1443: Death to the Chimera

It’s another Final Fantasy XIV post, I’m afraid, but I feel compelled to share the experience I just had, as I think it’s something that’s going to stick with me for some time.

A bit of context, first, for those who don’t play. My character is primarily a Black Mage, which is part of the group known as “DPS” (damage per second” or damage dealers. I don’t have a lot of health, but my spells do hit hard and do a considerable amount of damage. When playing as a member of a party, I rely on the “tank” character to keep the enemies’ attention off me, and occasionally the assistance of a healer to keep my health topped up if I do happen to get hit by something. For the most part, my responsibility is to avoid getting hit as much as possible, and to simultaneously ensure that I’m doing as much damage as possible.

I’m at level 50 on my Black Mage, which means I’m no longer gaining experience and have instead been gathering better and better equipment. My average item level is now 71, which is significantly stronger than where you are when you first hit 50 — though the effectiveness of all said equipment is scaled down accordingly if you happen to run a dungeon that’s lower than level 50.

Which, as it happens, is exactly what I was doing earlier. I decided to run the dungeon Cutter’s Cry, because I was well behind on my “Hunting Log” for the Immortal Flames Grand Company, and wanted to actually polish it off and make some progress. (In the game, your Hunting Log is a checklist of specific monsters to defeat, with rewards on offer for completing items on the list, and larger rewards on offer for completing a complete difficulty rank. The Grand Company is an organisation tied to one of the three main city-states in the game, and is effectively where your character pledges their allegiance to.)

Our run through Cutter’s Cry didn’t go as smoothly as it could have done. Our tank — the guy who stands at the front and gets hit, as well as the guy who generally leads jaunts through dungeons — wasn’t especially skilled, and was having trouble maintaining the attention of monsters that really wanted to chomp on our healer’s testicles. I spent a lot of the dungeon casting my Sleep spell to take a bit of the heat off the party and allow us to concentrate on a single monster at a time, and it overall seemed to work pretty well, with a few minor mishaps along the way.

We eventually reached the dungeon’s boss monster Chimera, albeit with a different healer to the one we started with, who disconnected. Our first attempt failed miserably in a matter of seconds. The second, however, is where things got interesting and exciting.

It was going reasonably well for a while. We were doing decent damage to the Chimera, and the tank was successfully maintaining the attention of the enemy, allowing the party’s Bard and I to pelt it from a distance with arrows and fireballs respectively.

Then something went horribly wrong. The tank didn’t quite move far enough to get out of the path of one of the Chimera’s special attacks, and hit the deck. The Bard followed shortly afterwards, leaving just me and the party’s healer to deal with a by now very pissed off Chimera.

I thought this would almost inevitably be the end, but on a slightly selfish whim I decided to see what I could do. We’d already whittled the beast’s health down to an amount that certainly looked doable, so I started alternating running away from it and flinging a few spells at it whenever it stopped to try and do one of its special attacks. The healer cottoned on quickly to what I was doing, and supported my efforts while the tank and Bard lay on the floor — the fight’s too hectic to make raising party members practical, particularly if the tank’s down.

The Chimera’s health bar continued to deplete, and I somehow remained standing, successfully dodging each and every one of his special attacks and only occasionally taking damage from an occasional claw swipe. Meanwhile, I’d continue to electrocute him with my Thunder spells — which causes him to continually take small amounts of damage over a short period of time — and pelt him with fireballs whenever I had enough distance between us to make casting practical and safe-ish.

Finally, his health was into the “holy shit, are we actually going to pull this off?” territory — and conveniently, the party’s Limit Break bar was fully charged at this point. (The Limit Break bar builds up gradually through combat, and any one party member can trigger it once it’s charged high enough for a powerful special ability according to what class they are — in the case of Black Mage, it summons, as you might expect, a devastatingly destructive spell.)

“Limit Break!” called the party members. I was skeptical as to whether or not it would do enough damage, but I put some distance between the Chimera and I, waited for the perfect moment and then began casting.

The screen exploded in fire and my speakers erupted with the sounds of falling meteorites… and then there was a deafening screech as the beast collapsed to the floor and dissipated into a cloud of aether. The Chimera was down!

“Holy shit,” said the fallen Bard afterwards as the healer helped him to his feet. “Good job.”

I don’t often like to toot my own horn, but in this case? Yeah, I have to agree.

1442: Yearly Wasteland

We’ve reached that peculiarly barren time of year — it’s no longer Christmas, but it’s not quite New Year either. Some unlucky people have to go back to work for a few days — Andie is one of them — while the rest of us bum around, twiddling our thumbs and wishing we had more presents to open. (Actually, we will have a few more presents to open on New Year’s Day, which is nice. I think I know what mine will be, and if I’m right I’ll be very pleased with it.)

I feel a bit frustrated by the holiday season at the moment. I miss the “magic” it used to have when I was a kid. I’m not sure quite when it stopped being exciting and fun, but it’d be nice to get that back.

I’ve mentioned before my curious inability to express genuine-seeming outward signs of excitement, surprise or anything like that, and I have a feeling that may be something to do with it. I love opening presents and getting cool stuff, but I hate the pressure there is to look pleased with what you got. Everyone who buys you something is almost inevitably looking carefully at your face to see if you smile, grin, laugh or look disappointed at the things that have been purchased for you, and given that I feel enormously self-conscious about getting excited or joyful, my reaction often appears to be somewhat more “meh” than it actually is. I generally do like presents, whatever they are — because I’m not an ungrateful twat who returns gifts that other people have bought for him — and I am always appreciative when someone thinks of me and buys me something nice. It’s just sometimes a bit difficult to show.

Same with New Year’s. Everyone builds it up to be some kind of massive big deal, so when the time comes to actually say “Happy new year!” to people I feel very self-conscious and stupid. It feels like a cliche to say it. Well, it is a cliche to say it, but surely there’s no better time to actually say “happy new year!” to someone than at one minute past twelve on New Year’s Day. Garrgh.

One day I might get over all these stupid neuroses. Sadly, that day is not today, so if you are, by any chance, hanging out with me for New Year celebrations at any point in the future, I apologise in advance for my seeming lack of enthusiasm about the year increasing by one.

We’re off out to a party at my friend Tim’s tomorrow night to ring in the new year. There will be sausages. And no, that’s not a euphemism; the plan is actually for there to be lots of sausages. This is a situation I am absolutely fine with.

There will be one last post of 2013 before the new year — that will hopefully be before midnight, if I remember — and then it’s onward to 2014 and great things. Or just the same things as usual, but with a different number in the “YYYY” section of forms.

Anyway. Happy holidays or whatever.

1441: Panic!

Having tried Escape yesterday, Andie and I gave Castle Panic a go earlier. Despite the title, it’s a somewhat more sedate affair than Escape, though you’re still dealing with difficult odds and a distinct chance of being horribly defeated at any point.

Castle Panic is a cooperative game in which you and up to five other players are tasked with defending your castle from an incoming onslaught of goblins, orcs and trolls. Your castle is made up of six towers, each of which has a wall protecting it. Lose all the towers (but not necessarily the walls) and everyone loses; get through all the monster tokens and kill everything and everyone wins, but whoever scores the most points wins slightly more than everyone else.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward. The board is split into three coloured sections, each of which is subdivided into two numbered areas and five different rings. The outermost ring is the “forest” surrounding the castle area; the next three rings represent the effective ranges of your archers, knights and swordsmen respectively; the innermost ring is inside your castle walls and is where you’re trying to prevent the beasties getting to.

In order to deal with the incoming hordes, you need to play cards from your hand. Many of these take the form of a coloured archer, knight or swordsman, which means you can deal one point of damage to a monster in the appropriately coloured section of their respective ring on the board. Different types of monster take different amounts of damage — goblins only take one, for example, while trolls and some “boss” monsters have three and orcs have two.

There’s a selection of special cards in the mix, too — a “lucky shot” card allows a monster to be outright killed rather than damaged when used in conjunction with an appropriate card; “hero” cards can attack any ring in one coloured area of the board; barbarians can attack enemies who have managed to breach the castle walls.

Each turn, more and more enemies show up to make life difficult, and the enemies already on the board move in by one ring. If they hit a wall, they destroy it and take a damage, and likewise for the towers. Certain monster tokens cause more monsters to show up, or move further than they would normally, or rotate around the board. Giant Boulder tokens roll across the board, killing everything in their path but also destroying the first wall or tower they meet, making them something of a mixed blessing.

Andie and I won the game we played earlier, which surprised me somewhat — I’m used to cooperative games smacking me about somewhat more than this one did, but it may have been a lucky combination of card and monster token draws.

I’m interested to try the game with more people, since then you have smaller hands of cards but are able to trade more cards with people at the start of your turn.

It’s an interesting take on cooperative because there’s a competitive element, too — while you’re all working together for a common goal, there is a scoring mechanic to encourage you to try and be the “best”, too. This somewhat discourages the “alpha player” problem that some cooperative games suffer from, in which one player takes charge and orders everyone else around. In Castle Panic, there’s not so much scope for that to happen and turns are pretty quick, so everyone can feel like they’re contributing.

It’s a good game, in short. I’m looking forward to trying it some more.

Talking about all these board games has given me a blogging idea for January — I’m thinking I might go through my collection and compile some detailed posts on selected (or perhaps even all!) of the games I own, sharing some thoughts, images and details on them for those curious. I have a pretty decent collection now, and it would be nice to do it justice with some more detailed posts. So look forward to that!

1440: Escape!

I spent some of my Christmas money today on some board games — I grabbed Castle Panic, which I’ve never played but which I understand is an enjoyable moderate-length game that isn’t horrendously complicated, and Escape, which I hadn’t heard of prior to today, but which came recommended by some board gamers I follow on G+.

Escape is a really interesting game, as it happens, and I’m looking forward to trying it out with various different group sizes. Andie and I gave it a shot today, initially not quite sure what to make of it, but after a third playthrough — a game is only ten minutes long — we nailed it.

Escape is a cooperative game that unfolds in real time. You and your compatriots play intrepid explorers who have gone and got themselves stuck in the middle of a temple, with no idea of where the exit is. (Presumably they fell in through the ceiling or something.) It’s your job to find the exit, then exit through it. Simple, right? NOPE.

The temple, being a mysterious old temple, is cursed, and in order to be able to escape you need to not only find the exit, but also activate some magical gems along the way. Each gem you activate makes it easier to escape, but attempting to activate them takes up valuable time.

Almost everything you do in Escape hinges on the roll of the dice. Each player has five dice they can roll, and there’s no need to take turns — you just keep rolling until you get what you want, and you can set aside dice that you haven’t used to perform an action. Roll a black mask, however, and that die is out of commission until you roll a golden mask to return up to two of your dice to play. If you’re in the same room as another player, you can use your golden masks to “heal” another player’s dice, too, so it’s in your interests to team up rather than get too far apart.

Activating the gems is generally a matter of rolling a certain number of either torch or key symbols. Certain rooms allow you to activate multiple gems in collaboration with other players by pooling your dice, but obviously rolling 10 of one symbol is going to be a little more time-consuming than rolling, say, 4, so you have to weigh up the risks and potential rewards.

Just to add a little more stress to the mix, at two points during the ten-minute play session, a gong sounds, and then you have a short span of time to get back to the central chamber or lose one of your dice permanently. Conversely, if you manage to escape before someone else does — by both finding the exit and then rolling as many keys as there are gems left in the pool, plus one — you can give one of your dice to another player. If you haven’t all escaped by the time the third gong and countdown ends, you all lose, regardless of how many people have escaped.

Escape makes use of an audio CD to manage the time limit, but also provides a sand timer for when you’re playing in quieter environments. The CD is a lot of fun, though, being full of ambient noise and dramatic stabs when you’re all racing back to the central room. It reminds me of the somewhat more complicated Space Alert, another cooperative game that involves working together against a tight time limit — unlike Space Alert, however, which unfolds in hilariously painful slow motion after the CD is over, Escape happens in completely real-time, which takes a certain degree of getting used to but gives it a pleasingly enjoyable, frantic feel to it.

Looking forward to trying it some more and adding the “Curse” and “Treasure” modules for additional complexity and strategic options. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a super-quick game to hit your table as a filler or warmup, it’s well worth a look.

1439: Titanic

Been making good progress with Final Fantasy XIV over the last few days and once again I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I’ve taken to the multiplayer-centric endgame content.

Tonight’s job — the last-but-one step in the quest to acquire the almost-but-not-quite-ultimate weapon for my level 50 Black Mage class — was to fell Titan in his “Hard Mode” fight, a notoriously difficult boss battle that I had a considerable degree of uneasiness about going into — and which I was terrified of the prospect of jumping into with strangers.

As it happens, the fight wasn’t all that scary if you know what you’re doing — much like every other fight in the game. You’d think I’d have learned that by now.

Titan, like Ifrit and Garuda before him, is one of the “Primals” — major bosses that crop up over the course of Final Fantasy XIV’s main story, and a good opportunity to test your party’s skills against one very strong opponent without having to run through a long dungeon first. The battles against them — known as “trials” in game parlance — tend to be unfold in deceptively simple boss-fighting arenas, but the simplicity of the environment is to ensure there’s nothing to distract you from the important thing: paying attention to what your opponent is doing.

Ifrit, Garuda and Titan all have abilities that are far beyond almost anything else you fight in the game, and a party that doesn’t know what it’s doing can wipe out very quickly if they’re not careful. They’re highly mobile fights that demand you recognise your opponent’s attack patterns and know how to counter them — and how to avoid them. Titan in particular is highly dependent on the party being able to avoid a relentless string of devastating attacks — and the healers being able to deal with the few, less-damaging attacks that are unavoidable for the whole party.

Aside from Titan, I spent a bit of time playing with the Conjurer class earlier — this is the healing class that later becomes White Mage, but also has a few offensive skills, too. It’s an interestingly distinctive class to play when compared to Black Mage, and a good demonstration of how Final Fantasy XIV makes even ostensibly similar classes play markedly differently from one another.

Black Mage and its predecessor Thaumaturgist involve highly destructive spells that cost large amounts of magic points to cast. The key mechanic to get your head around with Black Mage is the balance between “Umbral Ice” and “Astral Fire” — the former causes your ice-based spells to cost more to cast, but increases your magic points regeneration enormously, while the latter causes fire-based spells to cost more to cast and deal considerably more damage, and also stops all magic points regeneration. Essentially, Black Mages have a limitless pool of magic points that mean they can continue casting indefinitely, so long as they make the switch between Umbral Ice and Astral Fire at appropriate junctures — and, at higher levels, make good use of the MP-free, instant-cast spells that occasionally trigger.

White Mage and its predecessor Conjurer, meanwhile, are very different. Spells are considerably cheaper to cast, but there’s no Umbral Ice mechanic to quickly regenerate magic points in a hurry — so you have to manage your spellcasting a little more carefully. The class also has an interesting “stance switch” option, allowing the white mage to swap their Intelligence (determines spell damage) and Mind (determines healing power) stats around, effectively making them either damage- or healing-focused at the touch of a button. And then, of course, there’s the fact that white mages are mainly regarded as healers rather than damage dealers, and as such you have to be a lot more aware of people around you so you can heal them. The tradeoff for this, of course, is that people tend to like you because you can stop them from dying — and, once you reach a high enough level, you can even bring them back from the dead.

I jumped into one of the short party-based “Guildhests” earlier on to have a go at healing as part of a group with a relatively straightforward challenge. The party I was with was clearly very inexperienced — the fighter charged ahead without waiting for me to cast protection spells on him, and the damage-dealing mage seemed to take as much damage as he inflicted. I managed to keep everyone alive, though, and my reward from these random strangers whom I’ll probably never see again was three “Player Commendations” — a new system introduced in the latest patch which allows players to show their appreciation for random teammates they were matched up with through the Duty Finder system. It’s a very nice, friendly addition to the game, and I can’t deny feeling a pleasantly warm and fuzzy feeling inside after a successful dungeon run when I see that little “You have received a player commendation” message in my chat window. Even better when there’s more than one.

Anyway. With Titan down, the only thing left for me to do to get my Black Mage relic weapon is to collect 400 more Allagan Tomestones of Philosophy by running dungeons — should be easy enough. Once I’ve done that, I’ll be well on the way to being appropriately geared for the Binding Coil of Bahamut, the most difficult dungeon in the game… or I can just start working on one of the other classes, with the eventual goal of getting their Relic weapons, too.

This post was probably indecipherable to those of you who don’t play Final Fantasy XIV but eh. Whatever. Tomorrow I’ll write about kittens or something.

1438: Mario Time!

Finally picked up Super Mario 3D World today with some of our Christmas money. (Andie spent all hers on Lego; I still have some left, which I’m probably going to spend on board games.)

What do you know? It’s fantastic, and to be honest I feel a bit sorry for anyone playing through the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One’s weak launch lineup in preference to the variety of really great games available for Wii U this Christmas time, with Super Mario 3D World certainly being a candidate for strongest of a strong bunch.

I’ve played through two “worlds” so far, and already it’s shown considerably more invention and creativity than almost any other game I’ve played in recent memory. Nintendo just gets “fun”. The Mario devs know what would be enjoyable and memorable to play, and they implement it in such a way that it manages to be consistently surprising and delightful even as you continue to progress through the levels. Rarely does it become predictable, and rarely does it get so hung up on a single trick that it becomes stale or boring; often, you’ll come across an enemy or trap that shows up maybe once or twice and is then never seen again — a far cry from some other games that repeatedly fling the same generic tricks and traps at you over the course of a lengthy adventure.

The thing I particularly like about Super Mario 3D World and its predecessor Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS is how intuitive it is. You’ll very rarely be given an explicit tutorial or an insultingly simple level to teach you how things work; rather, you’ll immediately be given a new item and it be implemented in such a manner that you can’t help but figure out how it works and what it’s for straight away. Beautiful game design.

Take the very first level: almost right off the bat, you’re given Super Mario 3D World’s new power-up, the cat suit. You’re not explicitly told how the cat suit works — how you can run up the walls, how you can “pounce” while you’re in the air — but the way the first level is designed encourages you to try these things out for yourself. You’ll naturally discover how the mechanics work, and it’s always pleasing and delightful to do so. The first time I found that wearing the cat suit allowed Mario and friends to climb up the flagpole at the end of the level for an easy gold flag put a genuine smile on my face.

The presentation is immaculate, too. A rock-solid 60fps; some well-designed, clear visuals; a minimal but informative interface; and some really, really great music performed on real instruments — Super Mario 3D World is without a doubt one of the most polished Mario games I’ve seen in recent memory, though I understand the Super Mario Galaxy games — which I’m yet to play — probably give it a run for its money, albeit in standard definition.

I’m looking forward to playing more, but I flattened the GamePad battery playing earlier. Perhaps I should invest in one of those new high-capacity batteries!

1437: Merry Christmas Again

Well, I hope you all had a nice Christmas with lots of presents and too much to eat and all that jazz. As I said yesterday, Andie and I had a nice quiet Christmas with just the two of us (and the rats) — I’d seen my parents shortly before Christmas, and we’re going to go see Andie’s family on New Year’s Day.

Not a lot else to say, really. There were presents, there was food — Andie’s first time preparing Christmas lunch, and it was great — and then there was sitting around doing not very much.

I got a couple of board games as presents, and we tried one of them out. It’s called Tsuro: The Game of the Path, and it’s a deceptively simple little affair where you take it in turns to lay tiles with lines on them down on the board, then move any pieces that connect to the lines until they can’t go any further. The aim is to be the last piece standing, either by causing all the other players to crash into one another, or to fall off the board. There’s some sort of mystical Chinese theme about it all, but it really doesn’t matter — it’s a super-quick, simple but very clever little game that will serve as an excellent “filler” on board game nights, either to start the evening or as a palate-cleanser after something more substantial.

The other game I got was Android: Netrunner, a two-player card game that was originally a Magic: The Gathering style CCG, but which has now been transformed into one of those fashionable LCGs. (For those who don’t know the different, CCGs are customisable card games, where you buy a base set and then add to it with blind booster packs and other expansions; LCGs are living card games, where everything you need to play is included in the base box, but there are also regular expansions — unlike CCGs’ blind booster packs, though, LCGs’ expansions always have the same cards in them so you know what you’re getting.

The game itself looks fairly complicated but enjoyable, and I like the cyberpunk/hacking theme — it looks like it’ll be an interesting and asymmetrical game for two players. Now I just have to make sure I can get people to play with!

On that note, it’s nearly 4am since I accidentally Final Fantasy XIV for a bit, so I’d better go to sleep. Andie and I are going to pop out and perhaps spend some of our Christmas money tomorrow — I’ve certainly got my eye on Super Mario 3D World for Wii U, and potentially some other things besides.

I hope you had a thoroughly pleasant Christmas and some peaceful time away from the chaos of everyday life. Enjoy it for a bit longer before it all kicks off again!

1436: Merry Christmas

Technically this is my post for the 24th, but it’s past midnight so I can probably officially say “merry Christmas” to you all. And possibly again tomorrow.

Andie and I are having a nice quiet Christmas in our own place this year, with no-one having to travel anywhere. It will be nice to have a fairly chilled out day.

One thing we will sort of be missing out on a bit though is the fine art of the “family tradition”. Everyone’s family doubtless has their own little traditions and routines for Christmas Day, and when you’re not spending said day with your family you either have to come up with your own ones, or adopt the ones you’ve known for the rest of your life by default. (That or attempt to ignore Christmas altogether; I did that a couple of years ago, not entirely through choice, and it was not altogether pleasant.)

The “traditions” Andie and I will be adopting once we get up later this morning will doubtless be a blend of both of our families’ typical way of doing things. We’ve already done the “open one present at midnight” thing that Andie insisted on (a copy of the board game Tsuro — thanks Michelle!) but we will more than likely open presents in the morning, as is Davison family tradition, rather than in the afternoon, as is Capes family tradition. Because come on, presents.

Those who have been following this blog for a while will know that I haven’t really had my heart in Christmas for a number of years now. I’m not entirely sure why this is, but I have a feeling it’s something to do with my own inability to express genuine-seeming excitement or happiness when put in a situation where it’s expected. I really hate being put under pressure to “be happy” or “act more excited” because, in my mind, I picture an “excited” thirty-two year old Pete as an overexcited five-year old Pete with everyone laughing and chuckling at how adorable he is to be so excited. I of course know that this is completely stupid and that it’s okay to be excited, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling really embarrassed at the prospect of being excited and demonstrating anything more than a Fluttershy-style “Yay”.

Still, even if I don’t really show it at times, I am at least appreciative for a pleasant, enjoyable and peaceful festive season — and I hope all of you reading this are in the process of enjoying the same thing.

Have a thoroughly merry Christmas, everyone, and here’s to a happy 2014 when it eventually decides to show its face.

1435: Something to Try This Steam Sale

“Lock up your wallets,” the tired old joke goes, “it’s Steam sale time.” And indeed, the Steam holiday sale is a great opportunity to pick up tons of games for not very much money.

The trouble is, the Steam sale tends to encourage people to pick up as many games as possible, then never get around to playing them. In previous Steam sales, I’ve probably gathered sufficient games to keep me busy for literally years now — to such a degree that it’s now quite hard to find something new I might want to buy when a new sale comes around — and yet have still only barely scratched the surface of the games I own.

A lesser-appreciated thing that you can do around Steam Sale time, though, is try out something that you might not have given a chance normally. Perhaps it’s in a genre you don’t normally like, or you’ve been put off by mixed or middling reviews, or you’re simply not sure if you’ll enjoy it from what other people have told you about it.

The Steam sale is the perfect time to take a chance on these games, though, and see how well you get on with them. If you like them, great! Keep playing! And if you don’t… well, you’ve only spent a few quid on them at most — at least if you’ve obeyed the Unwritten Law of Steam Sales, which is to not buy anything unless it sees a larger-than-50% discount — preferably 75% off.

One might argue that demos fulfil much the same function as what I’m proposing here, but demos don’t often give you the full picture of how a game plays in the long term — often, they provide a simple slice of gameplay divorced from its surrounding context, which in many cases doesn’t do it any favours, particularly if the game itself is a complex one. Grabbing a copy of a game you’ve been on the fence about for a few quid, meanwhile, allows you to jump into the experience with beginner’s mind, try it out for yourself and give it a fair shot without having to worry about it “expiring” or anything just as it starts getting interesting.

I’ve got my eye on a few things I might be interested in trying this Steam sale, and they’re all titles I probably wouldn’t buy under normal circumstances.

First up, I grabbed XCOM the other day, since everyone says it’s great. I don’t know if or when I’ll get around to playing it, but it’s nice to have the option.

Second, I’m interested in taking a look at WarGame: AirLand Battle after a friend of mine expressed some interest in potentially playing it multiplayer sometime. Military war games aren’t usually my thing, but that may be just because I haven’t tried many of them in the past. AirLand Battle sounds like it does some interesting things that I quite like the sound of, but I’m worried I’ll be embarrassingly shit at it and never be able to get anywhere.

Thirdly, I have the original version of Sins of a Solar Empire in physical format and quite liked it, but didn’t get super-into it. The latest version Rebellion is in the Steam sale, and I’m umming and ahhing over giving it another shot — particularly since, again, it’s something I might be able to play with friends.

Finally, Divinity: Dragon Commander looks like an enjoyable time, featuring, as it does, jetpack-wearing dragons, political intrigue, RPG elements atop a strategy game. I saw a very early version of this back at Gamescom in 2010 and liked it a lot, so I’d be interested in giving the full version a go.

If the price is right on any of these over the course of the Steam sale — they’re all a little high at the time of writing — then I’ll more than happily give them a go. Who knows? I might find a new favourite among them. Why don’t you try doing the same?

1434: Free Company

The Internet is by turns a strange and wonderful place, filled with all manner of people from fair to foul. Wander inadvertently into the wrong corner of it and you’ll find yourself surrounded by some of the very worst people in the world; somewhere else and you’ll find people who will go on to become lifelong friends.

Online gaming is somewhat troublesome in this regard at times, particularly for those of us who struggle somewhat in social situations. The prospect of talking to strangers in an online game is, to me, pretty much as frightening as the prospect of walking up to a random stranger in a bar — particularly if voice chat is involved. With text chat, it’s somewhat easier since you have more time to consider your responses, but the inability to express your tone of voice can sometimes lead to misunderstandings, and it’s still nerve-wracking to, say, ask a favour of someone.

This is something that’s held me back a little from fully enjoying some online games, because sooner or later you’re going to have to play with people you don’t know personally. Your friends won’t always be available to play with you, or you might need more help than your friendship groups can provide, or you might be playing a game mode where you’re organised into teams. Whatever the reason, it can be anxiety-inducing.

In the case of MMOs, you have to put your virtual life in the hands of strangers quite often, whether it’s for running a dungeon, beating a boss or getting a piece of equipment crafted. It’s easy to forget that a lot of people playing these games are in a similar situation where they need help from others to progress, and thus it’s in their interests to be nice to one another.

There are, of course, exceptions. The team-based e-sports games Dota 2 and League of Legends have notoriously “toxic” (the word that’s most commonly bandied about) communities that are somewhat unforgiving of newcomers attempting to learn the game “in the wild,” as it were. MMOs, too, have elitist players who are quick to complain at those whom they do not think are playing the game “properly”, and players who are impatient with newcomers just trying to have fun and learn how to get through some of the tougher dungeons and fights.

I get it. It’s frustrating for these people, who want to play in a particular way, to find themselves having to change their play style to support someone who’s perhaps less familiar with a particular challenge. But there’s really no excuse for rudeness.

That's me in the big black coat in the background. — That’s me in the big black coat in the background.

I’ve been extremely lucky with my time in Final Fantasy XIV so far. While most of my runs through dungeons and boss fights have been with friends, the few times I’ve dared to jump into the Duty Finder alone and be grouped up with strangers have been very pleasant surprises. Pick-up groups (or PUGs, as they’re sometimes called) have a rather poor reputation in most MMOs, and indeed in Final Fantasy XIV’s case most people seem to have at least one tragically amusing Duty Finder story where they played with someone who was just a colossal dickhead. I’m glad to have escaped that fate to date — but it also makes me extremely nervous about “going solo”, as it were: in other words, braving things like the new Duty Roulette system, which picks a random dungeon for you and three other random players to play in exchange for some very generous rewards, and indeed other group-based content I need to complete in order to proceed further in the game.

Which brings me on to my main point: how grateful I am to have a group of regular players whom I enjoy playing with, and whom I like. I’m a member of the “Giant Bomb” Free Company after being invited by someone I know through some combination of 1up, Twitter, The Squadron of Shame and possibly some other places — I forget the exact details — and am very happy that what I originally hoped would transpire when I started playing Final Fantasy XIV — that I’d make some friends with whom I felt comfortable playing — has indeed come to pass.

The interesting thing is that I don’t really know anything about the people I’m playing with, so they’re basically still “strangers” to me — just strangers I’m somewhat more familiar with. I’m not an active member of the community on the Giant Bomb website, so outside of my friend who originally invited me in the first place, I can’t relate any of these in-game names to real names or even usernames.

It sort of doesn’t matter, though; when we’re online in FFXIV, we’re there to play FFXIV. There’s the occasional mention of real-life things — usually when someone has to go and make dinner, or go out, or whatever — but for the most part, conversation in the game is about the game. We’re all enthusiastic and passionate about the game, and we all enjoy talking about it, whether that’s sharing our thoughts on the new content in the latest patch, sharing strategies for clearing dungeons, or collaborating on group projects such as the Free Company house and the various weird and wonderful objects therein.

I’m really very grateful to these people for making my experience with the game so enjoyable and welcoming, and the pleasant feeling of friendship and camaraderie I have with these folks is the main thing that keeps me coming back to the game time after time. Final Fantasy XIV is a great game in its own right, but when played with the right people, it becomes even more enjoyable — even for an old hermit like me.