND WoW, a 7-year old MMO game that is losing subscribers by the hundred-thousands.  Not that these games aren't great, but when you look at huge blockbuster titles that released, you figure that I should have at least been interested in them for more than a couple months.

We have to demand more from these guys!  We can't just keep accepting pieces of shit and hoping that it gets better.

R - Recycling

In the coming years we will see a horrific trend die out: reselling used games.

I call it recycling.  Because really that is what you're doing, sort of.

Let me start by saying: Game Stop can suck my fucking dick.

Now that we have that out of the way....

I hate this practice.  It is awful and benefits no one.  You pay 5 bucks less for the game and get something that someone has already had their hands all over.  Not to mention with several games now you don't even get the full experience.  Developers are now locking out certain portions of games after the original activation.  Woot!

Finally people are standing up to Game Stop and their fucking theft.  They are robbing people.  It's pathetic.  I think that it is far past time that they started doing this.  They should have put these types of features in years ago.  I would have welcome it with open arms.  How people can give you 10 bucks for a game and then sell it for 40 is beyond me.  At least sell it for half price or something more competitive.  I'm not gonna buy a car for 90% of the original price after someone has driven it all over the place and is sick of it.

When it comes to PC games you can't even do this.  It's not possible to take your games back because of the all of the anti-piracy measures that are taken to ensure that us evil PC gamers don't steal their precious games!  At least we aren't getting fucking like the Consolol kids are.

Q - Questing

A single idea saved MMORPGs forever: quests.

Sure, they existed prior to every MMO now relying on them to tell the story of provide experience, but they weren't nearly as interesting.  Most quests prior to the WoW-generation of MMO games were direct toward gathering something over and over again, or they were very few and far between.  I remember FWO having quests based on your spec at certain levels and a few quests that provided seriously awesome rewards.

A lot of MMO fans don't remember the old days of shitty quests and grinding out experience on random mobs for days or weeks on end.  We now get all sorts of things handed to us.  Quests give us gear, experience and money.  We really don't have to go out and collect much of anything anymore.  Sure, at the endgame we are still responsible for gearing, but that's about it.  Even at those endgame levels we sometimes see long quests that provide us with some of the best items in the game.  In WoW, specifically, it tends to be weapons.

I love the current questing system, but I think that it needs to be toned down a bit as we move forward in gaming.  I think that it does way too much hand holding and doesn't require enough people to go out and do things.  Go farm for gold.  Kill mobs for money or for cloth that you'll sell.  Level up an appropriate trade skill for good gear, don't rely on questing to make sure that it outfits you with everything you need in the first zone of an expansion.

P - Party mechanics

For someone who wants to play an MMO with other people, why does it always feel like you're getting penalized?

Whether it is having to deal with the fucking retard to get something done or losing experience when you're hanging with a buddy the system is fucked.  How have we gone so long without revolting against this system?  Sure, the kills are faster and easier, but you need way more of them (especially for the sake of drops).  You are sharing money and any other loot as well.  What if you are both classes that otherwise were not great at soloing?  What if we were playing an old MMO where you couldn't just go and solo everything and needed a group for decent experience?

It is kind of sad to see so many games drop the ball on the party system.  No one is trying to change the formula because they feel like it works.  I am not disagreeing, I just feel that at some point we need to consider that a change may need to be made.

If nothing else we need someone to try something new or breathe life into the sad and dying old system.  We have again stopped progressing because we think we have it right.  Ten years from now, we may realize how wrong we had it.

O - Openness

We need openness in gaming.  We need the ability to go and do and explore.  It is 2012, now, we need this kind of open gameplay.  We DESERVE this kind of open gampley.

We are long past the days of sandboxes.  Sure, some of those games are good, but we should be demanding large open worlds that live and breathe.  We need less invisible walls and more exploration.  When I look at a game like SWToR I see a unique experience that is huge and open.  I see something that is large and sprawling.  Yet, most of the environment is wasted, because there is nothing there.  You are seeing planets that are huge, but don't offer much in the way of going or doing, because they don't have things there.  It isn't more fun or realistic, it's just barren and boring.  I appreciate the scale, but give it some life!

As games move forward we need to get away from the closed-off worlds and corridors that we are stuck in.  Get out of the hallway and into the huge battlefield.  Hell, get into the large scale that Battlefield 1942 offered.  It was big, open and provided a large layout FOR WAR.  Which is way better than the small can confined areas that we see in a lot of current shooters.  Urban landscapes and trimmed maps don't make them fun, it makes them pretty shitty, actually.  I don't hate arcade shooters, but they go against openness.

I want to see more games open up in the future.  Hopefully with the technology we have coming to a head and "peaking" for a little while we will see a lot of games innovate, instead of stagnate.

N - Nostalgia

We all like to look back and marvel at how much fun we used to have.... but was it really that fun?

I appreciate a lot of the things that they have done to gaming.  One of the things that helped me drift away from Tribes and into EverQuest was the fact that no matter how much I played Tribes, I never had anything to show for it.  Sure, I was a better player, but I didn't have something to hold on to.  In EverQuest, like most MMOs, the time that I invested directly related to how much "stuff" I had.  Whether it was tradeskills, experience, progress in a random collection quest.  Who cared?  You were getting stuff and doing things that would allow you to progress forward.  I hoped beyond hope that they would implement a system that rewarded you for those 10 hour power gaming sessions and those endless nights fragging away.

Now this is a reality.  Most modern FPS games give you levels or ranks and as you climb the ladder and get more kills with a certain weapon or overall you get more "stuff".  You get experience, you unlock weapons, you get cool addons for your guns.  You get STUFF!  It's awesome.  However, there is a very negative side to this.  There is rarely a cap on these kinds of things.  If you don't have the time to dedicate those 10 hour, neverending super awesome killfests... then you lose.  There are no tiered or ranked servers where you won't get asspounded to death.  You're just fucked.  And that isn't fun.  The system is flawed and as much as I wanted it, I wish it could have been done another way.

I sometimes look back on the older MMO games or even the beginning of some of the current ones and think about how hardcore they were or how they had some sort of property that made them somehow better.  I'm pretty sure that I'm wrong.  EQ wasn't fun.  Grinding mobs endless for hours wasn't fun.  Vanilla WoW had a great community and some very fun old school places, but it wasn't as fun or innovative as WoW is currently.  A lot of the old MMO games were pretty shitty, honestly.  Some of the games that have been out for 3+ years now haven't even aged that well.  Part of this is because Blizzard is so good at putting everything together and continuing WoW as not just a game or an experience, but as it's own brand.

Not everything from "back in the day" was good.  A lot of it was a whole lot of fun and looking back we just see all the good times we had.  I don't know why we forget all the great times that we are still having with gaming.

M - Mo' money, mo' problems

As we move into an age where there are fewer and fewer large production companies we are also seeing a growing trend of outrage at these companies.  It seems like the more money that a company generates, the more seething hatred is directed at them.

PC gaming has roots steeped in a whole lot of companies doing a whole lot of things together.  Looking back you see big names like id Software who are rather smaller players in today's market, but were very big in the formative years of gaming.  Now we have giants like Activision-Blizzard and EA.  The few independent games that get good press normally have their company swallowed up by a large studio or have what they have done eclipsed by a game from a large studio.

Sometimes the anger directed at these companies is warranted.  With MW3 coming out and looking like garbage and playing like a shitty console port with a fish-eye FoV, you deserve the backlash.  When you are Blizzard and take forever to release a game but release it in mostly working order and more polished than 90% of the market can manage by the end of a game's life cycle, it isn't quite as understandable.  When you are EA and are gaining a reputation for pushing games out the door before they are read, I would gladly take up a torch and march on the headquarters with you.  In these situations customers have a right to be anger.  Waiting for a game or getting something that isn't done or wasn't done well is very frustrating, especially considering the price that we pay for these games.  That is where the second part of the money issue comes into play...

The more that we seem to be paying for games, the more stuff they seem to be adding that used to be included.  I haven't had so many issues with games than I have had in the last three years or so.  DLC is now something that a game relies on and most games aren't stable and reliable until months after release.  By the time the first 2 DLCs are out you are seeing screenshots of the next game.  By the time the third DLC is out you don't care and the fourth DLC comes out just before the next game does.  Lather, rinse, and repeat.  It is incredibly frustrating.

I remember having a game sate my urge for several years and the only DLC we ever had was free. We also had strong communities that developed for the game and gave new maps, skins or bundles of both and more.  Tribes and Unreal had some very good map and skin packs, not to mention entire conversions of the game.  Both had RPG mods on servers that saved experience and changed gameplay dramatically.  They also both had specialty servers that had rulesets and modified gametypes that played completely different and offered a fun and entertaining break from the original game.

I don't remember paying 60 bucks for those games, either. =X

L - Lore

Why can't they just say: I'm sick of doing this, let's do something else?

A lot of times lore gets in the way of where a game wants to go.  Whether it is a Star Wars game or a fantasy game.  Sometimes it even interferes with the world.  Games like LotRO even run into issues because people dig so deep into the books and lore.  WoW has had it's fair share or lore issues.  Almost every MMO game ultimately runs into these kinds of problem.  Eventually the Elder Scrolls games are going to face this and other RPG games will surely follow.

The problem is that lore dictates what happened and what is happening.  The developers might have some great ideas, but they are stuck in a bubble where they have to contend with what the lore will allow them to do. WoW made a pretty big splash when they released 4.3 and allowed the encounter to be so easy on so many levels.  Sure, there is difficulty, but not to where it should have been.  People got to experience this and take part in the story and that has helped close out an entire chapter in the WoW lore, now.  The dragon aspects are leaving and are now mortal.  Mortals (us) will now have a more strong bearing on the world.  An ancient evil is defeated.  It's the stuff you see in movies.  However, there will have to be some books written to tie everything together.

When it comes to Star Wars you can see these issues with all of the different stories that are spread out over so many thousands of years.  From KoToR to Jedi Academy there are so many different storylines and timeslines to follow that a typical gamer would simply get lost.  However, there is a huge catalog somewhere that tells you how all of the games fall and exactly when Tie Fighter took place and how it makes sense in the same universe as SWToR.

Lore can be a very dangerous thing.

K - Katabatic

I have really enjoyed playing Tribes: Ascend.  It has been a lot of fun and really made me nostalgic.  As fun as it might be, it isn't the real thing.  There are very few things that I dislike, but I dislike them enough to not want to play it regularly.

My first issue with the game is the loadout system that is being used.  Each "class" gets a certain "loadout".  What this means is: you get two weapons and an armor type.  You technically get a special grenade, but some of those are so not special that is barely worth mentioning.  In my particular case I enjoy putting up turrets and deploying base defenses.  I enjoyed it in Tribes and Tribes 2 and I enjoy it here.  However, the last of a disclauncher makes it almost impossible to do anything by be a turretwhore.  Not to mention that my secondary weapon is a repair tool.  REALLY?!  You give me a shitty SMG-styled gun that has no place in Tribes AND you make my secondary WEAPON a REPAIR TOOL?!  What the fuck?!  Why?

Some classes make out a lot better than others.  Skilled players have a lot of classes that they will find easily fit within their playstyle.  I agree that the balancing done is pretty good, but there are a couple classes that suffer greatly.  The light stealth class gets gimped as well, but to counter that they have lowered the "price" of it.  Yes, there is a purchasable currency within the game.  You can slowly earn currency to buy the classes, but this takes a lot of time.  Back to the point.  The loadouts aren't created equal.

My second issue is the free-to-play nature of the game.  Free-to-play games seem to attract a lower-rung of players.  Yes, I'm judging.  You get a lot more people who are annoying asshats, than if a game was purchasable.  The original Tribes had plenty of asshattery, but in 2012 the level is much higher.  The game being built to run on a wider variety of systems doesn't help either.  Dickhead Dan with his 2007 Dell playing Tribes and being a complete douche is not conducive to an environment that I want to participate in.  If you aren't going to give people dedicated servers, then we need better tools for the servers to get rid of these people.  Seriously.

In the last week or so I have tried on three or four occasions to play Tribes: Ascend.  I find it enjoyable, but I also seem to land in a server where someone is being a dick.  Someone is spamming the chat with the V-commands or people try as hard as they can to teamstack.  These things don't make the game fun.  When you have two people on your team sitting on a hill chit-chatting, it isn't fun.  It is frustrating, especially when you consider how team-oriented the Tribes games are supposed to be.

I had very high hopes for this game and they are slowly being squashed..

J - Jedi infatuation

After playing a healthy amount of SWToR over the last little bit I have seen something very disturbing: Jedis.

Now just in this game, but over the last few decades it has been a strange trend.  Being a Jedi is comparable to being Jesus.  It is praised, held in high regard and is really.... creepy.

I have seen this sort of thing for a long time, but this is the first time that I've jumped head first into a situation where I have to be in the same place as these guys (Star Wars nerds).  I've always just been kind of a nerd, not into any particular thing (except gaming), but this is a new culture for me.  The level of Jedi infatuation is off of the charts.  I don't really get it.  There are many classes that are just as powerful, maybe moreso, but that doesn't stop the Jedis.

No matter what goes down or how intense things get, it always go back to a Jedi who is doing something somewhere.  The story is constantly about a Jedi pulling strings and manipulating something behind the scenes (as Sith).  PvP is all about Jedis being mediocre and Troopers pissing me off.  I don't get the Jedi lust, but I guess I understand it.  They are kind of like the Jesus of this universe.  People want to be them.  They want to walk that path of ultimate good and be the sacrificial lamb.  I think that is great and all, but it is a game.  I want to play it and have fun.  I really enjoy crushing asses and burning down buildings full of orphans.

While I can't fully understand the mancrush that so many people have on Skywalker, I totally get how being a badass zen-like space ninja would be cool.

I - Intelligent A.I.

I think it is about time to see this come into games, finally.  It is long past time that we set the expectation of what A.I. should be.  We have so few examples of actual INTELLIGENCE.  We have bots and we have automation, but we don't have a lot of things that can make decisions for themselves.

While I am approaching this from a gaming standpoint, I think this is a REAL issue that we face in society and especially with AI, as a whole.

Gaming AI has been subpar for years.  Graphics have advanced and we have enough CPU power (and enough cores) to power a whole lot of stuff now.  We don't even use all of the power we have now.  Why can't we get something going in this respect?  We have made leaps and bounds in terms of programming and responsiveness, but we still can't seem to have intelligent foes that aren't controlled by other people (even that is debatable).

We have to push these developers to give us more interesting and intelligent foes.  We deserve AI that makes choices and decisions.  It won't be easy, but it will lead to much more rewarding gameplay and even more impressive replay value.  With the rate at which games are changing and evolving now is a great time to make this push.  I mean hell, we just now go physics implemented and working properly in some of these games.  We have to push forward so that by the end of this decade we are making games are better than we have this decade.  I don't just mean in terms of graphics.  I mean in terms of overall gameplay in all aspects of the game.

AI is going to be a key feature and something to keep our eyes on in the coming years.  Get ready to see enemies that react to situations and make intelligent decisions.  I can't wait!

H - Hacktivism

What a year for hacktivism!

Yes, that cute play on words is what we are calling it.  Hacking + activism. 

There have been several groups who really fucked up stuff for a lot of people and places.  Guess what.  When you fuck with a group of people who are smarter than you and understand how to get into systems where you store sensitive data... they will get it.  It is hard to take down a collective of people who are that much smarter than all of you.  Moreover, why are you not EMPLOYING these people to watch your ass?  That's what I would do.

You bet your ass if I had pull or authority that I'd have these Anonymous guys on my payroll.  I'd have them on speed dial and helping me solve my issues and also watching my back.  These guys are duping everyone.  They are getting into systems that are on STATE AND FEDERAL LEVELS.  They are just walking in and taking information.  You let them have it by not protecting it.  It's reallllllly fucking sad.  I probably have my PC locked up better than some of these place.  Places that house YOUR data.  Your sensitive information.  It's fucking pathetic.  Don't blame them for getting it, blame the inept assholes for not tightening up security.  

We live in a time where security is expensive and people cut corners.  Think of it like this: would you put all of your nicest things in a room without a lock in a house full of thieves?  No, of course not.  This is what they are essentially doing.  Taking your information and then not protecting it.  They assume that people won't want it or that someone isn't going to try for it.  That hasn't worked out so well.

Anonymous is doing more than stealing information, they are giving it away.  They are standing up for what they believe in by doing these things.  This isn't just a group of hateful hackers, these guys care about what our world is becoming.  I think we may finally be at a turning point in our culture.  Now you need to fear the nerds.  It's not just the hippies in the streets, it's the bespectacled folks in the basement.  Good luck hiding anything anymore. =)

G - Goodbye Holywood

Dear Hollywood,

                     For many years we all looked to you to provide the best of the best.  You gave us great movies, great actors and a whole lot to look up to.  Now you are filled with shit and drama.  No one cares about you anymore.  Your actresses looks sick and you actors look like wimps.  We aren't impressed anymore. We have new celebrities and they make videos shorter than 15 minutes.  You're old hat and there are production companies that are starting out like your old studios did.  You're done and I'm not sorry.

I can't say that I'm sorry, but I might miss you a little.  I remember the good old days when scripts matter and movies had substance.  I remember when everyone wasn't special effects and when movies were inspiring.  I remember when you held sway over the way that people talked and dressed.  It is just so hard to take you seriously when you live in a state that is full of potheads hoping that the DEA doesn't show up and ruin all the fun.  You guys are assholes and should have seen it coming.  I just hope you exit quietly, I'd hate to see the MPAA people get run down by semi trucks, because they couldn't stop running their mouths.

Oh, Hollywood, we had good time.  Didn't we?  I hope you don't take it too bad.  There are just better ways to get, view and experience media.  You didn't get in at the right time.  You refused to believe that any other method, but your own, could be profitable.  Guess who was wrong?  Don't worry, I will still buy all of the Marky Mark movies.

F - Fanboys

What a fucking waste.

You all know what a fanboy is.  It is a fanatic about something.  We normally see them being very specific.  They love the iPhone or Macs or a certain game or developer and refuse to believe that they can do any wrong.

While it is great to love and support something, it is not great to simply accept it because it has a certain name or brand attached.  It's actually pretty stupid.  I see this a lot among iPhone fans, since I am a big time Android supporter.  Notice how I said SUPPORTER?  I like Android as a platform.  I understand that iOS is good for some people and even recommend the iPhone for some.  It doesn't work for me because of how I use my phone, but I can at least separate the fact that I like Android from the idea that it is the best.  Same can be said for the rabid fanoyism of the MMO community.

The MMO community might be one of the most intense displays of this I have ever seen and it goes both ways: being a fan of and a being a fan against.  Some people love Blizzard, others want to skewer them.  I take the stance that they make solid products, but when I am not happy... I say it.  I think that WoW is the best MMO on the market and probably the best MMO ever made.  They have done groundbreaking things with the game. They have also had several absolute failures.  Some call me a fanboy, but I can accept the fact that Blizzard does make mistakes.  Those mistakes are easily put to rest by all of the good things that it does.

Fanboys don't help.  They don't see far enough past how in love they are with something to help it grow and progress.  We need to move away from these movements and instead do what we can to help people make the right choices.  Maybe WoW is right for me and SWToR for you.  Maybe a iPhone is great for my wife, but I need an Android device.  We don't all do or want the same things.  No amount of anger and hatred for something makes it shitty.  Stop defending things that have no bearing on the rest of the world.  Use that passion to do some good.

E - Evil (or perceived to be evil) factions/races

Look at the races or factions in many games.  There are the good guys and the bad guys.  But... what makes the bad guys so bad?

In WoW you see the Horde shown in both lights.  As good guys and bad guys, depending on which faction you  belong to.  It has a very Beowulf/Grendel feel.  Who is right and who is wrong?  This is a very interesting way to pose the two factions.  The same came be said about the representation of the factions in SWToR.  The Republic is commonly revered as the good guys, while the Empire are the bad guys.  When you get into it, both factions suck.

I understand the need to have factions face off against each other, but to assume that the other is evil is silly.  Planetside housed THREE different factions and it was never assumed that one of them was evil.  They were all simply different and fighting over something.  Everyone was a human, so I guess that may have helped the story there.  So does being an Orc make your faction evil?  What about SWToR, how can most of the races be human, yet have so many issues with a faction being evil?  Maybe it has to do with the extended role playing available in SWToR and WoW.  Maybe it is just because they feel like they need something to fuel the conflict.  Planetside was a conflict all by itself.

With the new Planetside game getting ready to start testing I am looking forward to seeing it's take on this kind of thing.  The first one was able to avoid the good and bad, light and dark, Horde and Alliance issue.  I have hopes that maybe we can move away from this kind of thing in the future.  Or, maybe that we can take a note from Planetside and have more factions with more interests than just two warring factions.

D - Drops

In most MMO games the most important thing is your "gear".  Whether it is a gun or a robe or a staff, it is always like this.  You want the best, so you have to hope you get it.  Today things are evolving and drops aren't as important as they used to be.

We have seen several MMOs take the approach that drops aren't all that important.  Gathering the tokens from kills or acquiring a single type of badge for trade-in scores you a sweet piece of gear.  WoW does this very well and SWToR has adopted a system that is similar.  While these games handle the issue differently, they approach it the same way: drops are stupid.  

We all remember the old school days of EQ where you had tons of people and very little loot to spread around.  We even remember the original days of WoW where you ran MC 2973238927 times just to get that ONE FUCKING PIECE of gear that never dropped.  You hit your head on an invisible loot wall because you needed or wanted that piece of gear.  Those days are rapidly disappearing and now all you need to do is show up.  If you show up and get the kill you might get to leave with a decent piece of gear, but more importantly you leave with badges or commendations or points of some type that you can then use to purchase things that you want.  The best gear still requires a drop of some sort, but you can easily ramp up your gear at a more steady pace this way.  Gone are the days of huge upgrades and endless trips for items that won't drop.

I hope that this trend continues.  I really wish that gear was more easily attainable through alternate methods, but this system works pretty well.

C - Copycats

STOP IT!

At some point the gaming industry has to allow themselves to fall flat on their faces with innovative new ideas... that suck.

The same-old same-old just isn't cutting it.  Everyone is a copycat and while this is sometimes good, right now it isn't.  We have tons of games that all look and feel the same and that just isn't interesting or fun.  It's boring and shitty and it really needs to change if we ever want to press forward as an industry.  PC gaming has done a lot of growing up and we are moving ever closer to that pivotal point where a game will make you cry.

We have to stop stifling progress just so we can make some money.  Demand that your game be different and innovative, not incorporate the same system under a different name and call it innovation.  We aren't stupid and we can see through this.  There has to come a time when we take a look at what some of these indie games do and allow that joy and creativity to move into some major studios.  I have seen more mobile games be interesting and creative in the last year than I have PC games.

B - Blizzard (revisited)

Now at the end of the development cycle for your third expansion to WoW and Blizzard is looking pretty good.  Diablo 3 shipping any time now and 2012 expecting that Starcraft 2 expansion.  Who wouldn't wanna be Blizzard?  No one.

Oh Blizzard, you also got knocked off of the list, but BioWare laid a huge fucking egg with SWToR, so I let you keep the spot.

Blizzard made a lot of good moves and while Cataclysm may have not been the best expansion, it was one that really needed to happen.  We have closed several stories and opened up a whole lot of new storylines (and characters).  A lot of people don't like the idea of MoP and aren't into Pandas or a ninja class or an expansion without a clearly focused bad guy.  I, for one, don't give a fuck.

Blizzard has steadily produced content that was as good as or better than what everyone else was able to offer at the time.  Period.  You can hate on WoW all you want, but it is performing at a higher rate and has plenty of content for people of all level ranges.  Much of what has caused SWToR to falter in these early stages is the lack of direction that is in the game.  For a game so long in development and given so much money.... where is the quality product?  Blizzard spent 7 years getting the formula right, if you were going to copy it, why wouldn't you copy it NOW?  They seem to have gotten ahold of the blueprints from back in 2004, sadly.

There is a big year ahead.  Diablo 3 looks to be pretty good and with a lot of online control and multi-user playing I see it doing very well.  While I do not agree with the way they are selling Starcraft 2, I have to acknowledge that people love it and are desperately awaiting the expansion.  My favorite thing about Blizzard heading into 2012 is that there will be another year of a game that I can depend on to be enjoyable.  After playing for so long I have a very easy time finding something to do every single time I logon.  I enjoy that.  In the next year I hope to level most of my characters out to max level and start in on some collecting for tradeskills in MoP.

A - Activision (revisited)

Another year and another title.  This year the big release was the new and improved Modern Warfare.  Oh boy!  I sense a heartbreak.

So many people, especially those among the PC gaming crowds, swore off Activision.  They said that wouldn't buy the next version of MW unless there were real changes.  Well guess what.  They lied.

Tons of people in the PC gaming crowd picked up MW3.  Lots of them on release day.  They got the game and immediately realized it was the same as the last several games and played it for a while.  The glaring issues staring them in the face, but they toiled onward!  Onward into the suck and shit this franchise has become.  Many fanboys tried their hardest to defend the game, but eventually not even they could contend with the pile of shit that they were given.

This is another disaster for PC gaming.  You hate the game, but you bought it. They have your money and gave you a half-hearted project.  Next year they will do the same and you will do it all over again.  WHY?!  Stop the madness.  We have to stop giving in to this kind of thing and start demanding higher quality.  A 60 dollar game with 5 DLC packs at 20 bucks a pop and no support for the game past the first year IS NOT what gaming is about.