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The Birth of Episodic Gaming

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The Birth of Episodic Gaming

Unread postby icycalm » 08 Aug 2020 13:05

https://www.patreon.com/posts/40211161

icycalm wrote:Cult War Journal #3: The Birth of Episodic Gaming

So in a few minutes, at exactly noon UTC on Saturday August 8, 2020, a grave error in videogames, a truly monumental error, will be corrected, and in the process a new format of videogames will be launched: the episodic format. A genuine episodic format, not merely a buzzword meant to sell DLC. I've already analyzed it in depth in my 2018 essay, Designing An MMORPG That Doesn't Suck, or The True Episodic Gaming.

But what is the error in question? It is the error of treating all MMOs as if they are MMORPGs, and therefore letting their servers run 24/7/365, as if it made no difference, as if the server schedule isn't a crucial part of the design of an MMO game. You see, MMORPGs are not really MMOs in the sense that all their players can interact with each other. These games were never about that, never about proper interactivity. Have you heard of the phrase "glorified chatroom"? That's what MMORPGs have always been, since they don't really allow players to interact beyond the co-op aspect of their team, which you can get in a normal co-op game like Gears of War anyway. So what are the thousands of other players in the game for? Well, they are there to give you a vague sense of being in a real world, but without the dangers associated with such a world, such as players more powerful than you beating the snot out of you and taking all your stuff. And of course, if the other players can't hurt you, they can't help you either, so you aren't really interacting with them in any meaningful way beyond just chatting with them when you are bored (and believe you me, you will get bored). Hence, glorified chatrooms.

Now when the whole MMO survival craze started with DayZ, the whole point of the game was unfettered player interaction. It never seems to have occurred to anyone that when you throw open the doors to such a level of interactivity, perhaps the always-on server schedule wouldn't work any more. And, as it happens, in DayZ in particular it did work, because in DayZ you don't build anything and barely craft anything more complex than a bandage, so there's nothing too valuable for you to lose when you inevitably get ganked (and love it). But when Rust came along, and added Minecraft's mechanics to the DayZ formula, the formula didn't work no more, because in Minecraft you make giant big things that take days and weeks to build, and it's retarded to take all that away from the player while he's offline and sleeping or something. EVERYONE realized there's a problem here, but of course they sought the solution in an imaginary conception of "toxicity", instead of in the retarded 24/7 server schedule they inherited from MMORPGs. That schedule worked in MMOs where players were forbidden from interacting with each other, or at the most in those in which they can interact but in which they've little to nothing to lose, as in the pure survival games; but in games like Rust in which you build essentially entire civilizations, that old, outdated model no longer works, and the game concept collapses. Moreover, it is precisely because it collapses that the only type of player who ends up playing the game in the long term, is the bad kind. The kind of person who has no life, and who's therefore too stupid to even play the game properly. That's why the servers of these games are essentially zoos, and it's a mission to find a decent person in them. Decent people DO play these games, but only in short bursts, because they realize that in the long- and even the medium-term, these games, the way they are set up, are destructive, and essentially unplayable. If you can take a week off as a holiday to play the game 24/7, you'll have an incredible time; but how many weeks like that can you take off per year? That's why you rarely meet normal adults in these games, while the vast majority of the playerbase has some type of mental issue. Meanwhile, FP4X games fare better in this regard, because the steep strategy requirements and persistent nature of the world mean that you can lose MONTHS of effort by making a wrong move, not merely days or weeks as in the lesser survival-builders. So you generally get better people in these games, and certainly people who BEHAVE better because they know what they stand to lose if they piss off the wrong person (just like the real world, by the way, which these games were designed to mirror). That said, you still need to devote your life to these games, because they too are stupidly run 24/7, and that's why so few people play these games, and they are so wildly unpopular with both the public and the hack critics. So it's not just that these games are essentially unplayable in the long-, and often even in the medium-term; it's that, even during the short-term that they can be intensely enjoyed, the experience is marred by the fact that EVERY OTHER PERSON IN THE SERVER IS A MORON. Much like life, once again, so in a sense that aspect too is part of the greatness of these games, as I have explained at length in my monumental 2019 essay, Why the Highest Artform Attracts the Lowest Lifeforms.

But all of that ends today. In a few minutes even. With the launch of Uberust Season 1, Episode 1, SANITY returns to MMO gaming, and with a few simple tweaks (simple to implement, not to devise), all of the genre's problems are solved, and they can finally be enjoyed to their full potential in the medium- and long-term too, not merely in the short-term. We are even doing unheard-of things like forbidding Discord voice-chat and using only the in-game voice feature, so that every word we say will be heard by anyone in the game world around us, and only by them. No more magic telepathy, and no more eerie silence in the middle of a war. And the Uberust server is the only one that can pull it off, because good luck getting the mentally ill aspies in all the other servers to cooperate. They want to WIN, dude, and they'll destroy everyone's fun, including their own to achieve this, and I wish them all the best, as I am now rid of them and can play the game with my friends the way it begs to be played.

And what a game it is. I can even PROVE to you, mathematically, that it's the best game ever. For aren't games supposed to be all about interactivity? No one denies this, even the doofuses say it. So wouldn't the best games be precisely THE MOST INTERACTIVE ONES then? QED bitches. Good luck finding a more interactive game than Life is Feudal, where even THE VERY GROUND YOU WALK ON IS INTERACTIVE, every single patch of dirt in the entire massive continent. It's called "terraforming", and it's the final frontier not only for mankind, but for videogames too. And though Rust has no terraforming, it offers countless other forms of interaction that LiF lacks. Like the fact you can start a band and give concerts for example. Or open a hotel. Or start a quiz show, etc.

So what I am trying to say, to cut this short because I have a game to play in 12 minutes, is that my Uberust is the best game ever—even better than LiF because it solves the server issue—or at any rate it WOULD be the best game if enough people played it so it could qualify for an MMO, because the 10 or 20 people we have in it now are not quite enough to achieve that distinction. Nevertheless, it's still a terrific game, and my hope is to build it up over the months and years into a full-blown MMO and show the industry that my episodic model is nothing less than the FUTURE of the ULTIMATE GENRE in the artform—at least until matrix life-support pods become available at the local GameStop, at which point we'll have other issues. Until then, however, the Insomnia "Uberust.net server" is where the future lies, which can be found in the Rust server browser on weekends between noon UTC and Sunday at midnight on months in which the event is running—and it'll be running all of August 2020, until August 30 at midnight UTC, when the event concludes and the winning team will be determined. Random teams and solo players are free to drop in the world, and they get seven hours per weekend like everyone else (check your remaining time by hitting Enter for the chat and typing /checktimer), but bear in mind the teams might see you as easy prey and wreck your shit and take your stuff. On the other hand, they might be nice and agree to ally, so anything is possible. And keep an eye on the Uberust site because I'll be updating it with a full rules rundown when I get around to it. Though random players don't have to abide by any rules—they essentially play the part of the "barbarians" in 4X games like Civilization, only here we call them "bandits" to match the theme—so you can just jump in and do whatever the hell you like, and reap the rewards... or face the consequences. And if you and/or your friends want to formally compete, talk to me and we'll set it up. People can jump in in midseason just fine.

And that's about all I had to say here, and good thing too because in ONE minute the ultimate battle starts and TRUE EPISODIC GAMING is inaugurated!

See you in the battlefield,

-icy


P.S. Search for "Uberust.net server" in the Modded section of the Rust server list.
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icycalm
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