I received an email from Nexon Games a few days ago that there was a mandatory password reset in effect, and that to login to any installed games I would first have to change my password. After logging into the my user control panel at Nexon I went ahead and made the change but ran into a huge roadblock: any changes made to my account would require a confirmation email first be sent which would contain the link to reset my password. Unfortunately for me I had created my Nexon account quite some time ago - several years in fact in 2007, at which time I was using a hotmail account which has since been deleted by MicroSoft due to non-use.

This is not the first time it's happened to me, as this old email account was one which I had for many years (since 1999 actually) but had set up that all email be forwarded to an actual active account. The problem is that Hotmail used to require that users log into their account at least once or month or the account would be inactivated, and that is exactly what happened to me. I've lost only several game accounts due to this such as my Runes of Magic account which Frogster Games refused to re-activate under a new email address and there have been a couple others that I don't care about. RoM I did care about but that is water under the bridge at this point, and I've put in behind me, especially since I'm rather burned out on Fantasy MMO's at this point.

However, I had forgotten that I used that old now-deleted non-restorable Hotmail account to register with Nexon so it seems as now I've lost access to all Nexon games. I originally registered with Nexon in the first place for Combat Arms way back in '07 which I stopped playing long ago for superior games such as A.V.A. so no big loss there. The problem is that I do have several current games which I'm active in which includes DFO, most recently Dragon Nest, and most importantly Vindictus which I have put roughly 100 hours of playtime into - all lost to me now. Very sad.

Nexon - like several other game portals - use the player's email address AS THEIR USER ID and therefore the user is inextricably linked to their original email address at the time of the account creation and no changes are allowed to be made due to this link. I like security as much as the next guy, but I think this is just a very bad method of account creation because of the situation similar to my own which the use occasionally finds themselves in.

Over the past several years I have developed a personal method of Game Account creation across the various game portals (Aeria, gPotato, ijji, T3Fun etc etc) which I've honed to perfection to avoid such circumstances, but I still feel the sting of losing accounts from an earlier time before I was wise to the ways multiple game accounts. Its a tough lesson to be learned though.

Gaming Biases

Speaking as someone from North America, something which has amazed me over the years is how we gamers here in the West take such a narrow-minded view of the world, the internet, politics and finance and how they relate to the world of online gaming. We tend to think that we here in the West all feel pretty much the same about such matters as payment plans for the games we play. We make broad statements such as "if a game is F2P then it sucks because if it were any good then it wouldn't be free". We go to websites and forums and leave comments as if we were looking at something that only we here in North America can see, as if the entire audience is made up entirely of Westerners from North America - we forget that there is an entire planet made up of worldwide gamers that can access the very same websites that we do. The internet is worldwide. With a very few exceptions anyone from anywhere can access the same sites we do. The only real barrier is that of language and being able to speak or read English, and of course many sites have several options which eliminate that barrier.

So why do we make statements such as "as soon as someone makes a F2P game that is actually good and successful, then maybe I'll try it out". Why do we seem to not understand that there are hundreds of great successful F2p games that have been around for years with huge dedicated fanbases of worldwide players? Why do we not join that vast universe of F2P games, or even acknowledge that they exist? Why must our narrow view of the world exclude the majority of online gamers as we embrace such a comparably tiny market comprised only of games created by Western developers?

There are many answers to these questions most of which are fairly obvious. This is not about the answers however but rather the question itself. Why are so so biased that we don't even ask ourselves these questions? It would be as if a gamer who only ever owned an Xbox and who had only ever accessed online gaming through the Xbox LIVE! network thought that's all there was and that no other gaming options even existed. Sure there are plenty of games for Xbox but it is just a tiny portion of everything else out there that exists. Only accessing content through Xbox LIVE may be enough for some people (and it IS actually) but for those of us who are more than simply casual gamers we need more. Much much more than a single platform could even hope to provide.

The online games created by Western developers for a Western audience of gamers might be enough for some, and apparently it MUST be as our myopic view of the world seems to exclude all else from our realm of thought. We'll just keep playing our Xbox or our subscription-based MMOs and ignore everything else and keep believing that everyone else does the same as we do. If somehow the news of something outside our simple view of the gaming world does happen to make it through to our attention we'll just dismiss it as something made by those "crazy Koreans and their grindfest mmo's" and go back to playing WoW or Rift or Eve or whatever the current Star Wars game is in fashion this year.

Hellgate Global

I've played a bit, although I'm waiting for the dust to settle before really sinking my teeth in. The technical problems in the past few days since ob launched have been more than I'm willing to put up with, and I've been watching very very closely their twitter feed, fb page and the forums so I'm aware of the massive problems players are experiencing with the rollbacks, undelivered mail (including items purchased at auction house and cash shop), lost loot and lost levels after rollbacks/crashes and so on. I'm sure they'll get things running smoothly eventually, so I'm not sweating all the launch problems. It's pretty much to be expected although this has tended to be towards the far end of the spectrum of "failed beta launches".

I actually really like Hellgate, as a player of the original, and two things have struck me as an initial impression - neither of which are catastrophic flaws but more like little annoyances when comparing the Global version to the original.

(also, it really shouldn't be called "Global" since it's not, right?!)

The first thing is the dialog which wasn't great to begin with, has so obviously been translated from the original English into Korean and then back into English again that it's painful. Mind you that I have a very high tolerance for this so it's not a big deal but somehow I find it worse than most translation issues I've seen before, and I've seen plenty as I play many foreign games currently and in the past. Why don't they just used the original English dialog instead of the text that has been re-re-translated? Most people are not as forgiving as myself and are sure to ridicule and dismiss the game as a shoddy job by the localization team.

The other thing that really turns me off are the graphics which even at the highest settings are substantially worse than those of the original. Of course we knew that the DX10 mode would not be available in this version but even when comparing the DX9 mode of the original to the new version it seems as if the whole top tier of the highest settings of the current client is equal to the Medium settings of the original. It's more than simply the textures, it's the lightmaps, it's the shadowing, it's the bumpmapping and the detailed texture level and reflections - everything is set at Medium even when you crank everything as high as it'll go. I have the orginal game on one of my harddrives so I can make side-by-side comparisons, and all I can say is that hopefully a future patch will add improved graphics as the current client is frankly pretty awful. They really should integrate the DX10 mode as well, especially considering that even if they DID it would still have graphics that would be 3 or 4 years out of date.

Other than those fairly minor issues I'm looking forward to a hopeful future for the game. I don't like having to pay the extra $4 either - no matter how minuscule - it's more the principle of the thing, but that's a whole 'nother topic!

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Yes I'm a L4D2 "boycotter".

The main issue I see is that Valve keeps vowing up and down that L4D2 is a true sequel but the problem is that it is simply not true. They can say it over and over or scream it from a mountain-top or tell the press it really really is a sequel but that does not make it so no matter how many times they say it.

Quake 2 was a sequel. Half-Life 2 was a sequel. L4D2 will seem so much like L4D that you almost won't be able to tell the difference - they are very very similar in feel, look, playstyle, setting, weapons, and characters. Several tweaks to a few textures and models and then swearing it's a true sequel ("really it is! You'll see you'll see!! Just wait, then you'll see!!) is insane. Well, insane not to realize that all of us can see right through all Valve's positive spin.

Sure it'll probably be a great game because L4D is a great game and they are the same thing with a few tweaks and additions that should have been released for L4D to keep the franchise rolling instead of stopping it DEAD in its tracks like they are now. It's sad really and a shame to see Valve fail to understand some basic principles about gaming in general and sequels specifically. They should know better by now.

DDO just went FreeToPlay. Very good news imo especially because I never in a hundred years would have played this game - now, I will. What could be easier to understand? I'm positive that the same will be true for thousands of other players too. This pricing model just WORKS for gamers and developers alike.

We're right now on the edge of a huge shift in the industry and starting to see more indications trickling into the mainstream. What we'll end up with once the transition has completed in a few years time, is more gaming choices for the player to try out without having to resort to piracy. There are very few reasons NOT to at least try a F2P game, and once you are trying it then it becomes the developers job to get you to stick around and play for a while.

The pricing model of the future mainstream will certainly be Free to Play in my opinion, it is highly successful already in dozens and dozens of games right now under the radar, and we'll continue to see more and more companies dipping their toe into the waters to see if it's hot enough. If done right, it IS.

Cel Shaded faves

I love Cel Shaded games, and have ever since around the time of XIII's original PC release and then a year or so later the Dreamcast's Jet Set series back in the day. XIII PC was really the first truly cel shading in a retail game although I recall there being a Quake2 mod that rendered everything in that same unique way. I guess this must be a major reason for my love for Team Fortress 2, Drift City, S4 League (all cel shaded games) but does not include the "cartoony-looking but not really cel shaded" World of Warcraft and Free Realms for example. Of course even though I do like the cel shaded games I mentioned, if the gameplay itself were not so deep and rewarding I'd drop them in a heartbeat. Usually the cartoony games I like in spite of their look, but in the case of true cel shading it seems I just can't get enough of a good thing even though this particular style has dropped out of favor quite a bit over the years.

A new game which I just got done spending about 3 hours with is a new addition to the Free to Play/Item shop genre is also Cel Shaded: GhostX. It's one of those smaller games that slipped in under the radar, yet it seems to really be off to a fanastic start with tons of players just logging in for the first time and exploring the massive online world while questing and grouping up with newly made friends while they're not duelling each other in the pvp-mode. GhostX has a few fairly original but familiar gameplay techniques and the fighting style is that of Double Dragon and Streets of Rage and Battletoads etc etc. Really stylishly-cool 3d brawler in a 2d style - yet scrolls in all 3 dimensions. Lots of combos and abilities are unlocked as you level up and a skill tree for yourself and your nanobot with which you form a symbiotic attachment. Fun stuff that's worth a download for sure.

Game sounds

I noticed this post on Massively and I just had to comment. I believe sound is extremely important, and Runes of Magic is sorely lacking in that department - the inspiration for the OP's topic.

I'm always surprised to see those people who say that they play with the sound turned down or that play their own music during the game. Look. You've got all day to listen to your own music - you can listen to your own music a n y t i m e. In fact we are innundated by commercial mainstream music practically non-stop. And you mean to tell me that you like it so much that you simply must have it playing while you game too? Instead of the music designed for the game?

Music (and the incidental sounds) are a large part OF the game imo. If you are eliminating a part of the game that can have such an emotional impact as the music, then you are not really playing the game. Just a part of it.

Now I've played WoW for 14 hours straight before and yes I have turned off the game music, and I always do during raids as well. But those who just always play games without the sound are not "true" gamers in my book, and even more importantly are depriving themselves of the full game experience. Computer games are made up of two things: what you see and what you hear. That's it.

What you can see in the game.
What you can hear in the game.

Thats it! There is no tasting there is no smelling there is no touching. Just sight and sound. Eliminate the sound (and replace it with your own sound) and you're only getting half the game.

Hammered Home

I gotta say Free Realms is really quite fun, and there is a lot of free content. As someone who is not planning on ever paying any real money at all (instead I'll stay a truly no cost player) I realize that I'll be missing out on roughly 1/3rd of the game - which is fine by me - there seems to be so much free content at least initially. One irritant however is the almost incessant need to hammer home the point that I'll be missing out on some good stuff at every opportunity. Quest chains end quite suddenly after having diligently completed the first sevens steps with the fact that to go any further in the chain, membership is required. I realize that this is part of the (brilliant) marketing strat, but it is jarring and really serves to ruin whatever immersion one can get from such a game as FR.

I notice a few more popup messages than there were in beta, pitching the CCG for example, even though I have been playing the CCG for an hour or so already, just minor annoyances and to be expected certainly in this game model. I have noticed several shops where the items you can purchase require Jobs which are membership-only thereby preventing me from purchasing said items from that shop and therefore putting me at a distinct disadvantage. I'm thinking that there will be more things like that which are not immediately evident at first but after having played for a while will be uncovered as putting a bit too much emphasis on a subscription purchase.

It will remain to be seen whether the tradeoff between disadvantages to the free player is outweighed by the brilliance and pure fun-factor of the game world. So far it is. And SOE knows that while there will be many paying subscribers (or at least they hope so) that there will be many many more who never pay a dime. That is just the nature of the F2P genre and they know it. Here's hoping they eventually stop rubbing my face so hard in the mud of being a non-subscriber!