Goodbye Demon’s Souls…
Many years ago, it seems like it now, a little known game was released. Demon’s Souls. After the gaming press pooped their pants with excitement, and hearing about it for many months I decided it was time to actually invest in an annoying RPG.
I say annoying because of something I decided to do around the start of 2009. I wanted to actually give some genres a chance instead of just ignoring them and playing counter-strike or rainbow six. Following that I bought Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Borderlands, and eventually Demon’s Souls. I was intrigued by ME, but it was a bit underwhelming when the ending rolled around. I was a bit interesting in how a gigantic barren field could hold my interest in fallout. I was pissed off that I spent 40+ hours playing borderlands, because it was a useless waste of time that I want back. Then came Demon’s Souls.
I spent the first night messing about the first level. Impressed at how I had unlocked two gates as a means to keep track of my progress for future playthroughs of the level, and I sat and stared at a gigantic door for 3 minutes deciding if I was going to open it. It was late, I was tired, and I had to get up for work in the morning. I decided I would give it a go and if I came into trouble turn it off and that would be the end of it for the night. I destroyed Phalanx by figuring out what I had to do, running around and avoiding damage, and needless to say I had impressed myself with actually being able to beat a boss first go around.
I thought about the game the entire day at work, couldn’t get past how much the ambiance of the world had sucked me in, had interested me, and I wanted another taste of it as soon as possible. I spent that night running around some hub world, trying to find some “monumental” who was supposed to explain how it all works. After finding an image of them online I had actually walked right past them at least 10 times. Listened to the story bit, leveled up, and awaited my next play.
That continued for a month, I would think about the game constantly, having it nag at me in the back of my mind, working through ways to get around the world and replaying the game in my head over and over. It wasn’t an obsession, it was lust. That game had something about it, something I wanted, something that brought out the best of me, the worst of me, and made me realize a lot about myself as a gamer.
I had gotten to the second boss, probably stared at the third, and I had decided to move on to a second character. I flew through the first level, got to the same spot, and tried another character. It was getting to the point where the game had little room for my tomfoolery and I had to return to my starting character.
I sat down one day, Beep… Beep… Beep…, Black. “Ugh, what now” I thought. I looked at the ps3 as I turned it on, green, yellow…. Fuck. I spent the next month waiting for the RMA to get to my door, boxing it up, calling Sony and explaining shit for the 4th time. Apparently it was going to be $150 dollars to fix my 60 gb ps3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4CASA0vlXk). My UK friend had the same thing happen a month ago to him.
Well, no worries, everything was backed up to a spare drive, I had everything in waiting, I would soon play again. I get the box, start to import the data, but apparently some of it is “protected” to stop me from stealing trophies or something. Oh great, every single game with trophies is not allowed to be imported, it is there, but I can’t import it. Thanks, Sony. Fine, I’ll just redownload every single game from psn again, patch the games, restart everything, and enjoy my Demon’s Souls.
Good, back at Phalanx and done with the first world. I even tried to remake my characters, but it wasn’t the same. I decided to just stick with my main, get as far as possible. A few months later…. Bleep Bleep Bleep, flashing red. SERIOUSLY! Alright Sony, I’m not paying you money to fix this, you obviously can’t, let me just go buy a slim and be done with heat issues. I beg my dad to take me to the store, the one that actually has it in stock, and have access to my stuff again. I spent a week redownloading all of my psn stuff, repatching every disc I had, what a wonderful “feature”. Made me miss steam, just doing shit for me.
Things got busy with school, I had gotten to the bridge again, with that stupid dragon, but I wanted to level up a bit and try to take it down. I tried for weeks, barely doing anything, magic, bows, nothing…. Oh well. I pushed on, got to the second half of the first world, practically cleared it, messed around with just about every world, and finally gotten to explore the entirety of the game it seemed. I looked into special weapons, world tendency, and I even managed to get some cool stuff during events that unlocked them. I would intentionally die on the first world in order to cause tendency, just to unlock a gate on the left side. Man that lady was hard, oh well.
I went to work that day, seemed like any other day. I got a call, little brother, “The house was broken into, they took your ps3.” WHAT! FFS, it wasn’t…. Are you serious? Hold on… I walked outside, got the details. My mom was having knee surgery, what a great time for this to happen. “It’s weird,” my brother said, “they left flowers and candy in mom’s room.” Heh, no man, those were from me. Alright, I’ll see it when I get home.
Just like that, a year long journey to enjoy a simple game was destroyed. Some asshole had taken everything, my ps3, some cables, thankfully he didn’t touch my rig. It seemed like a year and a half before insurance paid me for it…. A whopping 150 dollars, it was the 250 gb version.
I spent the next few years on steam, waiting for the time to buy a ps3 again, waiting for that moment when I would get a chance to try my hand at playing the game again. It’s been 2 years. Now I get news that there will be a sequel. Cool, but it won’t be the same. I wonder if there will be a pc port? Anyways, I wish I had my ps3 back. Back to Counter-Strike…
I spent many months, years it seems just wanting to buy the system, buy the piece of crap that died twice, that has all the shit I wanted as long as I pay them for “fixing their broken shit”. Piracy my ass, thanks Sony. I even bought Gran Turismo Collector’s edition, a strategy guide for dark souls, just to get a taste. I had to borrow a friend’s ps3 just to redeem the dlc code for GT5, so that it didn’t expire.
Annoying…
It’s strange how you can spend so much time, more time thinking about a game then actually playing it. The only reason I wrote this is because those thoughts, those experiences, that game, is changed forever. The servers are going down, it will be playable, but it won’t be the same. It has survived all this time on sheer fans dragging it to the front of people’s faces, forcing them to give it attention. Hardly any other game has done that. Heck, even got myself a PC port on the way of Dark Souls, that will be nice, but it isn’t the same, it is the original, it isn’t where it all started, not even the same company.
I guess the only way to end this is to say thanks, thanks Demon’s Souls. I’m sorry some people saw you as just a “difficult game” or something where you are “hardcore” because they play you. I’m sorry I never got the chance to find out what happens on 1-4, or at 5-2, but thanks for the memories. Thanks for taking the time to show me what some of the world has to offer, that even though the game may be an RPG, it isn’t. Even though the game has online integration, it’s something so much more. There isn’t too much I can say, except you are probably the best game this generation, probably the most important one since half-life, but no one will ever admit it. One day I’ll have a ps3, probably right after Sony decides to pull its head out of its ass, but for now… Keep enjoying the shelf. Thanks for everything…
-nabokovfan87
MP Gaming, Harassment, and Some Thoughts…
Last week was tragic, in a word. There were not only things going on in my life, but a much larger and more important issue that arose. Firstly, and most importantly, it is best for anyone who reads this to go and listen to the comments made in context of which they were made. Here is the video that you can view to hear the comments as well as a secondary news post with links to deeper discussion of the topic on the show. Here is the quote that concerns discussion and the entire reason this is even news at all.
“Rea: Can I get my Street Fighter without sexual harassment?
Bakhtanians: You can’t. You can’t because they’re one and the same thing. This is a community that’s, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community–it’s StarCraft. There’s nothing wrong with StarCraft if you enjoy it, and there’s nothing wrong with anything about eSports, but why would you want just one flavor of ice cream, you know? There’s eSports for people who like eSports, and there’s fighting games for people who like spicy food and like to have fun. There’s no reason to turn them into the same thing, you know?
You can’t go to the NBA and say “hey, I like basketball, but I don’t want them to play with a basketball, I want them to play with a football.” It just doesn’t…it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude, you know? These things are established for years. That would be like someone from the fighting game community going over to StarCraft and trying to say “hey, StarCraft, you guys are too soft, let’s start making sexual harassment jokes to each other on StarCraft.” That’s not cool, people wouldn’t like that. StarCraft isn’t like that. People would get defensive, and that’s what you’re trying to do the fighting game community, and it’s not right. It’s ethically wrong.
I know that you’re thinking “what do you know about ethics? You say racial stuff and sexist stuff.” But those are jokes and if you were really a member of the fighting game community, you would know that. You would know that these are jokes.
Rea: So, ensuring that we alienate any and all female viewers…that’s the ethical thing to do?
Bakhtanians: Well, you know, there are layers here, if you think about this. There are layers of ethics. There are people who are racist and commit hate crimes, right? And then there are people who are racist but they have tons of friends of all colors and they have deep love for those friends. Do you think those people are one and the same? Absolutely not.”
They were badgering her, continuously and nonstop, making her feel extremely uncomfortable and doing so with little to no respect to the people around them, the gaming community, and most importantly human decency. He brings up two reasons for his actions. The first “if you were really a member of the fighting game community, you would know that. You would know that these are jokes” and the second is “That’s not cool, people wouldn’t like that. StarCraft isn’t like that. People would get defensive, and that’s what you’re trying to do the fighting game community, and it’s not right. It’s ethically wrong.” I think this is a much deeper issue than anyone is giving credit for. While I listen to the stream and the conversations quoted above the main culprit, speaking towards Miranda (after saying that he doesn’t know where the line is) states that it is a so cal line, and that is where it comes from.
While I can sit here and debunk every word of his sentence, let me just state the facts. I live in southern California, have played in what little arcades are here, and have been for over 20 years. I know what the arcade scene is supposed to be, what the mentality and atmosphere of the arcade generation is. Around 2 years ago a few friends from work decided we would go to a local restaurant during lunch and play Street Fighter during lunch breaks. We had a blast, we talked smack, but most of all we had a deep respect for the other person, whether it was with Blitz, Street Fighter, or anything else. Not once did it come to putting down the other player, or making someone who lost feel like a terrible gamer for doing so. That is the same way it was when I was a child, and it still is the same way today, for myself and those around me.
The entire purpose of the arcade is to compete with one another right then and there, nothing regarding multiple matches, but simply you will get to play as long as you do not lose. Anyone can walk in the door, be it a fighting game champion, or the neighbor, and every person has the same opportunity to take the person on the stick out. In my opinion, that directly counters the comments made above, and any sentiment that harassment, put downs, and disrespect are part of the game. Heck, the NHL playoffs is one of the most bitter rivaled games in sports, but after every match the players stop and shake eachother’s hands, whether they are bleeding, broken, or bruised from the battle, there is a deep and meaningful respect for the journey.
Ethics, the study and attempt to understand what is right and wrong, essentially it has everything to do with this topic. Saying something is ethically wrong because someone is suggesting it be changed, is like demanding that slavery be reinstated because it was the norm, or that whaling, shark fining, seal clubbing, deforestation, and many other practices be allowed to continue because they are what happens even though there are laws preventing them from occurring. I cannot see, or agree with, the logic presented in what he was trying to communicate. There isn’t a law saying that women cannot be president simply because it has always been a male, but it hasn’t happened yet. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen, it simply means that it hasn’t. It is legally wrong to own a slave, it is legally wrong to assault someone, berate someone, and harass someone, but it does happen. I really wish the person who did this takes a deep and hard look at his own thoughts, and really sits down to contemplate what is right and wrong.
The side issue of all of this, and the main reason I am posting this right now is because this isn’t just the standard for street fighter. It is a standard of all games that are online, co-op, or whereby multiple people get together to play a game. Someone didn’t ask a female Pikachu to smell them as a punishment, someone in counter-strike doesn’t get t-bagged after every death, but it happens more often than not on the Xbox and Playstation platforms. This is not a PC vs. Console discussion, simply a discussion of maturity. Are PC gamers more mature? Forum threads would suggest not, but then again the loudest 10% post on forums, while the rest of the community simply plays the game. 9 times out of 10 when I hear someone in the press describe how they play online, they say that they turn off voice chat. I know from my own experiences, voice chat is an extremely key aspect of enjoyment, competition, and sportsmanship. When playing gun game in CS:S often you give the person who won the match crap because you were 2 kills away. You call him a hacker, or say it was a bullshit kill, but that is the extent of it. Nothing personal, nothing extremely negative, or harsh, but simply commenting lightly on the situation. It is to the point in games like Gears of War, Halo, Killzone, Call of Duty, etc. that if you have voice chat, someone of young age who quite honestly shouldn’t be playing an M rated game will give you crap for sucking, being older, being a girl, or simply not being them. It isn’t a matter of age, it is a matter of respect for one another, maturity, and most of all it is a matter of not having the people in the servers to boot out deviants and to set standards. Everything is on autorun, text based, and quite honestly lazy. The CS community thrives on differences of opinion. One person want to play surf, gun game, standard, arena, or zombie modes, and those are available to them. They may want to play with beginner level players, on smaller server sizes, with specific weapon restrictions, rpg mods, stats mods, low gravity, or in a server of a specific clan, community, or group of friends. Any which way you can imagine, the game presents the opportunity to do so, and the players in the game can remove deviants by verbally telling them to leave, team killing them until they leave, voting them out of the server, banning then by vote, getting an admin to control the situation, or simply leaving themselves. Again, choice is the key here.
The main difference between CS and Halo is the average age of the gamer. If you look into the ESA and other video game groups you will find that the average age of the PC game is 10 or more years higher than that of the console crowd. This means people with much more life experience and whom know what is right, wrong, and how to handle a difficult situation.
I am not going to try an conclude anything, but leave you with this. The following video was linked to by Miranda (Super__Yan) with the words:
@ProtomCannon’s article on SRK (http://shoryuken.com/2012/02/29/back-to-basics-getting-beyond-the-drama/) made me remember why I love the fighting game community so much.
…
In short: my coach was a jerk, he doesn’t represent the entire community. I’m not ever leaving. See you at NCR. I’ll leave this here: http://vimeo.com/13324213
Thanks for reading, and remember, in the words of captain planet, “the power is yours” to do what is right, wrong, and to let others know that what they are doing is wrong or right as well.
Keep on keeping on…
-nabokovfan87
Support THIS! Kickstarter Survival Horror FPS
Hey all,
I wanted to take a moment to alert everyone of a game that has peaked my interest. It is a horror or survival based first person shooter. I found it on Kickstarter, even interviewed the devs here. To my surprise they weren’t 20-something-year-old college students, but in high school. They have a passion for games that I think we all can relate to, and as a PC gamer, much of their influences parallel my own as well as mostly every current PC gamer.
The main reason I am posting this is because I want it to happen. The world needs game designers who have a passion for design, not some whom simply want to make a dollar or work for a huge publisher. It is easy to see how they can be lost in the fog with the hundreds of indie titles released monthly. More importantly, this is their first game, and I would love to see these kids succeed, especially with their first venture. This doesn’t appear to be another indie game, it looks to be a game with deep emotion, story, and most importantly heart.
Feel free to click the link below and take a look into their game, and help spread the word and support them.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1069586425/abandoned-first-person-shooter-game
Thanks,
-nabokovfan87
