1336: Where's My Paid-For Version?

Disney released a sequel to its popular iOS game Where's My Water? recently. Where's My Water?, if you're unfamiliar, is supposedly one of the best iOS games out there, and even managed to pick up an Apple Design Award at WWDC in 2012. It's an extremely popular game that was well received by both press and public alike, and spawned a couple of spin-off games prior to the recently released official sequel.

The official sequel is, inevitably, free-to-play, unlike the 69p original. Said original did have in-app purchases, yes, but they were mostly actual additional content — new levels and so on — plus, until recently, the game was continuously supported with weekly challenges that kept the game relevant over time. (The removal of these weekly challenges in the most recent update has annoyed a bunch of players, incidentally, but surely they can't expect Disney to continually support a game from 2011 forever.)

Where's My Water 2 has, unsurprisingly, been torn a new one by App Store reviewers for being free-to-play — and with good reason. Like Plants vs. Zombies 2, there is not one single convincing reason why making it free-to-play is a good thing for anyone except Disney. At least you can play Plants vs. Zombies 2 for as long as you like, however; Where's My Water 2 adds the ultimate insult of incorporating an energy mechanic into the game, effectively blocking people from continuing to play every few levels unless they pay up.

I hate energy systems. They were a fucking pain in the arse when I had to review mobile and social games because they meant I could only play the game for a certain amount of time before having to leave it for several hours (because I sure as fuck wasn't paying), and they're a fucking pain in the arse if I just want to enjoy a mobile game these days. They're a slap in the face to the player, and effectively a sign that the developer/publisher of the game don't trust their player base to actually slip them some money if they're enjoying themselves. It represents the absolute worst of everything about free-to-play, and it needs to stop.

I'm glad that App Store reviewers are starting to speak up against things like energy systems and excessive in-app purchases, because it's getting out of control. I find myself actually wanting Where's My Water 2 to fail, because it will teach Disney a lesson. This may sound harsh — I haven't played Where's My Water 2, so for all I know it could be a great game, and I'm sure the dev team worked hard on it — but this continuing trend of games that hold their content hostage needs to stop. Rather than it being an incentive to download and try something for myself, I will now actively avoid games on the App Store that are "free". And since most of the games on the App Store are now "free", this means I'm simply avoiding most of the stuff on the App Store, which is probably doing a great disservice to the few people out there who are doing great work, and who are treating their players with respect.

You want to see how to do free-to-play right? Go play Card Hunter.

1335: Perrrrssssppp

Hello! We fixed our Internet, no thanks to BT; Andie called 'em up earlier and they wanted to spend several days "testing our line" before calling us back on Tuesday, presumably with an engineer visit to follow after that if necessary — which it probably would be, since it appeared to be our fibre modem that was borked. Thankfully, a past example of BT's incompetence meant that we did, in fact, actually have two fibre modems, so we tried the old one and it turns out it still works. Win.

Anyway, enough of that. What I want to talk about today is the PSP.

The PSP came out in 2005, some five years after the launch of the PS2 and a year before the PS3. It failed to make a significant impact in the West upon its original launch and has sometimes been considered one of the problem children of Sony's lineup. There's a degree of justification for that — its reliance on a proprietary physical media format (UMDs); a laudable but ultimately doomed attempt to jump into the "all-digital" future well before the world was ready for it (PSP Go); a distinct lack of prominent marketing — but in the intervening years since its original launch, the PSP has actually become one of my favourite systems.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about it is the fact that after eight years, it's still relevant and doesn't show any sign of going away any time soon — and it has the Vita to thank for that. Vita is the best way to play PSP games due to its lovely OLED screen and its second thumbstick — which, when playing PSP games, can be assigned to emulate buttons, allowing for a fairly convincing fudging of dual-stick control for games that previously only supported a single stick — and as such has, in many cases, given the surprisingly vast PSP library of games a whole new lease of life.

This isn't a case of "it's backward compatible so you can still play old games" either — people are legitimately still making brand new games for the PSP. Just recently we've had Sweet Fuse, for example, and JRPG fans were all aflutter recently when it was announced that Xseed and Carpe Fulgur would be bringing the second part of the magnificent Trails in the Sky to English speakers in the near future.

Access to the entire PSP digital library is, for me, a convincing enough reason in itself to own a Vita — as I noted above, PSP games look and play great on Vita, with the only slight issue being that you can't play physical versions of games due to Vita's lack of a UMD drive. It's also something you can point to any time people complain that Vita has no games — a complaint which is getting more and more inaccurate by the day, incidentally.

So although the PSP is very much one of Sony's more troublesome children, I have to give the company a huge amount of credit for creating a platform that has endured as long as it has. The PSP has some fantastic games, if you've never explored them for yourself, and you might just find yourself discovering some new favourites. And with the impending release of Vita TV — which I'll be very surprised if we don't see in the West — all those of you who don't like playing on handhelds for whatever reason will be able to play these great games on your TV, too. Which sounds pretty great to me.

Now I'm going to go sit in bed and play Sweet Fuse.

1333: Passé

Considering how exciting the iPhone was when it first launched, I'm surprised how unmoved I am by the prospect of the new ones. At present, my 4S is still working just fine, and for the first time in many years of phone upgrades, I'm feeling no particular desire to have the latest and greatest piece of technology in my pocket.

I think part of the reason is what I've already said: my 4S is working fine, still — though it remains to be seen whether iOS 7 will kill its performance — and thus I certainly don't need a new phone. The other part is the fact that smartphone upgrades each year have become so incremental that it's just not particularly exciting any more — the new iPhone looks much like the old iPhone, and will probably work much like the old iPhone, except perhaps a bit faster, depending on what it is you're doing.

One reason to upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone, iPad, whatever would be if you're a big game player on these devices. And I've come to the conclusion recently that I'm just not.

This may surprise you, given the amount of waffling on about games that I do on this here blog, but it's true: I haven't played an iOS game for probably months now, and every time I look at the App Store, I have very little desire to even try a lot of the stuff that churns its way through the front page and into the abyss beyond, never to be seen again.

There's the odd exception; I still have something of a soft spot for the various excellent iOS versions of board and card games, but in most cases I'd rather play the real thing. For the most part, though, iOS gaming carries little to no interest for me; it's not for me any more. It is, instead, for children, or people who aren't particularly "game-literate", or people who don't mind increasingly obtrusive business models. There's relatively little with any "meat", though; nothing you can get stuck into for hours at a time, and in fact an awful lot of games are specifically designed to stop you from playing after a short while by causing you to run out of "energy" or "fuel", or for your car to require "repairing" — and, of course, you can instantly get back into the game if you'd just hand over your credit card details… No, thank you.

I'm probably painting a somewhat unfair picture of the iOS landscape there, since I know there's a lot of talented developers working on the platform — some out of necessity, some out of choice — but I'm sort of over the idea of mobile gaming, for now at least. There are too many exciting things going on on other platforms — including dedicated gaming handhelds — for me to muster up any enthusiasm for a platform prone to making really, really stupid collective decisions when it comes to the way games should be made.

Perhaps I'll revisit mobile gaming if it ever emerges from the free-to-play rut it's currently stuck in, but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen any time soon.

1332: Sweet Otome

I started playing the PSP game Sweet Fuse: At Your Side after finishing Corpse Party and it's been an interesting experience, particularly given my gaming background.

Sweet Fuse is what's known as an "otome game", you see — in stark contrast to "bishoujo games" that tend to have a male protagonist and a veritable harem of dateable female characters, otome games are the complete opposite: female protagonist, veritable harem of dateable male characters. (There are also yuri variations where the female protagonist can date female characters, much as there are yaoi titles for men, where a male protagonist can date male characters. But let's not get off the point: Sweet Fuse is an otome game in its purest sense.)

I was somewhat intrigued by the prospect of playing Sweet Fuse since although I'm no stranger to playing female characters in games, where romantic options exist I will still generally pair up my heroine with another woman in preference to anything else — my Dragon Age character made a beeline for Leliana, for example, while my LadyHawke in Dragon Age II went for Merrill, as I recall. Sweet Fuse, being an otome game, was going to make me (or rather, my female protagonist) date a male character and like it. And although I'm fairly open-minded about such things, I confess I did feel somewhat skeptical about whether or not I'd feel the same degree of emotional engagement seeing a relationship grow from the opposite way around to how it's usually depicted in this sort of game.

Why shouldn't I, though? In your average dating sim or visual novel, you are not playing as the protagonist; you're along for the ride and making occasional decisions on their behalf. You see stuff unfold and occasionally get frustrated at the protagonist not doing things exactly as you would have done them — but therein lies a sense of dramatic tension. In practice, the only thing that is different between a bishoujo game and an otome game is the fact that the voices are all female in one and all male in the other; and the same for the on-screen portraits of other characters.

That is a reasonably big difference, to be fair, but the fact is that in both cases, you're still watching two people who aren't you get together rather than pretending to get off with some virtual girl/dude from the first person. In that sense, it's not really any different to reading a novel with a love story, or watching a movie with love scenes. So why should playing as a protagonist of the opposite sex who becomes attracted to people who are the same sex as you make you feel weird?

Answer: it doesn't. In the admittedly limited time I've spent following the adventures of Saki Inafune and her six gentlemen friends as they attempt to defuse the bombs a terrorist who is also a pig secreted in her uncle Keiji Inafune's theme park — yes, that is indeed the creator of Mega Man — I've been surprised to find myself feeling much the same as I do when playing a bishoujo game.

Specifically, I've found myself playing "favourites" with the cast of dateable characters. I can't quite pin down if it's due to actually finding them attractive, or simply liking their characters, but I've naturally found myself gravitating towards one of the characters in my first playthrough, much like I would in a typical bishoujo game. (I tend to "go with my gut" for my first playthrough of this type of game, then go back and systematically pursue the remainder of the cast/endings one at a time in order to see everything the game and its stories have to offer.)

It helps that Sweet Fuse has a cast of male characters easily as diverse — possibly more so, even — than your average bishoujo game. There's the cold, stern detective; the young boy band idol; the aggressive, overly-compensating male escort (who reminds me of Kanji from Persona 4 to a distracting degree); the world-weary reporter; the shut-in; and the "mystical guy". The latter, a guy named Urabe, is the one I have my eye on for this first playthrough, but we'll see where it goes.

I'm only on the second "stage" of my first playthrough so far so there's probably quite a way to go yet. There's some interesting mechanics in the game that I'll talk about a bit more on another occasion. In the meantime, if you have the slightest interest in character-centric, story-focused games — and a PSP or Vita — then you could certainly do far worse than check out Sweet Fuse. Full review coming soon over on USgamer.

1330: Closed Book

Andie (and some of you, I'm sure) will undoubtedly be delighted to hear that I finished Corpse Party: Book of Shadows last night, which means I will no longer be sitting in the dark before going to sleep with the sounds of Japanese schoolgirls screaming emanating from my headphones.

So what of Book of Shadows as a whole? Well, I enjoyed it — as much as it is possible to "enjoy" a Corpse Party game, anyway — and, as I noted the other day, I particularly appreciated its unconventional narrative structure. For those who didn't read that post the other day and are too lazy to click on that link, Book of Shadows essentially acts as a collection of "deleted scenes" and alternate endings to the original Corpse Party for the most part, with each chapter focusing on a different group of characters and either exploring "what if?" scenarios if things had gone differently in the original game, or acting as a means of expanding on and exploring the stories of a number of incidental characters who were either already dead by the time the first Corpse Party's story unfolded, or who showed up in the game's "Extra" chapters after you'd finished it.

One of the strengths of the original Corpse Party was how well-realised all of the characters were, and this continues in Book of Shadows, even in the chapters that explore characters other than the main cast of the first game. Each character is an interesting person to spend time with, and the fact the game is structured as more of a visual novel than the original game was means that there's a lot more in the way of narration from each chapter's protagonist than there was in the original. This lets you get inside the head of these characters to a much greater degree than previously, and this, coupled with the again fantastic Japanese voice acting, makes for an experience where you really get a strong sense of who these characters are, what they're like and how they're handling the horrific situation in which they find themselves. And, as I noted in my previous post, there's not usually a happy ending, since by the time the cast of the first Corpse Party arrive at Heavenly Host Elementary School, most of the people they come across are dead.

Once you've worked your way through all the main chapters of Book of Shadows, you unlock a hidden final chapter called Blood Drive. (If you've finished the game and haven't unlocked this, you either need save data from the original Corpse Party on your memory card or to see all of the Wrong Ends from all the previous chapters before it will unlock.)

Blood Drive is the "true" sequel to the original Corpse Party, following on directly from where the previous game left off. Unfortunately, the chapter Blood Drive is but a preview for the game Blood Drive, which is not yet even out in Japan, meaning that the game ends on one hell of a cliffhanger that won't be getting resolved in the immediate future. Still, the amount of "oh NO!" I felt as the credits rolled for the last time is testament to how engaging I found the game as a whole — I liked these characters, enjoyed spending time with them and felt bad for them when they suffered, and I really, really want to see how the story continues (or ends?) in Blood Drive.

Unfortunately, I'll be waiting a while yet. Still, it's not as if I'm short of other things to play right now — not least of which is Idea Factory's Sweet Fuse, which I've been looking forward to for a while.

Sachiko-san, onegaishimasu. Sachiko-san, onegaishimasu. Sachik– shit, how many times was I supposed to chant it again?

1326: Books with Shadows In Them

I have — I believe — two more chapters to go on Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, the sequel to one of my favourite PSP games, and, like its predecessor, one of the most emotionally engaging games I've ever played.

Book of Shadows is much more of a visual novel than its predecessor was — the RPG-style wandering around and pressing X on things is all gone now, to be replaced with either straight-up "read many, many pages of narration and dialogue" or, slightly less frequently, with some first-person perspective wandering and mild point and click adventuring.

The change in gameplay style isn't the most interesting thing about Book of Shadows, though; instead, it's the narrative structure. Rather than telling one continuous story like its predecessor, Book of Shadows is more of a spin-off than a true sequel — at least, as I understand it, anyway, until the final chapter — and instead chooses to spend its time telling self-contained stories that are either prequels to the events of Corpse Party, or "alternate universe" tales that answer a number of hypothetical "what if?" scenarios. For example, one scenario explores what would have happened if a character who died in the original Corpse Party had instead been rescued; another fleshes out one of the original game's "wrong ends" by showing you exactly what unpleasantness happened to a particular character; another still looks at the story of some incidental characters from one of Corpse Party's "extra" scenarios.

The fact that the game is being so experimental and exploratory in its various "short stories" is, in itself, interesting, but an even more intriguing thing about it is that the "correct" ending for each of the chapters is not necessarily a "good" one. Indeed, in many cases, all of the possible outcomes are filled with death, pain and suffering, but only one of them is the "correct" one that allows you to proceed to the next chapter. It's honestly surprising to see something really quite horrible happen to a particular character — even though I was expecting it, given the context — and for the game to then cheerfully announce that I had "cleared" that particular chapter.

This idea of a conclusion to a chapter not necessarily being a happy one is something the first game played with — the "true" ending to the first chapter of the original Corpse Party often has people reaching for the "reload" button the first time they see it — but Book of Shadows really runs with it. It's something that it's interesting to see games experimenting with, since most games still take the "happy ending" as the default, "best" or only option, and it's pretty rare to play something that genuinely ends on a downer. (Of course, I don't know how Book of Shadows as a whole concludes, but I have the distinct impression that at least one or more of the characters will probably not get out unscathed.) There are a few exceptions, of course — Conker's Bad Fur Day being one of the most surprising, best examples I can remember — but for the most part it's still quite rare to come across something deliberately designed to bum you out. (You have achieved a trophy: "Pass the Kleenex." Wait, that sounds wrong.)

Anyway, two more chapters and I can stop freaking myself out with this game — there's a deliciously uncomfortable, oppressive atmosphere about the whole game that makes it quite "hard work" to play, but it's enjoyable in that perverse sort of way good horror is. Next on the agenda, portable-wise, anyway, is Sweet Fuse, aka That Game Where You Play as Keiji Inafune's Niece.

1325: Focal Point

I'm sure any writer pals reading this can probably relate, judging from some things I've read recently: it is infinitely easier to focus on negative things than it is about positive ones. And those negative things absolutely dominate your thoughts, almost completely obliterating any good work the positive things might have done.

Let's take an example. Recently, I wrote a lengthy article about "otaku games" — that particularly misunderstood aspect of Japanese gaming where people who don't play them constantly judge them as being nothing more than pervy fanservice. To be fair to their opinion, there often is a fair amount of pervy fanservice in them, but it's pretty rare that is the sole or even the most important part of them. Check out the piece here.

On the whole, response to the post has been very positive. I've been very happy to hear from a lot of fans of Japanese gaming who thanked me for giving a reasoned, rational take on the subject — with input from people who are actually involved in bringing these titles to the West — and for treating both the games and their fans with respect. I've had people tell me it's a wonderful article, compliment me on covering something that other sites don't bother with (or take the more common "This is Bad and Wrong, LOL JAPAN" stance on) and generally express a very genuine-feeling sense of appreciation for something I worked hard on.

So what do I find my brain focusing on? The guy who tweeted at me saying "TLDR" (seriously, that is pretty much one of the most disrespectful things you can say to a writer, especially when they've worked hard on something — try giving some constructive criticism or, even better, actually engaging with the points made in the piece), and the commenter who complained about me "not talking about the game" in my Tales of Xillia review and lambasting me for promoting an "incest simulator" in an article about visual novels. (Said "incest simulator" was Kana Little Sister, an incredibly moving work which I've written about at length in a number of places on the Internet; to refer to it as an "incest simulator" in a distinctly Daily Mail/Jack Thompson-esque way shows an astonishing lack of understanding, my keen awareness of which was what inspired me to write the "otaku games" piece in the first place.)

I wish I didn't feel this way, but it made me feel somewhat better to read this piece over on Hookshot, Inc recently. Here's what was, for me, the most pertinent part:

"Reader feedback is, in many ways, wonderful. It pulls writers down from pedestals and/or ivory towers, and it democratises a whole medium. Every voice is heard, and charlatans are uprooted. A culture of reader-fear has, arguably, been fostered – but ultimately people raise their game, and those much-suspected dirty deals are (by my reckoning) far less likely to occur today than they were five years ago.

"The problem is that all this is incredibly unhealthy for writers with… what you might call an ‘amiably complex psychological disposition’. I’m one of these people (it’s hugely common in my field – and indeed any creative arena) and I couldn’t even count how many of my working days have been ruined by an angry person venting steam beneath a piece I’ve written. The black dog starts barking, and your creative mojo runs away.

"Sure, the trolls are generally a minority – but when your mind has been built to concentrate on negativity rather than happy, happy, joy, joy (and you work at home, on your own) then comments threads are a mental plague pit.

"As a writer – what can you do about this? Well, you can start making your review scores more conservative for a start. Oh, and you can definitely avoid rocking boats that contain angry devotees of certain platforms, genres and franchises. Oh, and how about excising all humour for fear of miscomprehension from angry dullards you’ll never meet?

"OMG HANG ON GUYS OUR COLLECTIVE INSECURITY JUST BROKE GAMES WRITING.

"So basically: say what you want to say, and suck it up. There’s no wrong opinions, only a lot of people who think you should be fired for having a right one."

I was simultaneously surprised, delighted and slightly depressed to read that. I wish it didn't have to be that way, and I wish it was possible to train oneself to be more like, say, Jim Sterling — someone whom I greatly admire for his no-nonsense attitude and at least outward appearance of having thick skin. (For all I know, Sterling might finish his day job and cry himself to sleep over the torrents of abuse he receives on a daily basis, and I wouldn't blame him if that were so — but I somehow doubt that's the case anyway.)

Ah well, as Will Porter writes in that excellent Hookshot piece — seriously, go read it if you have a few minutes — the only real thing we, as writers, can do is say what we want to say and suck it up somehow. If we start sanitising our own opinions, thoughts and even writing styles to appease the lowest common denominator in the comments threads, then the world of writing would be a boring one indeed.

1323: PAX Pox

Another Penny Arcade Expo (aka PAX) is coming to a close, and once again I find myself sorry I wasn't there — though perhaps not quite as sorry as I'd be if I wasn't working in the games press and would not therefore be obligated to, you know, write about stuff if I was actually there.

That said, attending an event like PAX as a professional is pretty exciting, too — though for different reasons to if you're going as a "civilian". I haven't covered a PAX as a professional since I've worked full-time in the biz, but I did attend a Gamescom for GamePro a couple of years back, and that was oddly thrilling. It was also completely exhausting due to the fact that I'd spend all day zipping between appointments and all night writing up the things I learned in said appointments, leaving approximately three hours for sleeping per night — no, I didn't do any socialising whatsoever, but you know me; that was, to be honest, absolutely fine by me.

Gamescom is a bit of a different setup to PAX, though — at least in my limited experience having attended one of each. While PAX is a sprawling consumer show that occupies convention halls, theatres and corridors, and at which you generally have to make some very tough decisions about whether to wait in line to see panels and/or concerts or actually brave the show floor, Gamescom has a very clear divide between the "consumer" bit and the "trade" bit.

The "consumer" part of the Gamescom I attended was even more chaotic than PAX. Several huge halls of the Kölnmesse were devoted to the event, and for some reason the organisers seemed to think that turning the lights down low would be a really good idea. The floor of all the exhibition halls was literally (yes, I mean literally) carpeted with discarded flyers and other rubbish, and it was noisy, crowded and difficult to get around.

Contrast with the "trade" part, which was over on the opposite side of the Kölnmesse, and was the complete opposite — in fact, much more what I expected from a games industry show, based on my extremely limited experience from attending ECTS once back in the '90s. A sense of calm; companies showing their products privately in booths, many of which had refreshments and comfortable chairs; a feeling of organisation rather than chaos. (Much more stereotypically German, to put it another way.) I vastly preferred the "trade" side of things, because it meant I got to see lots of cool stuff without having to fight my way through hordes of people who just wanted to stare at other people playing League of Legends on a big screen. This was largely because I had appointments to see specific people in the trade bit, whereas the consumer bit was pretty much a free-for-all.

That said, on balance I think I preferred my trip to PAX East to my professional engagement at Gamescom. At Gamescom I didn't feel like I was "at home" or "among friends", largely because I was just there to do a job and didn't really have time to enjoy anything. At PAX East, meanwhile, I was among friends — many of whom I was meeting in person for the first time after many years of communicating on the Internet — and I had a real sense of "belonging"; of being among people who understood the same things I was passionate about.

One day I'll make it back, and I'll make a point of making some time to hang out with cool people. Until that happens, though, I'll just have to gaze jealously from a distance at each PAX that comes and goes — and at my friends and colleagues who attend them.

1322: Online Gamers Aren't Always Jerks

People who play games online are always dickwads, right?

Wrong. For starters, if you've ever taken that attitude, it's entirely possible that you aren't a dickwad yourself and just simply find the prospect of coming face to face with a dickwad distasteful — and thus it stands to reason that there are probably other people out there like you. (You may also take that attitude because you're a dickwad yourself, and use it as an excuse to behave like a dickwad. If that is the case, I'd encourage you to take a good, long, hard look at yourself, and perhaps indulge in some self-flagellation until you see the error of your ways.)

Anyway, I have a specific story that happened today — one that filled me with a pleasant amount of hope. It was only a little event in the grand scheme of things, but it was one where I felt happy after it had transpired.

A little context, first: Final Fantasy XIV allows you to play cooperatively with other players in one of two ways: either forming a party with them manually, or by letting a mechanic called the Duty Finder match you up with people who are looking to complete the same challenges. The advantage of the former option is that you can get together with people you know, or at least people on the same server with whom you'll be able to communicate with afterwards. The advantage of the latter option is that it allows you to play with the entire player base of the game, rather than just the 5,000 (maximum concurrent players at the time of writing) present on your specific server. Both approaches have drawbacks, though: in the former case, it can often be difficult to find people who are available at the same time who want to do the same thing; in the latter case, you're usually paired up with complete strangers, with all the inherent risks that carries.

Earlier today, I took on one of Final Fantasy XIV's dungeons with a party of random people found through the Duty Finder. Things were going reasonably well to begin with — though I would have preferred that the tank mark targets to help mages like me know what order to set fire to things — but after a while I started to notice one of the players behaving a little strangely.

Her in-game name was "Amelia," and she was a black mage like me. She'd obviously run the dungeon before, as she was regularly charging ahead well before the rest of us had got our bearings — sometimes even causing enemies to start attacking before we were ready. Partway through the dungeon, I could see her continually running off in the opposite direction to us, only to come running back when the tank started the next combat. I could tell she was getting frustrated, but she wasn't saying anything for some reason. So, once the next combat had finished, I spoke up.

"Amelia," I typed. "If there's something you'd like to show us, please say something rather than just charging off by yourself. Thanks!"

I gritted my teeth and was prepared for a barrage of abuse. A lot of online players don't like being told how to play the game and get very defensive if someone criticises them. I was all set for "Amelia" to start yelling at me, or even to quit the party in a huff. It wouldn't be the first time I had seen something happen.

What happened next surprised me.

"Yeah," she replied. "I was just thinking that myself."

The rest of the party stopped — the tank hesitated before pulling in the next group of enemies — and I could feel virtual eyes on me.

"Communication helps," I typed. "Is there some treasure down there or something?" I asked, referring to her continual attempts to run off to the south.

"Yes," she replied quickly. "There's two chests down there."

"Okay," I typed. "Let's go get those before we go any further then."

After that, we followed Amelia's lead and, sure enough, found our way to some extra enemies and some treasure chests. I was sure to thank her for her help, and when it came to time to fight the boss at the end of the dungeon, she volunteered some helpful information that ensured we were able to take it down without too much difficulty.

Ultimately, a bit of communication helped rescue a party that was at serious risk of falling apart. I'm not-so-secretly quite proud of the fact that I was the one to initiate communication and help hold things together — and I was very pleasantly surprised to discover "Amelia" was receptive to the things I was saying, and apparently knew she wasn't handling things as well as she could have done.

So wherever you are now, "Amelia," thanks. And I hope we get the chance to play together again soon.

1318: Cooperative Collective

I probably don't need to tell you this by now, but Final Fantasy XIV is really great, predictable MMO launch issues aside.

One thing I've been very pleasantly surprised with is how well it handles group cooperative content. This is something that its predecessor, Final Fantasy XI, did not handle as well as it could — which was unfortunate, since progression in Final Fantasy XI was pretty much dependent on you being able to reliably get into a group of other players.

Final Fantasy XIV has a nifty system called the Duty Finder, which is essentially a cross-server matchmaking system that picks up players who are looking to play a specific part of the game, groups them together in an appropriately balanced party, then sends you on your way to do the thing you said you wanted to do. It's a good system, though you can sometimes be waiting for up to half an hour or more depending on what type of character you play.

If you're unfamiliar with the way massively multiplayer online RPGs tend to do things, there's a fairly standard setup for a productive, cooperative party to complete cooperative content, and that is this: at least one "tank", who is designed to take the brunt of the damage from enemies and protect the other party members; at least one healer, whose role is self-explanatory; and the rest of the slots taken up by damage dealers, whose role is also self-explanatory. In Final Fantasy XIV, you'll either be in a "Light Party," which is made up of four members (one tank, one healer, two damage dealers) or a "Full Party," which is, I believe, eight people — though I'm yet to encounter anything that requires that many people.

Early to mid-level content is based on playing in a Light Party which has a few benefits: firstly, it's easier to gather four people together than eight; secondly, it helps everyone in the party understand what their role is and see how they're contributing to the group effort. In larger parties, it can sometimes be difficult to understand exactly what you're actually doing. If you're one of just four people, each of whom has a clearly defined role, however, you can see the effect you're having.

The established party structure has one unfortunate side-effect, though, and that is the fact that it's easy to assume that completing challenges will be impossible if you don't have all the requisite members. This isn't always true, as my experiences this evening proved.

A group of us — three "Free Company" (guild) members and a random fourth person — had entered the dungeon Halatali using the Duty Finder. All was going reasonably well until I had an unfortunate crash, and it took me a few minutes to get back into the game. When I returned, the random fourth person had vanished, apparently having tried to get the rest of the party killed before leaving. Dick. The three of us fought our way through a few enemies while waiting for a fourth member to come and join up. When they eventually arrived, we were good to go.

Unfortunately, our tank had a connection problem towards the end of the dungeon, leaving me, the other damage dealer and the healer stranded wondering what to do next. Eventually, we decided to charge forwards anyway and see if we could survive the dungeon's main boss — and you know what? We did, thanks to some excellent teamwork, and everyone doing their job properly. Sure, we probably could have done it a bit easier if we actually had our tank with us, but it was a fun challenge to do it without someone drawing the boss monster's attention away from me flinging fiery death at all and sundry.

We all had a good laugh about it afterwards — particularly at the fact that we finally managed to get a new tank to join us just as we were whittling down the boss' last 15% of health. By the time he'd run through the dungeon and met up with us, the boss was lying defeated on the floor. Immensely satisfying — and very amusing.

Anyway. Yeah. FFXIV is great — even for someone like me who is normally quite uncomfortable playing with strangers. I'm having a blast. And when the servers calm down, you should totally give it a chance, too.