Okay, okay.

I gave in and I’m playing WoW again.

In a move that will surprise no one, I am immediately bombarded with ideas for Warcraft-inspired blog posts, which I shall condense into list format because I am NOT turning this into a Warcraft blog, nope, not gonna happen, no way, no how.

Onward!

Mr. Chilly, the penguin pet, is adorable and I will love him and squish him and hug him and call him George. Also, the fact that his eyes are flashlights (highlighted in dark dungeons even when he’s not focused on) is both creepy and awesome. Crepawsome. Aweseepy. Something.

The new random dungeon thing is awesomesauce, especially since we can vote to kick. Reasons we’ve kicked folks so far include: doing 12 dps (12. And that was AFTER stepping it up because they were warned), a hunter rolling need on a +stam cloth robe, a dps warrior (that was not doing any damage and had a shield equipped) rolling need on +agi shoulders (with a rogue in the group that actually DID need them), and my personal favorite – calling me a very naughty word and threatening to stalk me after I asked the group not to do the Thing That Can Wipe Even A Very Good Group.

Rogues, did I miss the patch where you get a damage bonus after sapping things? Because five rogues in a row can’t be THAT wrong in stealthing up and sapping everything in sight while the pallytank is drinking to replenish mana … could they?

This many huntards in a row is not a coincidence. Blizzard, you must be teaching them incorrectly. Hunters, I love you, but please use a ranged weapon.

Two hours to do the water quest for an orc shaman goes beyond “silly” and well into “ludicrous”. I don’t even want to know how long it took before they dropped the level requirements to get the first mount.

Have I mentioned how much I love the random dungeon thing? Because travel time to and from instances alone used to eat up HOURS of gametime. I love, love, love the random dungeon thing.

I realize that, as a druid, I can choose to morph into bear form and tank. However, since I am currently wearing healing gear and have all of my talent points in the Resto tree, I feel the need to comment on the SEVEN tanking cloaks that I’ve gotten as random dungeon goodie bag blues. Seven tanking cloaks. One healy belt. It’d be awesome if you’d let us trade those goodie bag blues to other people in that random dungeon group. Also, if your inventory is full, the goodie bag gets mailed to you. That’s great! Except … it would be better if a line appeared in the chat window or on the screen that lets us know to EXPECT it in the mail. I might’ve said a few naughty words when I didn’t get my bag, only to retract them half an hour later when my mail arrived. Maybe.

Roleplaying rarely ever works out as planned. My tauren druid (Yes, horde. No, not a priest) SHOULD be a mild, sweet-mannered peace-loving hippie, based on lore and common expectations. Around level 10, she let me know that she’s a pushy, foul-mouthed harpy. Our female blood elf tank is constantly bombarded with threats and insults, the most common of which is to call her “little boy” or refer to her as “that eleven-year-old boy”.

Facebook

I finally succumbed to a few games over on Facebook*. It was bound to happen – I’m a gamer, I am easily addicted to things, the games themselves are fun, and a lot of my family and friends play them.

Both Farmville and A Country Story are Facebook farming applications, but they’re different enough to merit a comparison post.

What is Farmville?

Farmville’s the older of the two games. It’s been around for a very, very long time and if you’re on facebook and have much of a friends/family listing, you’ve probably got more than a few people already playing it.

In Farmville, you create a marginally-customizable avatar (I can get ORANGE lips, but not basic ones? Seriously?) that runs around your farm and does your bidding like a well-oiled farmer robot.

Farming

Use your hoe tool to till the ground, buy some seeds, and wait. As time passes, the seeds will sprout, then get bigger, then finally blossom into whatever fruit, flower, or vegetable you planted. Harvest your plants to sell them, then turn around and invest your profit in more plants and “stuff”. Wait too long and your vegetables wilt and you lose any chance at harvesting them. Fruit trees are conveniently ever-bearing and never die.

Ranching

For the ranching aspect, you can raise animals (I use the word “raise” VERY sparingly. You can pet the animal, which has no discernible purpose except to make a little heart animation happen and cause the animal to make a sound) and after a period of time, a pink diamond will indicate they’re ready to be “harvested” (don’t worry – even the pig is harvested harmlessly. You collect truffles, not bacon.)

The core gameplay is very much a rinse and repeat. You can augment the basic game play by decorating – buying or acquiring fences, buildings, and other “stuff” to beautify your land.

Interaction

The hook for Farmville isn’t the gameplay – it’s the interactive aspect. By becoming “Neighbors” with your facebook-using friends, you gain bonuses. They can send you gifts (animals or trees or decorations) and you can do the same. You can visit their farms and perform tasks such as scaring away foxes for cash, and you can fertilize their plants for them. They can return the favor.

It’s fun to visit a friend’s farm and see how they’ve decorated, what they’ve planted, and “help” them.

It’s also fun to “adopt” various pathetic animals from their wall – periodically, a Farmville farmer will find a lost animal and can offer it up on their Facebook wall to the first person with grabby hands. It’s cute at first, but then you end up with like eleven million cows, chickens, reindeer, and horses. All standing around on the farm. Not moving much. Twitching, like. And periodically making animal noises. It’s…creepy.

Overall

Overall, the interaction between friends is pretty limited and the gameplay is basic and gets boring quickly. You can set self-imposed goals to try and spice the game up a bit – make the prettiest farm you can, try and get three star rating in growing various vegetables in bulk, try and time your vegetable reaping so you don’t have to plow and re-seed the WHOLE gorram farm every time you visit – but in general, it doesn’t change much.

You can also buy Farmville Dollars (using your REAL dollars, what a coincidence?!) and get special Farmville content. You know. In case you really needed to have the limited edition gingerbread farmhouse.

What is A Country Story?

A Country Story is another farming Facebook game. It’s still in Beta, so not as many folks are playing it.

Much like Farmville, you create a barely-customizable avatar (at least these avatars are cute) who runs around the farm (slightly less robotically) and does your rural bidding. You can also change the color of your house and choose the backdrop for your farm, which is a nice but useless touch.

Farming

Farming in A Country Story is different in a few very important ways.

1) The number of garden plots you are allowed is limited, based on your level.

2) Crops need to be watered.

3) Your character has an “energy” bar that gets depleted when you plow, seed, harvest, or water. You can buy food to replenish your energy, or just wait.

Other than that, it’s pretty straightforward. Plow, seed, water, wait, harvest, profit!

Trees are very expensive, take time to grow, and give tree spirits when they die. You can combine tree spirits to create fantastic new trees that cannot be purchased. (Note I haven’t played long enough to do this myself, though I’ve seen a few of the trees on my friend Katy’s land.)

And yes, I love the SSSHHHLOOOCKPOP! sound the A Country Story makes when I harvest carrots. <3

Ranching

Ranching in A Country Story requires a lot of money or country story cash (called Playfish Cash) which you can conveniently buy using your REAL dollars. Alternately, you can get animals as gifts from friends or as rewards for quests (more on quests in a moment).

Not only do animals have output (eggs from chickens, etc) but you also have to FEED your animals (shock, horror) and you can brush them to make them happy. I feel much more involved with my little Country Story chicken than I do with my Farmville herds of cattle, chickens, ducks, etc, etc.

Oddly enough, purchasing animals requires both money and “stuff” – rocks and bits of wood you pick up from the ground of your farm. I guess to build a home for them? Doesn’t matter. I like walking around and cleaning up the debris, anyway, but it’s worth noting that you shouldn’t sell the rocks and sticks. You’ll need them if you want to buy a chicken later.

Interaction

Again, as a Facebook game, you can play with friends. The interaction here is different. Any gifts sent by friends were purchased (no free gifts…so remember to say thank you!) and friends can come over and water your crops for you or brush/pet your animals.

They can ALSO steal your food and pick up your rocks and sticks, so you have to be a little pickier when it comes to who you’re allowing access to your farm!

Quests

This game also has quests, which is a great addition. Each level, you have access to new quests to grant extra xp. Grow so many green peppers, collect so many rocks, water your friends plants so many times, etc, etc. It gives a GOAL and a reason to log in and keep playing (Warcraft uses this small accomplishment system to great effect – it doesn’t surprise me to see other games offering “quests” as well)

Decorating

It also encourages you to be more of a decorator with your farm. You’re given a lot of land, and only so much of it can be used for farming … you may as well decorate the rest! Multiple types of fencing exist, and the garden gnome collection truly boggles the mind.

Overall

It’s pretty obvious A Country Story is at least a small nod to Farmville’s skyrocketing success. It’s much prettier and a lot more fun to play than Farmville, but the basic premise of the games are much the same.

The replayability of the game rests on the shoulders of the quests and friends to keep you going.

Summary

Of the two games, A Country Story is prettier and slightly more fun, but Farmville is easier to get into and already has more people playing it. Now that I’ve played both of them to the point where my writing time started to suffer (is it time to harvest the corn?!), I’ve actually stopped playing both of them. A girl’s got to have her priorities.

Anyone else play either or both of these games? Do you agree or disagree? Did I neglect to add a key element of the game?

* Sure, you can friend me on Facebook if you like, but I really just dump the rss feed from this blog into it. No behind-the-scenes special-edition Tami Moore information there. Twitter’s a better bet if you’re seeking complimentary content. @whiskerwing

Let’s not kid ourselves, eh? You know me. I know me. This is gonna be a long post. Get comfy, grab the beverage of your choosing, and gather round for some opinions.

The Short Version

It is unquestionably worth playing if you like Role-Playing Games (RPGs, for the uninitiated).  Get it for the COMPUTER, if your hardware can handle it.

The long version…is considerably longer.

Console Versus Computer

My husband and I (more the fool we) purchased the game for the XBOX360.

This was foolish.

This was foolish because the computer version actually comes with developer tools.

This was foolish because it’s likely that computers of the future will still be able to play the game, while consoles of the future are not likely to be able to play the 360 version.

This was foolish because the game really isn’t pretty enough to need big-screen graphics display.

FOREMOST and above all, this was foolish because the game was MADE FOR COMPUTER PLAY and only PORTED to the console system.

What does that mean? That means the original gameplay intended that you, the player, have access to things like a MOUSE and a KEYBOARD.

This means they expected you to map oft-used spells and keys to your keyboard, and that they intended you to click on things to select them.

This means that the console player, mouse and keyboardless, gets the shaft.

They made the “wheel” UI for the console and it sucks =THIS BAD=. Seriously, it’s like they met a guy on the bus and said “Hey, we’re going to port this game to the xbox and likely other consoles, can your kid throw together a UI for us? For pay, we can offer $15 and this old Bruce Lee poster.”

The UI wheel in battle is ridiculously clunky to try and use (especially over and over and over again), and moreso when you realize just how easy it’d be if you were clicking with your mouse.

The UI for the PC version is much like the standard MMO UI.

Worst of all, console players can’t actually TARGET MOBS.

Oh yes, you heard that right. What you CAN do is sort of aim your character in the general direction of a mob and pray to a god who mocks you. There is no way to scroll between possible targets that I’m aware of. You just…run at things and hope your character finds them.

Let’s not even discuss the pain and suffering involved with trying to position an AOE ability. Let’s just…*pinches the bridge of her nose*…no, let’s just not.

If you haven’t bought this yet, buy it for the computer and save yourself some very very very very painfully stupid porting problems.

The Game Guide

Yes, I’m one of those people that like to buy the game guide, particularly if it has pretty pictures in it. Yes, it’s expensive.

In the case of Dragon Age, I’d say the game guide is well worth the money if you, like me, don’t want to miss things. All the subquests are included, as well as some pretty useful information about each of your companion – gifts they like, how to unlock their personal quests, hints on starting a romance with them…

There’s ALSO a guide in there on how to achieve four-way in-game nookie if you’re interested. Not that you are, of course.

Moving on.

The guide, however, was obviously written by people who know the game well, and I’d be surprised to find they actually gave the guide to someone new to the game and said “use this to play!” and took notes to improve it.

Because in a lot of ways, it really sucks for usability.

The side-quests for each area are in a separate section at the back of the book, NOT included in the section of the book with the area they are in. So if I want to work through the main quest line AND the subquests at the same time, I have to keep flipping back and forth between the pages on the book. Heck, even if I’m only doing sidequests, they refer to maps that are only in the front of the book.

Besideswhich, sometimes the quest walkthroughs are impossibly vague. I ran through ALL of Orzammar looking for a female dwarf with a particular name to steal from (hey, she stole first!) because she wasn’t on any maps, the character didn’t tell me where she was, and the walkthrough just said “steal from her”. I was…underwhelmed.

Also, there are gifts in the game which aren’t in the game guide. If I wanted to GUESS, I wouldn’t have bought the game guide! *flail*

Aside from that, the pictures are VERY pretty, and it beats the pants off of not having the game guide. I just wish it were a BETTER game guide. I’m still pleased with the purchase.

Enough About All That, What Is The Game?

Okay, okay. Quick rundown of the game. If you’ve ever played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, you’re familiar with the basic premise, but I’ll lay it out here for anyone who hasn’t.

Creating a Character

You create YOUR unique character in any race/class/background allowed. Races are dwarf, human, and elf. Dwarves cannot be mages. Classes are Mage, Warrior, Rogue. Mages only get one background – the Circle Tower. There are upper class and lower class versions of the human/dwarf races, and the elves can be either lower class or Dalish, which are the prancing about in the woods variety of elves.

Background determines your story. You actually work through your background quests before getting into the true meat of the story, and some of the things you do in your background quest will determine things that happen later. This is actually a key element of what makes this game so fun – your choices have consequences, and for every choice you make (and you make a LOT of them, from tiny decisions on whether or not to give a beef bone to the dog through whether you’ll slaughter elves or werewolves) there are a handful of choices you did NOT make. If you’re like me, not knowing what happens behind the choices you didn’t make will be maddening.

Anyrate, an example of a background story choice coming back to haunt you is if you are a male dwarf from the nobility (see how all three choices matter?) and you decide to sleep with a particular dwarf female before you go to the Deep Roads, when you come BACK to Orzammar later, she will have your child and demand that you regain your lost honor so the child can be raised as a noble.

So, you choose your race, class, and background. Your background story ALWAYS ends up with you running off with a guy named Duncan to become a Grey Warden, one of a group of people dedicated to protecting the land from the Darkspawn Blight, which is about to happen (lucky you).

Your Party

You become a Grey Warden, the Darkspawn overrun the land, and when the dust clears, you find yourself with yourself, Alastair (a young, handsome, noble Grey Warden with a great sense of humor and the cutest little scar in his lip…wait, where were we? *cough*), and Morrigan (a cynical mage) as your companions. If you played your cards right, you either have or will soon have the cheerful Dog (whom you can rename and who is a pseudo-warrior), a shoe-loving rogue named Leilana, and a grouchy dps warrior named Sten. From there, your journey’s path is up to you – which area you go to next will determine which characters become available to join your party, but you gain the option of a healing mage named Wynne, a smart-mouthed assassin named Zevran, a dry-witted golem-warrior named Shale (downloaded content only), a dwarf named Oghren, and a few other miscellaneous characters as well.

You can only have four characters in your party at one time, and one of those characters is always YOU. So you must build and choose your party wisely. When you or any other character, for that matter, level up, can can spend stat points, ability points, and skill points to shape your characters in whatever way you like.

You go about your merry way, gathering support from various groups for the coming battle to stop the Blight.

Battle

Battle kinda sucks. It sucks more because of the stuff I mentioned up in the console rant, but I think it’d kinda suck anyway. You can set up each character to have pretty detailed AI choices – everything from telling them they’re supposed to be ranged fighters to detailing that Wynne should use a particular healing spell on a specific party member if he is under a certain percentage of health.

Even with all that control…it kinda sucks.

Wynne constantly runs up and begs the mobs to smack her in the mouth. Rogue characters refuse to stay behind the mobs for backstabbing. They’re frustrating to control, and can’t be trusted on their own. Choosing spells or abilities to use isn’t really much fun, either.

So yeah. In my highly biased opinion, battles aren’t any fun. Either they’re ridiculously easy or stupidly impossible, and there doesn’t seem to be a happy middle road.

Lucky for the game, the battle is the ONLY thing that sucks, but unlucky for the game, it kinda takes up a large portion of what you’re expected to do. You know. What with it being a battle-based RPG and all.

The developers appear to be under the bizarre impression that adding friendly fire will ensure replayability (seriously? As frustrating as it is to control battle, you think making me be worried I may kill my own people is going to make this MORE fun for me?) and have left in some options to make the game “harder” by adding it. I do not intend to play on those settings.

Music

Music and sounds in the game are great. Not quite on par with World of Warcraft or Aion, but subtle and very well done.

Voice acting is well above par in almost every case. Fantastic job.

Controls

Controls for the character are pretty decent, although I constantly chose the wrong lever or trigger to hit when trying to move inside of the menus on the console version. I LONG for a mouse pointer.

Still, opening chests and whatnot is pretty easy, though I accidentally engage my party members in conversation too often when I’m trying to loot bodies. Remember, on the console, all I can do is sort of POINT my character at the thing I want them to interact with. My party members keep walking all over the bleedin’ corpses. No, I do NOT want to have a chat with you right now, Shale. I am trying to rifle these corpses for goodies. Kindly remove your GIANT STONE FOOT from their heads.

Visuals

Visuals are…eh.

The cut scenes are very well done, but the graphics engine looks…old. Aion is gorgeous. Dragon Age is…presentable. Models look awkward when they run and character creation is easy – there aren’t many options that don’t look ugly or silly or worse. I might not feel quite so negative about it if I hadn’t been introduced to Dragon Age by  some of the VERY gorgeous videos released by their marketing department, depicting realistic and vivid character faces and movements. The difference between the two is…unfortunate.

So…Um…

If I’m not playing it for the visuals, or the music, or the controls, or the BATTLE, why the heck AM I playing it?

The STORY. The characters. The world.

Oh, my word, it’s incredible.

There is SO. MUCH. STORY here.

Romance

Love to play matchmaker? Most (not all, but most) of the possible party members can be romanced – and some can be romanced by characters of either gender.

That’s right. This game allows cross-gender romancing (Leilana and Zevran, if you’re interested).

Also, to the menfolk looking for female love out there? I recommend making a female character and romancing Alastair. Take notes. HOLY SWOON, Batman. I’ve yet to meet a more endearing game hero. I swear, I actually blushed the first time his character kissed mine.  I know I’m not the only female gamer on my twitter list half in love with those pixels.

Characters

Even beyond just romance, all of the characters are so interesting. Talking to them will reveal some great details about the world and their characters. Your responses with either improve your standing with them, or piss them off. Characters that like you more will have more interesting and personal dialogue choices.

Also, the characters will banter with each other as you walk around town, doing quests. They interact with each OTHER, which is often hilarious. Oghren the dwarf finds an unlikely friend in Wynne, who shows an unexpected appreciation for fine ale and wine. Shale is always good for a plaintive request that you go back to squishing the heads of things. Wynne teases Alastair about his affection for you (assuming you’re in a romance with him). Morrigan smarts off at…everyone.

It’s just plain fun.

Well, except when it’s frustrating. Many of the dialogue choices have a (Persuade) or (Cunning) note in front of them. Some of them could do with a (Playful) as well. Too often, I make a dialogue choice that pisses off one of the characters I’m trying to make friends with, and I haven’t a clue why.

Random

There are also some silly/random things that I just adore. “Distinctive Landmarks” appear throughout the zones. If you control Dog and inspect them, he’ll mark his territory and invoke “Mabari Dominance”, which gives him a bonus to armor and attack for that zone. Shale (the golem) will stomp any pigeons he finds. He also calls all of your party members “it” when speaking directly to you. Zevran flirts with everyone. Dog will “fetch” things for you – gifts for other characters, cake, wine, notes…small children…

Tragedy

The story is also full of tragedy and horror. Sure, the fights are bloody (and your characters walk around covered in blood spatter), and killing any of the ogres nets you a slow-motion awesome death scene…

…but sometimes the storylines just break your heart, too. Can there be such a thing as a right and good choice? The writers certainly don’t make it easy on you.

The bone-chilling chant of the lost dwarf in the Deep Roads still gives me goosebumps, and the truth behind the manufacture of golems and Caridan’s choice take my breath away.

What would you be willing to do in order to stop the Darkspawn?

Summary

I really wish the gameplay or the graphics were stunning enough for me to replay this multiple times, through as many scenarios and group compositions as possible. As it is, I think I’ll settle for once as a good guy (human female noble has a chance to become queen!)  and once as a total jerk. Sometimes, being nice to these people just sticks in my craw, and I can’t wait to get my elf to tell them what’s REALLY on my mind.

As it is, maybe one replay is all I’ll get. Battle is just too clunky, especially on the console. The story is fun, but once I know the story, the HOURS of gameplay weigh heavily on my time.

I’ll rate this one as an extremely strong, but temporary diversion. I expect I’ll be back to Aion before the year is out, but I am enjoying my time in the world of Ferelden while I have it.