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Capcom needs your help tracking 'Street Fighter' sore losers
Street Fighter V might not feel entirely complete right now, but that's no reason to abandon good sportsmanship. Developer/publisher Capcom is aware of the problems the community is facing in terms of people rage-quitting when online matches that aren't going their way and it wants you to help. Over the weekend, if someone can't handle the Snake Eyez-level of heat you're bringing with Zangief and they disconnect, the gamemaker is urging you to use the PlayStation 4's "share" button to catch him or her in the act once the match has ended.
Ask Massively: Emergency soccer practice
Today's Ask Massively question comes to us from a reader named Chris, who has had it up to here with you quitters! Yes, you, guy who just AFKed out of Warsong Gulch! After playing my fifth consecutive round of SMITE with an AFK player, I am fed up. AFKer, quitters, or whatever you want to call them -- they suck. Why is it unreasonable to expect gamers to commit to finishing a simple (even possibly enjoyable) 30-minute activity? Why can't they stay in their seat and just freakin' click some buttons? Leaving doesn't cost the quitter anything, but it certainly sucks for the team you leave short-handed. If this were a little league baseball game, we wouldn't say, "It's just a game, so you go ahead and eat pizza with your buddies instead of playing with us." And why can't game companies find a way to make this problem go away? Reporting systems are just a small step away from absolutely useless! I know that real-world stuff happens. The doorbell rings, the power goes out, or the kids set the kitchen on fire. But AFK rates seem way too high for just that. Gamers seem to conveniently forget what it really means to finish what they started. And if you can't do it for a simple game, how in the hell will you do it when it is something truly hard? Unfortunately, I know this problem well. In my guild, we call it "emergency soccer practice," an actual reason someone once gave us for quitting a dungeon group.
Breakfast Topic: Where will your character rest for the last time?
Back in the era when playing an MMO was an all-or-nothing proposition, choosing a final logout location could be an emotionally overwrought event. Today, however, players drop in and out of games with regularity. We may skip patches or even expansions that don't particularly appeal to us. We may temporarily step out of Azeroth to focus on real-world goals. We may fall out of love with a character and pick up an alt, only to return months or even years down the line. Even so, I confess to remaining sentimental about where I log out before an extended (or final) absence. I can still tell you exactly where each of my EverQuest characters is camped out, and I've bookmarked a couple of YouTube videos that run past those areas so that I can occasionally recapture their spirit even without access to the game. I'm a little less attached to logout spots for my WoW characters simply because I use nearly all of them at one point or another for screenshots or in-game contacts for WoW Insider. After this many screenshots, they've ended up scattered across some fairly odd spots. Where will your main character log out for the very last time? Is it someplace you've grown comfortable with over the years? Somewhere representative of that character's adventures or character? A familiar spot behind the counter of a favorite vendor or banker? Or perhaps, like the screenshot above, somewhere holding a tinge of tragedy?
BioWare lead writer Drew Karpyshyn leaves BioWare
Beyond his brief stint in 2000 as a Jeopardy contestant, BioWare lead writer Drew Karpyshyn has spent the last 12 years of his life serving as a story lead on various BioWare franchises. From heading up writing on Jade Empire to creating the world of Mass Effect, Karpyshyn has shaped arguably the most important aspect of BioWare's legacy in the game industry -- its stories. And now, after finishing up work on his latest project, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Karpyshyn is taking his leave."I'm leaving to focus more time and energy on my novels and other non-video game related projects," Karpyshyn wrote in a blog post on his personal site. Though he won't say where he's going just yet (if anywhere), he promised continued work on an upcoming SWTOR companion novel (like his work on the Mass Effect books).To help assuage concerns about BioWare's writing post-Karpyshyn, he points out that, "The story and dialog in any BioWare game is the result of an entire team of writers working together, and I often felt I received an excessive amount of the credit for the games we created." He cites Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 as proof that "BioWare can get along just fine without me." And though he apologizes to those who will miss his work in the gaming world, he promises that he'll finally put the finishing on his own "original fantasy series," should you wish to keep up with his fantastical worlds.
Editorial: RIM's new CEO isn't the shakeup it needed
For a brief moment, I had hopes that RIM had made a move that would unseat it from the funk it's been sitting in for years. And then I watched the introductory video of newly-appointed CEO Thorsten Heins. Anyone who assumes that a simple CEO swap is the answer to all of RIM's issues is woefully misinformed, or worse, just blinded by false hope. Sure, removing Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis -- both of which have been rightly criticized for not responding to market pressures quickly enough -- is a start, but it's not like they're gone. In fact, the two are still situated at a pretty fancy table within Research in Motion's organizational chart. RIM, we've been here before RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry Dear RIM, I'm your customer and I don't wear a suitHave a listen at this: Mike is hanging around as the Vice Chair of RIM's Board and Chair of the Board's new Innovation Committee. You heard right -- the guy who has outrightly failed to innovate at anything in the past handful of years is now championing an innovation committee. Sounds right up his alley, no? Jim's staying put as an outright director, and if you think anyone at RIM is going to brush aside the input of the founders, you're wrong. Jim and Mike may have new titles, but they're still here, and I have no reason to believe that they'll act radically different going forward than they have in the past. Oh, and about Thorsten Heins? Let's go there.
RIM's Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are out, new CEO Thorsten Heins may license BlackBerry 10
After months upon months of investor backlash, RIM's making some significant changes. And by "significant," we mean the co-chief executives (and founders) are out. As of tomorrow, both Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will be stepping away from the top posts, enabling "a little-known company insider" to take over, according to The Wall Street Journal. Purportedly, this is all part of "a board and management shuffle," with COO Thorsten Heins (seen above) to step into what many expect to be an impossible role to thrive in. The Globe and Mail asserts that he'll be immediately seeking a Chief Marketing Officer to polish up the company's severely damaged brand, and he "will not rule out licensing RIM's new BlackBerry 10 operating system to other handset manufacturers." In an interview with the outlet, he stated that he'll be executing "flawlessly" and with vigor -- not unexpected, but still, bold words.Startlingly, Heins also asserted that he's "confident" in the existing lineup of BlackBerry handsets and the software update recently made available for the PlayBook; call us crazy, but he'd be wise to just spout out reality and make clear that RIM's existing lineup is nowhere near competitive in the grand scheme of things. As for Mike and Jim? The former will become "vice-chair of the board with special duties to examine innovation," with the latter becoming a traditional director. In an interesting move, outgoing co-CEO Lazaridis stated the following: "I think it's that unwillingness to sacrifice our long-term value for short-term gain. That's why we didn't choose Android. That's why we decided to build the future on QNX." So wait, RIM had the chance to choose Android... and didn't? No time like the present to reach back and shake things up, Mr. Heins.Update: Catch an introduction video to the new CEO just after the break!
The Road to Mordor: Out of game on party business
Here's an odd confession for a Lord of the Rings Online columnist to make: I haven't been playing the game much in the past month. I've been, for all intents and purposes, on a gaming sabbatical from Middle-earth. It's not as bad as it looks at first glance because I do this all the time with any MMO I play. I found out the hard way years ago that nonstop gaming in a singular dedicated title was a terrific recipe for spectacular, many-onlookers-injured flaming burnouts. No matter how good that pixelated pizza is, we've been told, if you have it for every meal, sooner or later it will taste like moldy routine in our mouth. And that's not good for anyone. The good news is that my sabbatical is at an end after only flitting into LotRO on occasion over the holidays, and I'm rested up and recharged for another great year of slaughtering wildlife in Tolkien's honor. Before I do that, however, I'd like to take this opportunity to share why I feel that it's OK to "go on sabbatical" from LotRO... and why it even benefits the game as a whole for its fans not to play once in a while.
Breakfast Topic: Gotta go!
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Sometimes real life gets in the way of playing WoW. I understand that it's healthy to have a life outside of WoW and I agree, but when you sit down to raid or run dailies, "real life" can have different plans for you. Either you have been in a group where some one just up and leaves or says "g2g" before exiting group. Maybe you have been that person. I've been healing when the tank who just pulled the first hall up to Sorrowgrave in heroic Utgarde Keep then /yell(ed), "On call -- sorry, I have to go." Needless to say, I dropped aggro and ran, then laughed with the hunter as the 'lock ran back, all while rezzing the rogue. I understand people have to go and wasn't that mad, but the 'lock and rogue were upset. You could tell, because their chat looked like @#$! and @#&. I don't read wingdings, but it got me thinking. I needed a macro to hit when I have to leave before I can finish a global cooldown. I can only think of three times in the last year I couldn't finish a pull before logging unexpectedly, but I prepared two macros to entertain those who I unfortunately leave in a bind. Combined, they read as: /s By the time you read this I have already disconnected. I have some emergency I have to attend to and could only afford four key strokes. It's probably has to do with my children, pets, and or fire. At the very least it could be the rapture and I am sorry you are still around to read this. Elune be with you or other race appropriate farewell. Do you have a dropping-group macro? Have you had to leave group unexpectedly? Why? Have you ever wanted to write for WoW.com? Your chance may be right around the corner. Watch for our next call for submissions for articles via Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. The next byline you see here may be yours!
The Daily Grind: How many deaths before you call it?
The first time, okay, it happens. The second time is a bit worse, but again, these things happen to the best of us. Then comes the third death, and the fourth, and you start to wonder if you're actually playing the game or participating in some sort of bizarre computer-controlled death match where the server just wants you to go down in flames time and again. And almost everyone, in the right circumstances, will decide that it's one death too many and leave for greener pastures. In the case of games with a harsh enough death penalty such as EVE Online, even the threat of death can deter people. We all have guidelines we use for determining when something is a lost cause, be it a group activity with friends or just a quest that doesn't want to play nice. What are yours? Do you have a set number of deaths, or something more game-specific such as losing a certain fraction of experience in Final Fantasy XI? If you're in a group, do you talk about it when you join, do you just quit when the limit is reached, or do you warn people and make excuses?
The Daily Grind: Do you vote with your wallet?
There are certain changes, usually big ones, that don't exactly produce... positive reactions. In fact, they generally produce screaming rants and huge doses of rage at how they were handled and implemented. You know the sorts we're talking about. Star Wars Galaxies and the Combat Upgrade. Ultima Online and Trammel. Final Fantasy XI and the nerfs to Beastmaster "catch and release" tactics. All loathed changes, many of which led to an exodus of players. Really, leaving a game can be the best way to express displeasure with a change. It's the surest way to send a company the message that they've done something that will no longer justify your monthly subscription. On the flip side, your individual impact is small, you once loved the game... a lot of players will choose to rough it out, in hopes that things will improve or with the knowledge that the changes can't be all that bad. And for games where you have a lifetime subscription or are experiencing it free-to-play, your absence isn't really a deterrent at all. So, do you vote with your wallet? When you're fed up with what's been done, do you head off for greener pastures? Or are you of the mind that it's not even worth the bother, that they might well not even tie your departure to the change, even if you say so?
MMO Family: When enough is enough
MMO Family is your resource for leveling a gaming-specced family ... From tips on balancing gaming with family life to finding age-appropriate niches for every family member, MMO Family offers you advice on MMO gaming of the family, by the family and for the family. Whether yours is the kind of family with "screen time" limits or the type that takes a more laissez-faire approach to logging in, there comes a point when enough is enough. Plenty of pixels and ink have been devoted to the debate over whether or not internet and gaming overuse should be considered an "addiction." What we're here to discuss is how gaming affects your family. As parents who game, we should be in a unique position to appreciate, respect and guide our children's attraction to games. But sometimes in the crush of day-to-day living, it's easy to let those last few minutes slip into half an hour ... past an hour ... into the evening ... into a habit that's begun eating away at family balance. To help parents recognize when their children's gaming may have passed what's reasonable and productive for them as individuals, we touched base with psychiatrist Dr. Kourosh Dini (author of Video Game Play and Addiction: A Guide for Parents and himself a gamer). Statistics on gaming use, he explains, show that most gamers manage to balance gaming with their daily lives without negative consequences. "In fact ... sometimes what one can gain from a game is quite profound," he observes. "The person's mind and the video games together set the stage – either for benefit or for detriment." A gaming schedule that suffocates one child's motivation and energy might buoy another through social problems at school. Our mission: to keep the mix healthy, productive and fun.
Arthur Levinson departs Google board amid FTC probe
We kind of doubt the departure of Genentech's former chief executive from Google's board of directors will close all of this out in the FTC's eyes, but if you were curious about the impact of said probe, here's your answer. Just two months after Google's Eric Schmidt peaced out from Apple's board due to a "conflict of interest," Arthur Levinson has left Google's board for presumably the same reason. Schmidt is still obviously fond of Sir Levinson, noting that he has "has been a key part of Google's success these past five years," and while he's exiting the board, he'll "always have a special place at Google." So, now that all of this is cleared up, can we finally move on without worrying that the aforementioned search giant will buy up the world's remaining inventory of dark fiber, fuse into Apple and create a telepathic iPod that would rule the world until the dawn of the Robot Apocalypse?[Via New York Times]
"Because I don't play" isn't an option on Blizzard's quit page
Jason Burns points out, pretty insightfully, on his blog that of all the various options Blizzard lists for quitting the game, simply not having the time to play it isn't one of them. Whenever you decide to cancel your subscription, you get a little survey to fill out, with two lists of options to explain why you're leaving the game. In the past, we've found some pretty silly options in there (and actually, it looks like they've changed quite a bit since we posted about the Will of the Forsaken nerf on the list), but Jason says that as many varied and different reasons as there are for leaving, Blizzard didn't include his: he likes the game, he just doesn't have the time to play it and justify the subscription. Which is what he eventually typed in. Like so many things with Blizzard, it would be fascinating to see the stats behind the information they're getting here -- do they see a little bump in quitters every time new patch notes come out? Is customer support really the biggest issue people have, or is harassment a major reason for people leaving as well? Just boredom with the game seems like it would be a huge reason to me, but there's not really a clear option for that either. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know the real stats behind this -- Blizzard isn't going to be revealing why people are leaving their game anytime soon. But it does seem strange that some of the biggest reasons you'd expect aren't on their list of possibles at all.
WoW Rookie: Oops GTG TTYL bye
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic."Oops GTG TTYL bye" – heard that one before, in the middle of an instance? You don't want to be that guy.Today's World of Warcraft is a far cry from Tomb Raider or Lego Indiana Jones, which can leave you writhing in your chair for what seems like an eternity before your next save point. For an MMO, WoW's gameplay has become reasonably bite-sized – so don't get caught virtually chewing with your mouth open by dropping out of groups early.True, many instances can be completed so quickly and many players are so experienced that dashing through a quick instance can seem almost trivial. But a group is a social creature, and accepting a group invitation means accepting a reasonable responsibility to treat the other players' time with respect.
Dean Kamen wrestles with decision: should he quit the Segway?
It's something that any hard-nosed entrepreneur likely deals with when their invention / startup is on the edge of fail: should they simply throw in the towel, or forge ahead like no one's looking? The father of the Segway, Dean Kamen, is also wrestling with that question. In a recent interview, he stated: "You end up lying there saying, 'I'm not stopping. It would be an act of shallow cowardice. Or you decide to quit and you say, 'This is one of those ideas that just isn't going to work.' " He also noted that "it's not nearly as glamorous as people think to keep working on something and to keep hitting roadblocks and to keep going." On one hand, we could definitely see the rug being pulled from the two-wheeled transporter that never revolutionized public movement, but considering all the days in which it has lifted our spirits, do we really want it to?[Image courtesy of SimplyMoving]
Joystiq Interview: How to quit games for a year
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/How_to_Quit_Video_Games_for_a_Year/'; Though he may not necessarily be a "hero" in the traditional sense of the word, Matthew Shafeek is something of a folk legend in the Joystiq offices. Against all logic, Shafeek decided to mark his 29th year of life with the complete abandonment of his favorite hobby, video games. He's getting close to the 365-day finish line, and in the interim he's managed to read more, learn some recipes, travel, run a half-marathon and catalog all his progress on his blog Paused. We recently caught up with Shafeek via an email exchange to find out why he quit, when he's going back and from where he draws his staggering, iron resolve.
The Daily Grind: Do you ever just think about quitting?
There's been a bit of talk about quitting MMOs these past days, including an interview discussing the fact that when many Age of Conan players quit, they didn't return to World of Warcraft or any other game -- that was it. They were done. No more MMOs.If you're satisfied with MMOs as they are, of course feel free to chime in as always, but today's Daily Grind is a special one -- we want to give a shout out to the folks who just don't think this genre is living up to its potential. Maybe you played older games and don't like current, post-EverQuest trends. Maybe you didn't play older games, but you have some idea in your head about how things could be done differently in the future. In either case, you're disenchanted -- so do you ever think about just quitting? Have you already quit? And what would it take to prevent you from leaving, or to get you back if you've already gone?
That's it, I'm quitting MMOs forever!
MMO burnout is an interesting creature. Rarely do people who quit MMOs do it quietly; it's usually crowned by a forum or blog post addressing the fact that this person has now "found a life" and are going outside more. In the process of burning bridges, these posts usually make two distinctively recycled points: All MMO players are overweight, and they never leave the house.Such is a recent post at MMOCrunch regarding a player who has quit MMOs forever. Burnout is certainly understandable, especially in today's oversaturated market, but it's the method of the quitting that's always interesting to us. What does this say about MMOs and their impact on us, as players? Do people quit scrapbooking by burning their fancy paper and glue-on letters?
Forum post of the day: Rogues are unhappy
The patch went live today, and Blizzard wasn't kidding about the Cheat Death Nerf. In case you missed it, here's how it reads: Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue's health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes. Needless to say, Rogues are pretty unhappy, especially since Blizzard hasn't taken much interest in fixing the "vanish bug." Skudo of Altar of Storms takes this as proof that Blizzard hates Rogues. On top of that this must mean that Blizzard favors Druids since they rescinded their decision to make Scare Beast an instant ability.
MMO MMOnkey: Why I stopped playing Age of Conan
I like Age of Conan. I like the combat system that demands active engagement rather than the auto-attack, go-make-a-cup-of-coffee style of combat used in so many other MMOs. I enjoy exploring Funcom's recreation of Hyboria with its lush graphics and infinitely varied and "realistic" topography. I find the early game's seamless integration of an instanced nighttime story with a shared daytime world both innovative and engaging. I think the design team did a fine job capturing the spirit of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories in both the look and feel of the game. Funcom got a lot of things right. As everyone playing AoC knows, Funcom also got a lot of things wrong. Announced features like DirectX 10 support aren't in the game, many of the features that are in the game aren't working properly, technical issues cause frequent crashes for some players, in-game and tech support are apparently dreadful, bugs abound. Although Lord of the Rings Online showed us that an MMO launch doesn't have to be terrible, most of them are. I expected AoC to have these kinds of problems at launch and wasn't upset by them. With the disaster that was the Anarchy Online launch looking over their shoulders I also expected Funcom to work hard to eliminate AoC's launch problems and all indications are that's exactly what they're trying to do. But yet I've stopped playing the game and I think game developers would be interested in knowing why.
