Played Lately: Fable II

• I've typed these words many times before but it bears repeating here: I rarely finish video games. If I were to review games, I could rate them solely by the percentage of the game I completed and most likely that would match whatever arbitary rating I would give. It's just that most games are too long to fight my way through compared to how much enjoyment I get out of them. The original Fable for the Xbox was one of those games I was able to finish and enjoyed doing so. I seemed to like that game a lot more than other people did, but I had not poisoned by the high expectations everyone else seemed to harbor. Thus then Fable II was announced, I was thrilled to have a favorite game return for a second try.


• The first thing I thought when I started playing (and I know this is weird, but hear me out) is that this game plays a lot like the first Fable. Considering it had been a couple years since I'd even looked at the prior game, I was amazed that the sequel evoked such strong feelings of familiarity. I was able to jump right in and start playing with very little difficulty.


• So far, I've been taking my time with the game. I know the main storyline can be run through rather quickly, but there is so much else to do that I was to relish everything instead of rushing to the ending. That means I've been spending a lot of time collecting things, like clothes and weapons and real estate. I never bought that many properties in the first game. Here they make it so easy and rewarding that I can't help myself. My prized purchase so far was the main bookstore in Bowerstone. For all that, the main story is interesting enough that I'm looking forward to seeing how it is resolved.


• On the combat side, I've been trying to play the hard way. I have focuses almost entirely on leveling my Skill abilities so that I can shoot people head's off. While this is a lot of fun when I get the drop on an opponent, a lot of encounters start as ambushes where I don't have the time to aim and carefully snipe at the baddies. Thus there is no way to neglect my melee or magic abilities. Luckily those are just as much fun, just not what I wanted to focus on.


• In all, I'm having a great time playing Fable II. I just hope the lure of Fallout 3 doesn't distract me from this great game.

Played Lately: World of Warcraft

• Ever since patch 3.0.2 came out, I'm not really playing Warhammer Online any more. It's not that I don't like WAR, it's just that I don't really have any desire to fire the thing up. My subscription is still active because I will be coming back eventually. It's just that I'm having much more fun in World of Warcraft now.
• First off, as I mentioned to the sole friend I keep in contact with on my Alliance character, paladins are awesome now. My very first character was a paladin and I got her all the way to level 70 before I stopped having fun with her. Now, they've made paladins play so differently that even with no new content, I'm enjoying going out and taking on challenges I ignored before. Considering the incoming nerfs with the next patch, I'm hoping my enjoyment is not short lived.
• Also livening things up, Hallow's End started a few days ago. I've taken my newly cool paladin into Scarlet Monastery a couple times and came away with a very nice epic helm and a magic broom I use every chance I get. I also took my blood elf paladin around trick-or-treating since holiday quests a good, easy experience at low levels. I can usually work out an extra level or two just by participating.
• If that was not enough, Blizzard kicked off the Scourge Invasion again in the midst of the holiday, which was very fitting. So far we've gotten both the return of the original invasion as well as a plague of zombies. I wasn't around for the first invasion as I did not sign up until long after Naxxramas was added to the game. Again, I took my Alliance paladin out to kill lots of undead and scored the long lost Tabard of the Argent Dawn as well as some nice Undead Slaying gear. As if to prove how bad my current gear was, the Undead Slaying gear has been a significant improvement. At least it looks nice, too.
• So that's why I've been playing WoW instead of WAR. Except until my brother's computer is fixed and I go back to my Archmage a few nights a week. I'm so confused.

By Request: The Cancellation of The Inside

• I'm going to start by saying this post is all for me. I've only seen the search term come up a couple times, but that was enough to pique my interest in the topic. The Inside was a show that I was looking forward to ever since I heard Tim Minear was working on it. I first discovered Tim from his work with Joss Whedon on Angel and the amazing Firefly. When Firefly was unjustly canceled, I followed him the wonderfully quirky Wonderfalls. And when that was canceled, I was going follow him to whatever happened next. Next was The Inside.
• The Inside started life as a Wiseguy clone of a girl working undercover in high school. When the network demanded that the show be changed to an episodic format (more like 21 Jump Street), the original creators were stuck. The undercover agent angle works well as an initial premise to a season long arc, but how do you find new ways and new reasons to put someone undercover for each of 22 episodes a season? To help fix this network imposed problem, Fox brought in Tim Minear, much as they had for Wonderfalls.
• The first thing Minear did (well, maybe not chronologically, but by importance) was to chuck out everything except the star and the cop show premise. The Inside became a show about an FBI agent with a unique perspective that allows her to identify with various predators in society and use that knowledge to bring them to justice. She is inducted into a select FBI unit run by a special agent who will do anything or use anyone to solve a case. With this new set up, we get a new monster-of-the-week format, with the difference that the monsters are all human psychopaths. He also, based on prior experiences, created a character arc for the show that would cover the initial 13 episode run if things went down the drain. And down the drain they went, rather quickly.
• So what happened? For one, the nature of the show was a limiting factor. The lead character starts off in a very dark place and is very stoic. Over the course of the series, she slowly opened up and became more trusting of her fellow agents and, thus, more likeable to the audience. While this storytelling style is very rewarding for the long run (for reference, see just about any show on HBO and newer shows being released on cable networks), network television audiences are very unforgiving if you don't grab them immediately. As well, the subject matter was very dark and morally complex, something you can't expect the average viewer to enjoy.
• But there is an even easier answer, as to why the show failed: Dancing With The Stars. Fox put The Inside on during the summer because it had taken so long to get on track and they could not hold it until the fall season. While off season launches have become more accepted lately, this was before the practice had caught on. No one really understood that DWTS was poised to grab the same crowd the followed shows like American Idol. In the face of that oncoming juggernaut, The Inside never stood a chance and was cancelled with only six episode airing. To date, no DVD set has been released for anyone to see the unaired episodes, though they have been easy enough to find online if you are willing to look.
• Although The Inside may not have been the best show on the air, I think its cancellation was unfortunate. Over time, the complexity being built into the narrative would have been quite compelling. Tim Minear once referred to the show as a struggle for the soul of the main character, whether she could be brought into the light and redeemed or dragged into the darkness and devastated. The episodes we got certainly gave us that and we are poorer for not getting to experience more.
• If you're interested in reading more, Tim Minear gave an interview to iF Magazine (in three parts posted here, here, and here) that was my primary source for this post.

News Filter: BlizzCon 2008

• This weekend, I was one of the several thousand people lucky enough to spend a bunch of money to get tickets to BlizzCon in Anaheim, CA. Thankfully the money was well worth it and now I'm going to rub how much fun I had in all your faces.
• The thing you always read about BlizzCon or any other convention is the panels, so I thought would try to catch as many as possible. What you don't read about is all the other cool stuff that is going on. That's what I really ended up doing. I did sit down and hear the Diablo III Gameplay panel. It was, um, interesting. That's an appropriate descriptor. In retrospect, it's much more interesting to read about the panels on MMO-Champion or the like.
• Instead of panels, I spent a lot of time waiting in lines. Lines seemed to be the primary attraction at BlizzCon. There were lines to get to the demos, lines to get into the stores, even lines just to get into the building. There were several lines I didn't even have the time to stand in, the place was that crazy. It was almost anticlimactic to reach the end of a line and find myself ushered to sit in front of a computer to play some demo. But since I could spend all my time in lines, I decided to try a few things out.
• The first demo I got into was for Wrath of the Lich King. What I took away from this is that I need a better computer. It was really beautiful and played really smooth. I started a death knight, hoping to get a sneak peek at the opening zone, but all the characters were autoleveled to 80 and dumped at a random point in Northrend. Since that wasn't how I wanted to spend my time, I rerolled as a mage. Demo time was short, so I didn't have time to do much more than fly around, ooh and aah at the beautiful environment, and kill a few beasts. I did find the mage quest to earn the Portal: Dalaran spell, so that was my demo goal. All the creatures I faced were level 71-73, so I didn't have any problems and was able to complete the quest. Yay, me! If there was any question whether I was coming back to WoW from WAR, this demo definatively answered it.
• Even better than that, however, was the demo for Diablo III. Again, we only had 15 minutes to play, but there was a set goalline and cooperative multiplayer was encouraged. Three classes were open to play so I took a barbarian (having not played a melee class since the first Diablo), my brother grabbed a wizard (having never played Diablo at all!), and we got matched with a witch doctor, so we had all the bases covered. First and foremost, the game played exactly like a Diablo game should, which is as big of a compliment as I can make. Yes some of the systems have changed and will continue to be tweaked, but it felt just right. I had been worried that going 3D might hurt the visuals, but again they've captured the look of the earlier games and even expanded the possibilities. I particularly enjoyed the destructable environmental bits, and that they didn't skimp on the wooden barrels. The three of us rushed through Tristram and the catacomb below them and finally took down the Skeleton King just before our 15 minutes were up. We had a great time and I'm really looking forward to playing more when the game comes out.
• Funny enough, the thing I was most looking forward to this weekend was the early preview of the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game. I have a weakness for board games and miniatures, so this seemed like a perfect fit. I bought a starter and a booster as soon as I hit the show floor the first day (without benefit of waiting in a line) and signed up for a starter tournament. Then I walked off for a couple hours and forgot to show up for the tourney. Yeah, I'm not that bright. The Upper Deck folks were cool enough to put me in another round, though they did tease me a little bit. As for the game, it is really cool. The base set seems nicely balanced even with four very different characters, making for a close match. Adding a booster and building a team in the second round was a lot of fun, and that round was just as close. Luckily for me, I was able to win both rounds, so I walked away with an extra figure. They also gave out a vinyl Tanaris map as a door prize, and my partner in the second match and I both won one. It was a great experience all around and well worth the time. Kudos to Upper Deck for a fun game and a great event.
• As much fun as I had, two days was plenty to see it all and live to tell the tale. I'd definately go back if the oppotunity arose, but my feet are glad it will be a full year before the next one.

News Filter: Bloggers Lose Their Cool Over Blizzard Making Money

• Thank goodness for Blizzard because the MMO blogging illuminati have been way too civil lately. Syncaine (of Hardcore Casual) and Keen (of Keen and Graev) have decided to lay into the company for their intention to open some form of microtransactions in World of Warcraft. As this announcement falls hard of the heels of for-pay downloadable content for Diablo III and the trifurcating of Starcraft II, you'd think the effing sky was falling and Blizzard was going to mop it up with piles of cash.
• First, can we please get over blaming Activision for everything that Blizzard decides? Mike Morhaime is a big boy; he can take it. Also, people have been complaining about their decisions since before Activision came into the picture. It's not like Blizzard has gone all Edward Hyde on us.
• Second, you people don't even know what you're talking about. I know irrational ranting is the foundation our community is based on, but this is downright strange. If Blizzard does end up selling gear or attunements or anything outside of cosmetic changes, go ahead and turn on the flamethrowers. If they decide to offer the equivalent of horse armor in Diablo, blast away. If Blizzard delivers any less than than three full games of content of Starcraft, you might have something to complain about. Until then you all look just a little silly.
• Third, thanks for giving me an easy blog topic today. Ranting about ranters ranting is about as Ouroboros as you can get, but what can you do. That tail is yummy.
• If anyone wants a real rant, go check out Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings's posts about Warhammer, both the good and the bad. The man is an OG of MMO ranting and he knows how to do it right.