Zomblobs! Keeping Track

One of the cardinal… guidelines… of game design is the K.I.S.S. mandate: Keep It Simple, Stupid.  Designers (and I count myself in this group, though I’m just an indie, and an artist by day) have a tendency to want to make intricate systems with many moving parts.  Part of the beauty of a good game is how well design elements mesh and make something more than the sum of their parts.  Tangentially, this is why emergent gameplay is so fascinating, but that’s an article for another time.  This tendency is an asset and a liability.

Like a precision watchmaker, I find joy in making initially disparate parts work together to make a great game, and like that watchmaker, sometimes most of my work will never be seen.  It’s like working in special effects in a movie; if you’re doing your job right as the FX guy, nobody knows because the effects are seamless.  (I almost went into movies; that is what my degree was geared for, Pixar-style, but I refuse to work in California.)  Like a good watch, a good game should present a simple function to its end user, and do an excellent job with this primary function.  Maybe there are bells and whistles under the hood that are there for further tinkering, maybe the function takes a lot of work behind the face, but in the end, a watch tells time.

A game provides… what?  A good play experience at the very least, hopefully with more depth as players dig into the strategies and implications of the design.  This exploration should come naturally, though.  Dropping an encyclopedia on a new player might be fine in some niches, but generally, the old Othello tagline “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master” is a pretty good rule of thumb.

Of course, each game will be different, and will appeal to different players, so this is more about culling extraneous design elements than it is about establishing a baseline for all games.  If a particular game design element just isn’t giving a lot of benefit for its cost, maybe it needs to be cut.

A couple of days ago, I posted a unit card for my Zomblobs! game.  This is a game that is meant to be a tabletop wargame, in the vein of BattleTech or WarMachine… just with blobs and some other quirks.  Here’s the card again for reference (and remember, it’s effectively boiling a whole page of data into a single card):

Zomblob Card Murmurer

As Andrew and Yeebo noted last time, it’s a busy little beastie.

There are three major mechanics in play here that drive the game engine:  Time, taken largely from my Tick Talk Time article; Heat, inspired in equal parts by BattleTech and Hordes and a simplification of what I wrote about in my Losing Control article, and the D6 Combat (no fancy single word keyword for this yet) based largely on the World of Warcraft Miniatures tabletop tactical game.  There’s nothing revolutionary here, like 4D space or psychometric controls, but that’s not really what I’m aiming for anyway.  This is a part of a bigger whole, ultimately, but it needs to function as a tabletop game as well.  Consequently, I’m dancing around a few self-imposed design constraints.

One, I want it to be easy to pick up, both for new players and veterans of Warhammer and the like.  Two, I want it to be a relatively small scale game, where every unit is important (think Final Fantasy Tactics rather than Warhammer).  Three, I want to explore the tactical implications of time.

It’s that third one that I hung a lot of hopes on.  Zomblobs! Tabletop isn’t a game where players take turns moving their whole army, like Warhammer or WarMachine.  It’s more like the WoW Minis game, where units move according to their own personal clock, and turns can wind up interwoven like the queue in Final Fantasy X.  (Again, I wrote more about this in the Tick Talk Time article.)

This, of necessity, means each unit needs a way to track their time.  Officially, these are the rules for Time (though I may rework the text for clarity as time goes on, this is the core of the design):

Every Action in the game costs Time.  Time is listed in the Costs section of each Action.

When an Action is used, the unit gains Time Points as noted in the Action Cost.  A unit can never have more than 6 Time Points.

Each unit will need to track its current Time.  A D6 die will work well for this.

A unit can only take its turn to move or use Actions if it has no Time Points.

If all units have Time Points, remove one Time Point from all units.  After this, any units that now have no Time Points may take their turn as normal, acting in Initiative order (highest initiative goes first, roll for ties), choosing to move and/or Act.

A unit’s turn incurs at least a single Time Point cost no matter what, even if they do nothing but pass their turn.

This should do what I want it to do, with teams interweaving their turns, units acting when they are ready instead of waiting for their laggard teammates.  This is also a mechanical theme; Feral units are fastest and will be able to act more frequently and move farther, while the Zomblobs are slow, plodding, powerful beasts, and the Aspirants are somewhere in between.  It might be a lot to think about and track, though.

…wandering off on a brief tangent again, Mark Rosewater has written a few times about tracking information in the Magic the Gathering game (though my Google-fu is weak today and I can’t find said articles, sadly).  The game has this Frankenstein’s Monster card with a weird mishmash of counters to show its state.  In recent years, they have tried to make counters only be +1/+1 or -1/-1, with a few exceptions like time counters.  This streamlined the game and made it easier to understand just what those little counters on the cards meant.  In effect, it means that the players have to track and parse fewer things to understand the game state.  The game has been “dumbed down”, perhaps, but it made it easier to play while still maintaining the bulk of the complexity and tactical depth that comes with those unit modification counters.

…back to the Time mechanic of Zomblobs, then, it’s one more thing to track in the game.  This, on top of Health (Hit Points, really, as Yeebo wrote eloquently about) and Heat (both of which will have a 12-unit span, making them trackable with a D12 like Time Points can be trackable with a D6).  Now, tracking three things per unit isn’t terrible when compared to some tabletop games, but it does mean fiddling around with pen and paper or dice.  I’m not inherently opposed to this, it’s expected in this sort of game, but I am keenly aware of the potential pain involved in tracking too much.  It seems like tracking Time isn’t quite as essential to the unit as Health or Heat (it’s not even part of the unit card), but at the same time, it’s pretty central to what I’m doing with the game’s combat tactics and pacing.  Time and Heat are both costs for each unit’s action, and they are fundamental to how units interact.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that the time system will be too much to handle for players who just want to take turns.  I think in the balance, the Time system adds enough tactical depth that it’s worth the cost of tracking it.  Maybe I’m wrong, but hopefully playtesting will give me a better idea of how well it’s received.

I hope to have a set of PDF files available here in a couple of weeks or so for printing by beta testers.  I’d greatly appreciate any help in testing this, especially by those of you who do have experience with other tabletop wargames.  I’ll make a big post on that when it’s ready, but I figured I’d mention it now.  In the meantime, does this make sense?  Any thoughts?

Thanks for the input!

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Zomblobs! Losing Control

As noted before, Zomblobs! has three breeds of blobs vying over global control:  The Aspirants, the Ferals and the Zomblobs.  One of the high level design rules I’ve made for myself is that I want each breed to play differently, but still be as balanced as possible.  Call it the StarCraft influence, perhaps.  Balance between three factions is inherently more interesting to me than two faction balance.  As such, one of the big things I want to change between the factions is the finer details of controlling units in tactical combat.

Some time ago, I purchased the Privateer Press Hordes: Primal book so that I could learn about the game.  I have a passing interest in tabletop miniature wargaming, and I really like what I’ve seen of WarMachine, so when I found a great deal on the Hordes sourcebook, it seemed like a good purchase.  It’s actually an older version, but that’s fine.  All my WarHammer and WarMachine books are older versions, too; that’s how I get ’em cheap.  Since I’m not on the cutting edge, itching to play in tournaments, older sourcebooks work just fine.  (Aside to Hordes fans… if I mangle some of this, it’s inadvertently.  I’m still digging into the system.  I welcome corrections.)

Hordes has a curious mechanic they call Fury.  Commander/spellcaster units they call Warlocks command a group of Warbeasts who can in turn generate Fury points as they are prodded into combat actions.  The Warlocks then can leach those Fury points from the Warbeasts, using them to fuel spells and special actions.  At first blush, this is all upside, which is a bit odd considering that WarMachine, the sister game, is one of resource management like the typical mana point system we see in RPGs.  Fury-generating actions are useful in combat, and spells the Warlocks cast are similarly useful.  Generation and use of fury points provide combat benefits.  So where’s the resource management?  Warlocks and Warbeasts have Fury limits, true, so there’s an upper limit to what can be done in any given turn, but an upper limit is a different thing from a pool that depletes.  It’s also important to note that Warlocks don’t generate Fury on their own.

The significant catch is that Warbeasts can “frenzy” if they fail to pass a “check” performed with a dice roll.  Warbeasts who have Fury points on them are more likely to fail this check; the more Fury points, the more likely they are to fail.  When a Warbeast “frenzies”, the Warlock (and therefore the player) loses control of the Warbeast.  They will tend to still try to attack enemies, but they do so in a blind fury.  They can even turn on allies or even their “controlling” Warlock.  As such, as the designers note, Hordes is a game of risk management rather than resource management, though there is still resource management on the battle level, as usual (losing units makes your team less effective, losing your Warlock means you lose the battle).  Warlocks need Fury to fuel their powerful abilities, but pushing their Warbeasts too far flirts with losing control of their most significant assets.  You will want those powerful abilities that come only with the use of Fury, but the more you use them, the more likely the Warbeast frenzy system is to blow up in your face.

So… what of Zomblobs?

Thematically, I really like the notion of losing control.

Aspirants are the most intelligent of blobs, and strive to always be in control.  They know that they could slip into the natural, instinctive mayhem the Feral blobs embrace if they lose control, and they aren’t sure they can get back… or if they would want to.  And Zomblobs, well… zombies have long represented the loss of control that most humans fear, a primal, deep rooted concern, as the loss of control wouldn’t be a surrender, but a corruption.  Aspirants are deathly afraid of losing control, either to become a Feral blob or a Zomblob.  They fight not because they want to rule, but because they do not want to be ruled… or corrupted.  They know passion, they know fear, but they do not lose control.  (Think Spock, not Data, and Trekkies know the trouble an uncontrolled Vulcan can get into.)

Feral blobs love being reckless and dancing on the edge of being out of control.  They draw strength from that savage adrenaline rush.  They don’t want to buckle down and bow to the sort of control an Aspirant cherishes.  They glory in acting, not thinking, the faster the better.  They love the hunt, and they cherish the kill.  Life is simple for a Feral blob, though they don’t follow directions well, especially once they get rolling.

Zomblobs are corrupted monsters, some were once Ferals, most were once Aspirants.  They no longer have full control of their faculties, though they are stronger in some ways for it.  They don’t follow detailed orders well, but their single-minded drive to consume and corrupt means they are utterly implacable and totally committed to their course of action.  Nothing short of complete defeat will keep a Zomblob from its destination, though they can occasionally be confused once they accomplish their orders.

Mechanically, I’m torn on this.  I believe that players tend to like to keep the reins and control their units.  Hordes does show that some fun can occur when that control is loosened a bit, and the WarHammer Greenskin army of Ork and Goblin fame thrives on a bit of chaos.  It still seems like an acquired taste, though, and I’m not sure how many players want to trade power for a more unwieldy toolset.

I’m thinking of two major design approaches to this.

On the one hand, I’d play it safe and go with a Fury-like system, where each unit has a threshold where they lose control and do their own thing in combat (though just for a turn in all cases; control can be reasserted pretty quickly once the fury is expended).    Ferals would have less control than Aspirants, and Zomblobs would be even less controlled.  The “frenzy” equivalent would balance this loss of control out, and indeed, it can be a calculated risk to intentionally drive units to go crazy.  I like the choices that might prompt.

On the other hand, I’d really like to make playing each breed a distinct experience, really embracing the flavor of the factions.  Aspirants would play like normal ‘Tactics games, with full control.  Feral units would pick a target at the beginning of a skirmish and begin hunting.  Players could nudge them with interim commands, but for the most part, Feral blobs would just go for the kill and then wait for new targets.  Zomblobs would just be given a direction and/or a location, then be left pretty much alone.  Players wouldn’t have much control at all.  It’s almost like the difference between commanding a group of snipers, a nest of rabid trench fighters, or a wind-up flamethrower automaton with C4 nailed to the tanks.

Now, in all this, players can play any of the three blob breeds, so they can always find one that fits their taste, and they would probably still have full control over the RNA layout, so they can prepare loose cannons before a fight.  Still, I’m not sure that diverging too much between playstyles, as I’m thinking of in the latter option, is a good idea.  I really want to make it work, and I think it could be a lot of fun, but how many players will bother with the Ferals or the Zomblobs then?  Might the game be poorer when players don’t like two thirds of the potential units?

Any thoughts?

…perhaps it’s telling that I’m leaning to the latter design, with elements of the first, though it could be more risky.  It seems like it could be more fun.

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Bookkeeping or Basewatching?

I’ve been designing some miniatures I can get the Shapeways guys to print out eventually, ultimately for use in a pair of games I’m working on.  One is a six player (or three or two) elemental sort of chess, so I just need models, but the other is sort of a fantasy/BattleTech mashup, a tabletop tactical miniatures game almost in the vein of WarMachine.

I’m running into a design question, though that I’d like some input on.  I’m trying to find a good way to keep track of information for the combat units.  For those of you with experience with or interest in mini games like this, how do you like to keep track of unit status?  This might include things like hit points, status afflictions (morale, poisons, buff and debuffs, auras, that sort of thing), weapon loadout, special moves, or any of a number of other variables.

I’ve seen games like HeroClix and the World of Warcraft minis game try to encode at least some of this data on a rotating base under the figure.  This has always seemed like a gimmick to me, but it does reduce the number of things you have to keep track of on paper off the combat arena.  The models seem a bit flimsier for the mechanical base, though, so it’s definitely a tradeoff in terms of usability.  They also seem a bit more… “gamey” than the games that just use minis on bases that might have a more simulationist feel.

Other games like WarMachine and BattleTech offload the bookkeeping to papers.  This isn’t as easy to tell the status of things at a glance, but it does allow for much more detailed information and thus, potentially more game design elements and clearer design.

Warhammer does a little of both, in a way, letting unit count in a block of infantry be a visible tally of a combat group’s strength, but it also has a lot of data offloaded onto paper, especially for hero units and special gear or magical effects.

One of the strengths of the Magic: The Gathering card game is that they have tried to reduce the bookkeeping and memory issues over the years.  Once upon a time you might have to keep track of multiple different upkeeps, special effects and what different counters represented (is that a +0/+2, +1/+1 or +2/+0 counter?).  These days, they have tried to distill these issues and have the “board state” give as much information as possible.  It’s nice to have a lot of data out there in the gamespace rather than offloaded to paper, but some things just don’t code well in a small amount of space.  Reducing the number of things players have to remember also helps speed up the game and make it easier to learn, as well as easier to play.

…

My question then is about that data encoded in the figure bases, whether it’s HP, action arcs, facing, whatever.  Is that method actually helpful in real gameplay?  (This includes noting that it’s more of a hassle if you’re always picking up the models and twiddling with their bases, and on a non-grid gamespace, that’s kind of annoying.)  Is it better to have all bookkeeping off-model?

Which do you prefer playing with and why?  I have my opinions, but I also have relatively little experience with miniature tactical gaming.  I’d like to get a bit more information if possible.  Tangentially, how much bookkeeping is too much?

Thank you in advance!

(Perhaps this could be generously noted as a bit of game UI design.  Playability is a big component of whether a game sticks or not.)

…

Oh, and bonus question while we’re talking mini design.  Painted or nonpainted?  Shapeways can print in full color now, and it’s even cheaper than nonpainted models.  Painted models are more brittle, though, and don’t have as much detail, so again, it’s all about the tradeoffs.

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Why I Don’t Play Warhammer

The tabletop version of Warhammer, that is.  It’s the same reason I don’t play WarMachine.

Have you seen those models?  Or this sort of thing?  Or the multiple rule books?  (At least WarMachine is all in one book…)  Or what some players do with the models?

That’s just… way too expensive and getting everything ready is way too time consuming.  That said, I could, of course, drop all of my other gaming and goofing off, choosing instead to focus on one of these.  That might work.  Of course, it could be hard to find someone to play against, but I could drive for a while to a game shop and make do.  (I still think there’s money to be made doing an online version of the “real” Warhammer, like MTG Online… but way better.)

Still, the real, deep down reason I don’t play?  I’d want to make my own miniatures and terrain, all the way from sculpting to painting… and probably devise my own rules… especially if I were to really dig into the Steampunky WarMachine. I’m an artist; it’s an occupational hazard.  I’d get so lost in the game and doing it my way that I’d not have time to do the other things I want to.  Like sleep.  Though, if I could make a living at it, say, by selling my miniatures through these guys, it might be a viable option…

…so yeah, they look like pretty awesome games, from what research I’ve done.  I’d probably get sucked into them like I almost got sucked into BattleTech years ago.  I’m happy the games exist, I just… don’t have enough time in this life to do everything.  Alas.

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Happy Birthday To Me

Warhammer Online now has a “perpetual” free trial.  It joins the ranks of Wizard 101, Free Realms (which is now almost just like WAR, albeit having arrived from a different direction), Guild Wars, DDO and Puzzle Pirates in the short list of games that I think are starting to understand the market.  Of course, Guild Wars is still the frontrunner in the business model department, and Puzzle Pirates will likely remain the one I play most (it’s just so durn schedule friendly!), but this change by the WAR crew is exactly the tipping point that has me itching to download the game.

If it turns out well, I might even give them some money, like I did for W101 and Puzzle Pirates.  In the immortal words of Daniel James of Puzzle Pirates fame:

Money can’t buy you love, but love can bring you money. In software the only sustainable way to earn money is by first creating love, and then hoping that some folks want to demonstrate that love with their dollars.

I want to like WAR. I’ve been digging into the tabletop game, and it’s fascinating.  While there are some considerable differences, WAR looks interesting enough to take a look, and Public Quests look interesting as a mechanic.  They have offered me (and many others) a gift by changing their business model this way.  Time will tell if I love them enough to demonstrate it with dollars.  The chance of that went up from 0% to at least 33%, and that has to count for something.  Even marketers understand that math.

Of course, dearest Turbine and Blizzard, if either of you wanted to up the ante by offering me a lifetime sub to LOTRO or WoW for my birthday, I’d not turn you down.  I’d even promise to take lots of pretty screenshots and write about what you are doing right in your games.  (The records show that I’ve done plenty of complaining, so I can afford to balance it out.)

It is my birthday, after all, and turning up my nose at gifts would just be… improper.

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Disclosure:  I know, I know, some would say that WAR is dying and should be taken out back and dumped on the Tabula Rasa heap.  Some might suggest I give money to someone more deserving.  There are definitely (largish) grains of truth in those opinions.

WAR will never be my “main” MMO.  Still, this is a Good Move for the business of MMOs, and hopefully a good one for WAR, and I want to let these people know that I approve.  If they don’t read my blog (slackers!), maybe I can send them a birthday card with a nice $10 bill or something.  Since, y’know, we’re supposed to vote with our wallet.

And, well… I’ve spent my fair share of money buying games that aren’t the biggest boys on the block, and that aren’t the greatest examples of game design.  Yet… they are fun enough to warrant an expenditure on my part as a reward for a job well done.  Call it my way of paying the tab after a decent, middle class night out to eat.  It’s not The Ritz, but it’s not Carl’s Jr.  I’m totally happy paying game devs for their work, I just want to do it on my terms.  That will never be paying for a subscription.

Heck, I even gave Braid $5.  If I can do that, I can lob some dollar love at the WAR guys.  Well, that is if their gift really is a fun bit of work, not something I’m going to send along as a White Elephant to someone else in a week…  and $10 is half of Torchlight or Machinarium…

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Cutting the Umbilical

Our home access to the internet died a while ago, and once the company fixed it, it died again a short while later.  We wound up with no internet access for about 3 weeks total.  (Of course we’re not getting our money back for that time, even though the errors were entirely the company’s fault.  Go, go subscription service business model!)  At first, it was an annoyance, but it did coincide with my dwindling interest in MMOs, so we really only lost out on email access and bloggish stuff.  More than once, my wife noted that she wasn’t as bothered by the loss as she thought she would be, and that she actually kind of liked it.  (Facebook detox can be rough, but it’s worth it.)  I concurred.

During this time, I dived into some offline games I’ve been meaning to pick up, namely Final Fantasy 12, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and Disgaea.  I have thoroughly enjoyed them, and I’m more annoyed than ever that I have to check in via internet to play some games that I own.  (Even my beloved Guild Wars could and should have an offline mode.)

Specifically, when my daughter wanted to play World of Goo and Audiosurf (her favorites), she couldn’t, because I got them via Steam, and while we were offline, Steam wouldn’t cooperate.  Yes, there’s an offline mode for Steam, but we happened to be behind the curve on updating the client (thanks to being offline), so it refused to start up, even in offline mode, because it wanted to be updated first.  This was deeply annoying, and I’ve made it a practice to leave Steam in offline mode as a result.  As it happens, even that doesn’t help, though, since *any* connection to the internet lets Steam do a little backdoor checking (even in offline mode), and if it needs an update to the client, it refuses to work until you restart it in online mode and update it.

This ticks me off.

A lot.

And honestly, how fantastic is that deal when I’ve got to pony up almost $50/month for internet access just so I can play a game that functions perfectly without the internet?  I just have to verify that I’m a legitimate customer and get permission to play.  …for a game that I paid for.  That doesn’t need the frikkin’ internet.  Seriously, this isn’t exactly DRM, but it’s pissing me off almost as much.  I’m no pirate, but I sympathize emotionally with those looking for CD hacks or private self-hosted in-house WoW server tech.

Good Old Games does it right.  No DRM, no hassle, no checking in, old games reworked to function on new machines “out of the box”.  Valve might make impressive games, but Steam stinks.

Back to MMOs, though, I’ve argued strenuously against the subscription model before, and will probably do so again, because it doesn’t offer me good value.  I don’t doubt that it’s good for some people, but it’s not good enough for me.  There isn’t enough “value added” to these MMO things to make it worth the aggravation and costs, and that’s just to actually play the blasted things.  Never mind all the idiots that are online that make gaming a pain oft times anyway (LFG IQ>72, PST).  Or the weak storytelling and stupid treadmill design.  Or the atrocious time sinks that they have to be to keep people paying for underwhelming design so that they can pay back the investor sharks who thought they could get in on the next WoW cash cow.

So yes, I’m happy to be gaming offline again.  I’ve discovered an interest in tabletop Warhammer and Battletech (though it’s stupidly expensive for those dumb little plastic miniatures and paints so I’m not buying in, I’m digging into the rulebooks and finding all sorts of interesting game design… I’ll make my own minis if it comes to that, thanks).  I’m working on my own games more (and the illustrations for my mother’s book).  I’m having more fun with my family.  And when I do play video games, I play on the DS more often than not, and the liberating freedom of being away from the internet permission overlords (and the desk!) is refreshing.  It helps that the DS has a lot of good tactical RPG games.  Disgaea is the latest one I’ve been playing, and there are a lot of good ideas in that game.

So when I see something like this, complaining that StarCraft 2 will not have LAN play and is toying with DRM, I shake my head, and go dig up some of my Good Old Games (OK, mostly in boxes on CD, but some from GOG that I never have to bother them for past the initial purchase and download) or just work on the Bee Hive board game that I’m making with my daughter.  I’ve lost touch with internet gaming, and while I agree that aspects of the battle.net revamp and lack of LAN are exceedingly stupid, and has likely cost them my patronage (even though I loved StarCraft and played it a ton), I doubt that Blizzard cares about that loss.

So I think to myself, why should I care either?

Aion, WoW Cataclysm, SWTOR, EVE, Jumpgate Evolution, Star Trek Online, Guild Wars (even the sequel, despite how awesome it looks), Puzzle Pirates, Wizard 101… it’s all just so much static now (even the games I love on that list).  And you know… it’s nice, tuning it all out for a bit.  There are still things about those that interest me as a cog in the gaming machine (I work in the field, so it’s good to keep up to date), but as a gamer… not as much as they once did.  Oddly enough, they would interest me a LOT more if they were offline games, especially SWTOR, Cataclysm, GW2 and EVE.  (I do love Privateer and Freelancer.)  They just don’t offer me enough value in their “onlineness” to make them worth getting riled up too much about or feel like paying a sub for.

Will that change what I write about here?  And how often?  Probably.  I never said this was just a place about MMOs, that’s just what I’ve written about so far (more or less).  I think I have some interesting things to say still about game design (board, card and digital) and art (traditional, digital and photography), so that’s probably what I’ll get into a bit more.  If I do get into Cataclysm as a result of the Arthas contest, I’ll probably have fun with it for that month, and I really do want to look around at the world changes (and take pictures, lots of pictures) and write up a few articles about the experience (not unlike the Death Knight articles), but I’m certainly not signing in for a long haul.  Though Blizzard, if you do make an offline “Old Azeroth” retail box, I promise to buy at least one. It’s the perfect time to do something like that, after the Cataclysm… there’s a strong nostalgia streak out there.

You could call it “burnout” if you want, but I take a critical look at the genre as a whole, and just don’t see that it offers me anything that I want enough to put up with the aggravation or the costs of playing online.  Perhaps it never really did (I never did dive into WoW even when I first played it years ago), and it just took a bit more experimentation to confirm that.  It should probably be noted that for the duration of this blog, I’ve never been all that happy with the status quo.  This isn’t really all that radical of a mindset shift, it’s just… shifting gears a bit.

And y’know… it feels like a weight is off my shoulders.  I wish current and future MMO players and devs well, to be sure.  I’ll certainly play W101 a bit here and there (yay, Access Pass business model!), maybe dabble in DDO, and will probably pick up GW2 when it goes on sale in 2012, so it’s not like I’m /ragequitting the whole shebang.  It’s just time for something else for me, at least as a major focus of what I do around here, at least for now.

Maybe more pretty painted pictures.  🙂

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