ESO Casual Frustration

I want to start this post off by stating how much I love ESO. The crafting is amazing. The game is beautiful. It is simple to find a group and the combat is extremely fun to me. I love ESO, but right now it's not for me.

Every time I log into ESO I become frustrated within 10 mins of playing it; I'm constantly forced to go back to town to empty my bags. It's a game breaker for me because I only get an hour or less during the week to play games and I don't want to spend 30-40 min of it in town managing my bags. This it my typical night in ESO:

1. Kill things for 10 min before my bags are full.

2. Port to town.

3. Go to vendor and see what I can sell to make money to upgrade my bags.

4. Notice 80% of my bag space is full of crafting materials that are worth 0 at the vendor.

5. Run to full bank to see what can stack.

6. Bags still at 50% full.

7. Run to crafting station to break down drops.

8. Run to another crafting station to break down drops that are not in same area as last crafting station.

9. See what I can craft to help level my crafting that is way behind my character. Which means I need to go back to newbie zone to farm... Screw that.

10. Go back to bank to see what can stack.

11. Bags still 40-50% full of crap I need to craft but my bank is full and the mats are 0 gold at vendor.

12. 30 mins in town has passed and I've only killed and quested for 10 mins. I now only have 20 min to play, max.

13. Port to where I was questing.

15. I log out in frustration knowing I'll have to do this exact same thing tomorrow and I'm still 400 gold short of getting more bag space. That is just on me but my full bank too and that costs more money.

I love the game, but this system to get me to go to town and slow me down is pissing me off. I just don't have time for this type of system. Unfortunately, that means a game I love 90% of the time, won't be played by me because I play to relax not to get frustrated. It's not even about money to me. If this game was free to play I think I'd be more pissed because then I'd know for sure this system would be in place to get me to use a cash shop to buy more bags.

You see, it's really not the game it's me. My lifestyle does not jive with how ESO needs to be played. It pains me a lot because I really want to play the game.

Reaching out to my guild and Twitter followers I hear comments like:

1. I have a Mule or several Mules for that. Ya, not and option for me and it sounds a horrible way to get people to make alts.

2. ESO bag space is a nightmare. So it's not just me that had this problem.

A lot of people have this problem,  but they can cope because of their play style or their blind love for the Elder Scrolls IP. I could care less about the IP and my play style obviously doesn't fit this game. It's time for me to put the game aside until I feel I have time for it or something changes.

Bye bye ESO. I've loved and lost.

It Is Your Fault MMOs are Single Player Games! Stop Blaming The Game.

My father said to me when I was a pimple faced teenager, "Son... You choose to react to what others say the way you want to. They do not force you to do or feel anything. It's your choice."

I cried for an hour and ran away screaming, "YOU HATE ME!"

Used time and time again is the saying, "You see the glass half full or half empty Daniel Son. It's up to you young padawan to choose your path."

In MMOs we choose to make them single player games. Yes, they could have systems like mentoring or down leveling to assist players in MMOing, but let's be real, most people won't use those systems anyways. It's easier to complain an MMO is a "single player" game made into an MMO to suck our bank's dry.

Wait... Let me finish before you run to the comments and give up on interacting with me and others before you even insert your name in the first field. Yup, blogs are dead for the same reason MMOs are single player games. You!

The story continues...

For the past 5-6 years MMOs have been becoming more and more single player games or as the elite say, "Carebear for casuals". Oh, that's a good guild name! Even though the games have the old systems that made MMOs so multiplayer, they've added systems to make grouping easier. Unfortunately, those systems make it easier to be less social. Again, we are back to glasses half full or half empty. However you look at MMOs and their features there are going to be downsides to all of them.

Everquest 2 has a mentoring system to help people group with lower level people. GW2 has a down leveling system for the same reason. Still, people do not socialize or make the game more multiplayer. They're selfish and do what it takes to achieve their goals in their single player game. So why don't new games add these "must have"  mentoring systems everybody wants so bad? I'm guessing the negative in implementing it at launch is greater than the positive. Why not just do away with levels? In essence, GW2 and The Secret World really don't need levels, but if they totally went away with levels people would lack the push to move forward in the game. Levels add an easy goal to keep people engaged or if you want to be negative, it keeps them tugging at your wallet. When do most people quit playing an MMO? That's right, level cap. Not because of the lack of content, but because the lack of, "now what the hell do I do?" Umm you could socialize and do group things... Naaa too hard. People are asshats. There isn't BLANK system... Ect ect excuse excuse... Your fault!

I make it a point when I log into an MMO to socialize with my guild. You know what? Most of the time nobody responds to me. They're too busy doing their thing. Oh, I've been told it's because they're just in a voice chat, so I boot up the preferred voice chat and nobody. I even ask if people are using it because I get 0 conversation back. Still, nothing! No its not my guild. I'm talking a span of games over 6 years and several highly active guilds, even in WoW. Nobody chats anymore. MMOs are single player games because of us not a lack of features to hold our hands. We are at fault for the lack of M in the MMO. Not the fist M but the second M.

No matter how hard a new MMO tries to be multiplayer, it will only ever make it half empty. You are the only one that can make the glass half full.

Why O Why Did I Pre-order Wildstar?!?!

Last night I did the deed, I refused my wife sex to pre-order Wildstar. What the hell was I thinking?!?!

I'm just kidding. My wife and I were like 2 Chuas fighting over the last slice of rowsdower bacon strip. And in normal human adult terms that translates to: I pre-ordered Wildstar, we went to bed, and as I leaned over to kiss her good night, my penis touched her leg and her breasts grazed my hand. Then, we slept great exhausted from our thought of going further than that. Sorry, but being intimate during the week is like guild events during the week lasting until 12am , I just don't have the energy for that.

Trust me you youngins, you get to my age and raiding becomes a chore if done during the week. If I stayed up that late raiding panties or a dragon with halitosis, I wouldn't recover for months. I wish I was as resilient as I used to be, but I'm not. I have pains, insomnia at times, children barfing on the cats, the cats barfing on the children, and my balls forgotten for months at a time; staying up late to play a video game is the last thing I need.

That being said, one of the things that interests me the most about Wildstar is the raiding. It also pissed me off the most. Over the last few months I've been going back and forth about buying Wildstar for various reasons to include raiding. In the end I made a list of why I wanted to play it and why I didn't. Obviously, the WANT exceed the NOT and I'll show you why...

WANT:

1. RAIDING AND WARPLOTS: These are exactly the same to me. I need a large group of people to achieve these and as a social gamer, that makes me horny. The thought of 39 dudes and 1 woman coming... together... sweaty... loads... of loot and fun, just gets my heart pumping with excitement.

2. HOUSING: Besides the fact that I'd like to see non-instanced housing, Wildstar's housing looks amazing. All the things you can do is jaw-dropping. Why they didn't go the route of having a in-game store filled with housing cosmetics to fund the game like Guild Wars 2 instead of a pay 2 play model, is beyond me. There is so much potential in making money through the housing aspect. I'm guessing NCSoft didn't want Wildstar to directly compete with GW2.

3. HUMOR: From the first day I heard about Wildstar, the game clicked with me. I loved their stupid sense of humor. Even though it is ridiculously over-the-top at times and very childish, I can connect with it somehow. I love the fact that when I level up the sounders says to me, "YAY YOU FUCKING DID IT SHIT FOR BRAINS! YAY FUCK YAY FUCK FUCK FUCK YAY!!! fuck."

That subtle type of humor just makes me smile. My life day in and day out is serious business and it's nice to go home and let my pubes out from time-to-time. Bushy Bushy Blonde Hair Do! You know, the game might be too cartoony or not worth the $15 a month, but those little moments I spend smiling at the stupid shit Wildstar has to offer is worth the free 30 days.

NOT:

1. RAIDING AND WARPLOTS: I know deep down in my heart I won't be able to raid or do Warplots. For one, I can't stay up late enough during the week to even massage some fantastic boobies. Second, the other boobie. Third, the people I guild with are just like me, old. We have families, full-time jobs, puking pets, neglected boobies, laundry, alcohol to be drank, depression pills, lack of interest after 30 days because of the monthly payment, and we're damn exhausted from all this. It just pisses me off!

2. HUMOR: Some days the game is just too "in your face". I'm a human being and that means I get grumpy and annoyed. I just don't feel like having "Las Vegas Strip"  experiences every night. It's fun to do in little doses, but after awhile I can see myself becoming numb to it and annoyed. Now I know how my wife feels when I speak. I'm the last guy you'd think would be annoyed by unnecessary humor, but it might surprise you to know I annoy myself a lot. BALLS! Most of the stuff I write I say to myself, "Haaa Haaa Haaa... Man, I sound stupid. Why did I write that? People must think I'm crazy and gross and more crazy and nuts and and and..."

You really need to be in the mood for ridiculous humor. This game and my blog will suffer the same fate in the end because of our childish behavior. FAME AND DRUG ABUSE!

3. COMMUNITY: This kind of piggybacks humor. Because the game fosters a pompous, over-the-top cockiness, the community comes off as just plain dicks. Imagine a League of Legends community that all think they're Jim Carry. Odd to think I think this is a negative, but when I'm playing a game I'm polite, helpful, and a damn nice guy. My blog is that other guy. I know how and when to turn off the dick. You could say I'm a pornstar and the Wildstar community is a bunch of frat boys daring each other to fuck elm trees. Sad thing is, they don't know they're being dicks they think they're funny. You're not, you're a dick!

Makes my stomach turn thinking a Wildstar fan will read this. I might have to throw up on their cat. Makes me sick!

4. THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE: I love TESO and playing Wildstar is going to take time away from that. Why I chose to pre-order Wildstar only hinged on 1 WANT and yesterday that WANT happened. I'll tell you about that in a bit.

After thinking about missing TESO game time and playing Wildstar with TESO, I felt relieved. I'm the type of gamer that hops from game to game every month and having 2 fresh MMOs to hop between sounds a little exciting. Like an orgy. Unfortunately, that will put me behind (and when I say behind /wink) my guild mates that hop between games. That don't stick with one game more than 30 days. That are as ADHD about MMOs as I am... Maybe, I won't get too far behind double penning these 2 games?

WINNING FACTOR:

THE RIVER

Yesterday he announced he will try Wildstar, but he's not too sure about the game. It kind of sounded a lot like me, but with more ice cream.

You see, River and I go way back as bloggers. You could say we're the OG's of MMO blogging. We don't take no shit. We don't conform to the ass kissing ways. We post dafuckever we want, and some developer once gave us pieces to the same skeleton. That kind of makes us brothers in blogging. You don't throw that shit away and if your brother is going to kill some shit in a game, you stand by him killing some shit. Unless, he doesn't log in and you have time to kill some shit while your wife is soaping up her milky white, silky soft, breasts in the shower. Then and only then, we shall not stand as one.

In all seriousness, River is a great friend and his pre-order of Wildstar made it a no brainer for me. Most likely we'll just play it for 30 days and he'll go back to WoW and I'll play TESO, but it's that 30 days the Latency Lowlifes will ride again, that makes it all worth it to me.

... Oh and fuck you feminist! You're welcome River!

EDIT: It seems I was mistaken and River lied to me, by not pre-ordering the game. He never said he pre-ordered the game, but when I said River I meant Rowan. Even tho Rowan isn't like River and is way more polite, I consider him a soft OG like me. Good thing he pre-ordered the game!

DOUBLE EDIT: Soo, Rowan didn't pre-order the game either...  I'm sure some motherfucker pre-ordered Wildstar and I'll play with him! Nunyall evar evar evar have my back during a zombie apocalypse! You all be trippin my ass just because you think it's funny! Stupid Wildstar bunny chicks and gerbils making me talk to the bushes naked in front of the police station!

Wildstar, The Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft Oh My!

One day you're running though the field killing all the flowers; the next day your dead body is giving life to flowers some other asshole kid is going to trample over.

A new beautiful game is given life and it's human nature to crush the shit out if it so nobody else can enjoy it. Whether it's on purpose or by ignorant accident, people are so self-absorbed they don't care what they kill. Kill it with hate or love, it is still dead in the end.

It's a person's right to walk the path they walk and if their feet fall carelessly out of laziness, gingerly with love, or bat-shit crazy with hate, it's that person's right. Good on them for choosing the path they walk.

As I get older I've gotten more pains, seen the doctor's more frequently, and felt more and more weak inside and out. These new games spring up full of life and energy like I used to have.  The older they get the more withered and useless they become. Like me, they will die and be forgotten. But it's the journey we take not the end right? We breed to pass on our legacy and our memories.

Games are like our babies and through them we can express ourselves and pass on our life experiences. As we're parenting them through their adolescents we choose to love, ignore, or beat the living shit out of them because frankly, the baby is ugly and stupid. As a community of gamers we are the step-parents to these games when they launch. We didn't stay awake for 24 hours on launch day while the developers pushed their baby out their vagina. No! We came 4-5 years later holding a bottle of Jack Daniel's tugging at a ball of lint-yarn lodged in our bellybutton that smells like rotten cheese. As we drunkenly look down at our new kid we adopted we say to our loving, developer spouse,  " What the fuck were you thinking!"

From that moment on we decided how we're going to parent that child. Like the many flowers we've stepped on over the years, we choose how to proceed. Unfortunately as creatures of habit, we'll treat the game they way our parents treated us growing up. Of course, we're free willed too and we can choose a different path if we want. It's harder, but it could make the future of all games better. Most likely, we won't though.

In the end, you're going to be dead and that game you passionately loved or hated won't matter anymore. You're dead and most likely if you took the time to poor all your energy into loving or hating video games...

... You're like me and nobody is going to start a meme to remember you or set up a monument. We're just flesh waiting to nourish the spring flowers.

#TESO Updated FAQ

There are so many questions concerning the up coming MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online, I decided to answer a few questions to help the community out. This is in no way in affiliation with Zenimax. I take full responsibility for any question truthfully answered with out blowing smoke up your ass. All questions and answers are a product of gathering discombobulated fragmentary Riga mortise and shall not wither thine mental health in any way herein. Legally speaking, of course.

Without further ado, here is the updated Elder Scrolls Online FAQ:

Q- Can I play Elder Scrolls Online offline and by myself?

A- No! Elder Scrolls Online in an online game that has no single player offline mode. You might want to Google the word,  "Online"  in your spare time. That also requires you to be online.

Q- Can I play ESO by myself connected to their servers?

A- Of course.  You are more than welcome to play the game all by yourself. It's just like masturbating. You can always play with yourself, but it's always nice to have other people throwing their pinkies in your butt right before you're about to climax. It's not as exciting doing yourself because you know when it's going to happen. That and your hand doesn't smell like shit afterwards.

Q- How much does ESO cost?

A- You can pre-order the basic game for $59.99 and there are several options higher priced depending what you want to spend. There is also a $14.99 monthly fee after the first free 30 days.

Q- Wow! That is expensive. Why the hell would I pay $14.99 a month when I could just play Skyrim for free?

A- Nobody is twisting your arm to play ESO. Go right ahead and play Skyrim all you want. It's your choice and you will not get the same experience from Skyrim as you would ESO. Skyrim is only a single player game and does not require servers to maintain or more employees to develop new content at the speed an MMO requires.

Q- Well, there are just as good games out there that are free to play MMOs that don't require a monthly fee, I'll just play one of those or wait for the next non-MMO Elder Scrolls game.

A- You're more than welcome to play something else.  Oh and don't expect another Elder Scrolls single player game for many years. You really think Zenimax will make a new Elder Scrolls game on the heels of their flagship franchise they spent millions of dollars making? You really think they'll want to lose players paying $15 a month to a single player game? Why do you think Skyrim will never have a co-op or multiplayer mode? Because that would take revenue away from ESO.

Q- Well I'm not going to buy into their greed.

A- Good don't fuckface!

Q- You're kind of a rude Q&A person.

A- That's not a question asshole!

Q- Ok here's a question for you, you jerk: Why did Zenimax ruin a great franchise by making an online Elder Scrolls game?

A- Because they like money just like anybody else. They're not going to make games for charity out of the kindness of their heart. They have a profitable business they need to keep running and $15 a month makes a huge amount of money if they do a good job at it.

Q- I'm not going to support their greedy ways.

A- Good you shouldn't then. You should forget about the game and move on with your life. Don't be one of those lowlife losers that bitches and complains about games you have no intentions of ever playing because you don't agree with their ideas. Just let it go and move on.

Q- But I need to let the world know my opinion to educate them so they don't buy into this type of greedy business model.

A- Since 1999 when I started playing Everquest people said the same damn thing you're saying right now. Do you know how much that changed the way people played MMOs? Over 100 million people have tried WoW and at its peak it had almost 13 million people playing it and paying $15 a month. Just last quarter 200,000 people came back or started playing WoW. You know how much MMO companies F2P or P2P would jizz in their pants if they had a base of 200,000 people? Grab a bucket because the boat is about to sink.

Q- This Q&A was stupid and I didn't learn a single valuable thing about the game.

A- That is because you're too ignorant to change your way of thinking. The Q&A is only as good as the questions you ask and your willingness to accept the answer. Your stubbornness is keeping you from understanding minor business ethics. Greedy or not, you accept the way they want to run their business or move on and find some other company that conforms to your way of thinking. 

I for one would rather not pay a $15 monthly fee, but if I want to play ESO beyond the included 30 days I'll have to decide at that time of its worth it to me. Right now the $60 entry fee is worth it to me, but I'll have to wait and see if I play beyond the 30 days.