About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
Listed among the "Top 100 PC Games Of All Time" by PC GAMER (2012), Divine Divinity is an epic role-playing game with hack-and-slash action, offering a huge world to explore and thousands of items to investigate, trade and use.
The game chronicles the never-ending battle between valiant heroes and the destructive powers of Chaos harnessed by the Black Ring, a cult of enduring evil. You play the role of the prophesised Chosen One who under the guidance of the wizard Zandalor must unite the seven races of Rivellon so that you may become the Divine One and stop the birth of the Lord of Chaos.
Previous Playtime
0 hours
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This
Well, I had heard good things about Divinity: Original Sin, but it was both the fourth game in a series and a little bit more expensive than I was willing to pay for, so I bought the first three games as part of a heavily discounted bundle.
Expectations and Prior Experience
First, I have get something off my chest: "Divine Divinity" is a terrible title. I mean, as opposed to what, non-divine divinity? It's been bugging me for years and may well be a contributing factor to why I waited so long to play it.
I'll probably like the game, though. It's an isomorphic action-rpg, and apparently one of the top 100 games of all time, at that. So unless it has some hidden offensiveness or unnecessary difficulty, it should be fine.
Other than the basic genre staples, I don't really know what to expect. A lot of items, apparently. Which can be good. I like futzing with items. But will it be enough? That plot looks as generic as generic can be. The worst case scenario is that it will be merely bland, but it's possible that it might hook me nonetheless.
Overall, I'm pretty optimistic.
Friday, October 20, 2017
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Offworld Trading Company - 20/20 hours
I'm in a difficult position in regards Offworld Trading Company. My only complaint about it is that I wish it was an entirely different game. By that I mean that I enjoyed playing it, and I found the mechanics to be both interesting and apt for what the game was trying to accomplish, but at its root, it is something I am not particularly interested in - a quick and simple multiplayer game of cutthroat economics.
Or, to be more precise, this is the sort of game that's fun to play with friends, because it's competitive without being violent and it's tactically complex enough that no two matches are going to be exactly the same. But as a solitary activity . . . I have other things I'd rather do.
So that leaves me trying to put a vague and nameless feeling into words. I guess my experience with this game was one of "practice." I had to play it deliberately, and with my mind not on the present, but on the future. I was playing the game not for itself, but for what I might learn from it. Which, you know, is fine, but it had the unfortunate side effect of making it feel more like work than play.
This is definitely a game that I would play again, if I ever need a low time-commitment multiplayer game. I like that it is mostly pacifist (although the Black Market was kind of bullshit) and that you win by building yourself up rather than tearing your opponents down.
That said, I'm not sure when that situation will come up, so it is likely that it will take me years of owning this game before I get to my second twenty hours. I guess that's fine, though. Not every game has to become an obsession. If they did, how would it be possible to own two hundred of them . . .
(Oh, wow, I think I just had an epiphany that would have saved me a lot of trouble if I'd had it 4 years ago.)
Or, to be more precise, this is the sort of game that's fun to play with friends, because it's competitive without being violent and it's tactically complex enough that no two matches are going to be exactly the same. But as a solitary activity . . . I have other things I'd rather do.
So that leaves me trying to put a vague and nameless feeling into words. I guess my experience with this game was one of "practice." I had to play it deliberately, and with my mind not on the present, but on the future. I was playing the game not for itself, but for what I might learn from it. Which, you know, is fine, but it had the unfortunate side effect of making it feel more like work than play.
This is definitely a game that I would play again, if I ever need a low time-commitment multiplayer game. I like that it is mostly pacifist (although the Black Market was kind of bullshit) and that you win by building yourself up rather than tearing your opponents down.
That said, I'm not sure when that situation will come up, so it is likely that it will take me years of owning this game before I get to my second twenty hours. I guess that's fine, though. Not every game has to become an obsession. If they did, how would it be possible to own two hundred of them . . .
(Oh, wow, I think I just had an epiphany that would have saved me a lot of trouble if I'd had it 4 years ago.)
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Offworld Trading Company - 14/20 hours
My main takeaway, after 14 hours of playing this game, is that the people of future Mars are idiots. As near as I can tell, the various offworld trading companies are about as well-regulated as 19th century corporations. The way you win the game is by purchasing stock in all your rivals until you get a complete monopoly. And during all this, the space-SEC is nowhere to be found.
Maybe it's just a frontier mentality. There's something about having wide-open spaces, not yet developed by industry, that triggers a flaw in the human brain - "we don't have to worry about responsible stewardship of the land, there's plenty more where that came from." You'd think that after the Earth was ruined by reckless capitalism, people would be more diffident about exporting that system into space, but Offworld Trading Company doesn't seem to even acknowledge the irony (though, to be fair, it doesn't have much of a story, generally).
It's probably just a gameplay thing. You've got these businesses and you want one to be a winner and the others to be the losers. How do you bring it about? Just eliminate any player who spends too long in the red? That would probably not be tenable, given the particulars of the game's economy. There's a lot of time, especially at the beginning, where you have to borrow money to keep your business growing, and with the market as volatile as it is, this could lead to you being eliminated by accident. Having the elimination mechanic be a stock buyout puts your fate entirely in the hands of your opponents.
You just have to gloss over the worldbuilding implications, though. Like, the whole game revolves around colonies granting you land claims, but they don't seem to worry about the dangers of consolidation, of one corporation gaining overwhelming control over a significant portion of their economy, including their food, water, and air. When you add in the "black market" mechanic, where you can hire mercenaries to sabotage your rivals, it suggests a weak and feckless government that is incapable of enforcing the law.
I mean, it's not a pleasant thought, the idea that for all your infrastructure building, Mars will develop itself into the same sort of ecological dead-end that Earth has become, or that the future of the colonists will be one of exploitation at the hands of an unquestionable corporate monopoly. How does one even shop around for air, anyway?
I don't think Offworld Trading Company is meant to be an incisive critique of capitalism. Yet there are times it feels that way, when I ask myself "why am I doing this" and the only answer I can come up with is "I must acquire and consume and have more than all my rivals. I must be the only business left standing. Nothing must stand in the way of my wealth." And it is easy to get lost in this rapacity and jealousy, to forget the purpose of your building and development - to create a new life for the human race on Mars. It raises the uncomfortable question - would you hinder the enterprise, if there were greater profit in it for you?
It's likely not intentional ideology, though. It comes from being a multiplayer game at heart. Some games are cooperative, but very rarely so in the strategy genre. So if multiple people are going to play the same game, there have to be winners and losers. And if there are losers in a game primarily about economics, than there has to be (at least implied) misery on the story-layer. It is possible to imagine a world of universally improving material conditions, but if you have wealth as a win-state, than the lose-state almost has to be poverty. The grim implied story of the game comes from a combination of losing-as-poverty and the winner-take-all nature of multiplayer competition.
There's not really anything you can do but take the game at face value, though. If you want to make inferences about the broader world of Offworld Trading Company, you have to extrapolate from the game mechanics. Unfortunately, it looks like humanity took its greed and its short-sightedness with it into the stars. And I guess there's no remembering the mistakes of the past when it's much more profitable to forget.
Bleak. . .
At least I'll have my money to distract me.
Maybe it's just a frontier mentality. There's something about having wide-open spaces, not yet developed by industry, that triggers a flaw in the human brain - "we don't have to worry about responsible stewardship of the land, there's plenty more where that came from." You'd think that after the Earth was ruined by reckless capitalism, people would be more diffident about exporting that system into space, but Offworld Trading Company doesn't seem to even acknowledge the irony (though, to be fair, it doesn't have much of a story, generally).
It's probably just a gameplay thing. You've got these businesses and you want one to be a winner and the others to be the losers. How do you bring it about? Just eliminate any player who spends too long in the red? That would probably not be tenable, given the particulars of the game's economy. There's a lot of time, especially at the beginning, where you have to borrow money to keep your business growing, and with the market as volatile as it is, this could lead to you being eliminated by accident. Having the elimination mechanic be a stock buyout puts your fate entirely in the hands of your opponents.
You just have to gloss over the worldbuilding implications, though. Like, the whole game revolves around colonies granting you land claims, but they don't seem to worry about the dangers of consolidation, of one corporation gaining overwhelming control over a significant portion of their economy, including their food, water, and air. When you add in the "black market" mechanic, where you can hire mercenaries to sabotage your rivals, it suggests a weak and feckless government that is incapable of enforcing the law.
I mean, it's not a pleasant thought, the idea that for all your infrastructure building, Mars will develop itself into the same sort of ecological dead-end that Earth has become, or that the future of the colonists will be one of exploitation at the hands of an unquestionable corporate monopoly. How does one even shop around for air, anyway?
I don't think Offworld Trading Company is meant to be an incisive critique of capitalism. Yet there are times it feels that way, when I ask myself "why am I doing this" and the only answer I can come up with is "I must acquire and consume and have more than all my rivals. I must be the only business left standing. Nothing must stand in the way of my wealth." And it is easy to get lost in this rapacity and jealousy, to forget the purpose of your building and development - to create a new life for the human race on Mars. It raises the uncomfortable question - would you hinder the enterprise, if there were greater profit in it for you?
It's likely not intentional ideology, though. It comes from being a multiplayer game at heart. Some games are cooperative, but very rarely so in the strategy genre. So if multiple people are going to play the same game, there have to be winners and losers. And if there are losers in a game primarily about economics, than there has to be (at least implied) misery on the story-layer. It is possible to imagine a world of universally improving material conditions, but if you have wealth as a win-state, than the lose-state almost has to be poverty. The grim implied story of the game comes from a combination of losing-as-poverty and the winner-take-all nature of multiplayer competition.
There's not really anything you can do but take the game at face value, though. If you want to make inferences about the broader world of Offworld Trading Company, you have to extrapolate from the game mechanics. Unfortunately, it looks like humanity took its greed and its short-sightedness with it into the stars. And I guess there's no remembering the mistakes of the past when it's much more profitable to forget.
Bleak. . .
At least I'll have my money to distract me.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Offworld Trading Company - 8/20 hours
I thought for sure that I would breeze through this one. It has everything I like - infrastructure, build orders, pacifism, space ships, the whole deal. And while much of my delay has been about unrelated life stuff, I have to admit that part of it is, indeed due to the game itself.
It's just too fast-paced. You have to make a lot of decisions very quickly, and by the time you see the consequences of those decisions, the match is very nearly over. I never really get to the point where I start to feel an attachment to my business empire. So there's this moment, after the end of each match, where I have to decide whether I feel like starting everything from scratch. And more often than not, I don't.
Which isn't to say that I dislike this game. In fact, the opposite is true. I think it would be easier for me to play it if I liked it less. As paradoxical as that sounds, it comes down to the constantly resetting nature of long-term gameplay. If I'm enjoying myself at minute 30, I'd rather move on to minute 31, rather than go back to minute 0. If I disliked the game, it would all be the same.
I think this is another case where it all boils down to mastering my emotions. I have no terrible pressing need to keep playing this game, but I also don't have any particular aversion to doing so. I could probably do a half hour a day more or less indefinitely. The main problem is my self-imposed schedule. I'm not letting my actions be guided by my natural and spontaneous desires, and so even something I enjoy can seem like a chore.
You'd think that, having done this for three years now, I'd have a cure for that malaise, but the truth is, I feel like it's been getting worse. My life has been very unsettled recently, and I've been more vulnerable to the temptation to turn off my brain and consume more passive entertainment. Binge-watching Archer is not as satisfying as finishing a new game and writing a blog post about it, but it does take less of my mental energy.
Which isn't the fault of the game, I suppose. But its structure definitely doesn't help. It's too easy to wrongly feel like I've accomplished something significant. Winning a match is just a drop in the bucket, in terms of my blog project. It's repeating the process another 39 times that will get me across the finish line.
It's just too fast-paced. You have to make a lot of decisions very quickly, and by the time you see the consequences of those decisions, the match is very nearly over. I never really get to the point where I start to feel an attachment to my business empire. So there's this moment, after the end of each match, where I have to decide whether I feel like starting everything from scratch. And more often than not, I don't.
Which isn't to say that I dislike this game. In fact, the opposite is true. I think it would be easier for me to play it if I liked it less. As paradoxical as that sounds, it comes down to the constantly resetting nature of long-term gameplay. If I'm enjoying myself at minute 30, I'd rather move on to minute 31, rather than go back to minute 0. If I disliked the game, it would all be the same.
I think this is another case where it all boils down to mastering my emotions. I have no terrible pressing need to keep playing this game, but I also don't have any particular aversion to doing so. I could probably do a half hour a day more or less indefinitely. The main problem is my self-imposed schedule. I'm not letting my actions be guided by my natural and spontaneous desires, and so even something I enjoy can seem like a chore.
You'd think that, having done this for three years now, I'd have a cure for that malaise, but the truth is, I feel like it's been getting worse. My life has been very unsettled recently, and I've been more vulnerable to the temptation to turn off my brain and consume more passive entertainment. Binge-watching Archer is not as satisfying as finishing a new game and writing a blog post about it, but it does take less of my mental energy.
Which isn't the fault of the game, I suppose. But its structure definitely doesn't help. It's too easy to wrongly feel like I've accomplished something significant. Winning a match is just a drop in the bucket, in terms of my blog project. It's repeating the process another 39 times that will get me across the finish line.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Offworld Trading Company - 2/20 hours
So far, I've played the tutorial, a skirmish, and a couple of campaign missions. It's all been on the easiest difficulty, so there hasn't been any great stress or trouble. It's mostly just been a relaxing exercise in build order optimization, of the sort that I tend to really enjoy.
But I also get the feeling that this is the sort of game that is difficult to comment on at 2 hours. Eithr I've already seen most of what Offworld Trading Company has to offer, or there is a profound level of depth that will take me hours to appreciate. Possibly both. It certainly doesn't hide mechanics from you. There is a fairly shallow chain of infrastructure and most of the challenge in any individual mission appears to be adapting to the map. I'm sure that there are nuances to using the more advanced buildings, but individual matches tend to be over before that's necessary.
My guess is that this game is optimized for short multiplayer matches, and the intent is that you experience the whole of your company's arc - founding to expansion followed by either bankruptcy or monopoly - in about 30-60 minutes. It's something that doesn't take a lot of commitment, and which you're supposed to find interesting enough that you don't mind repeating it over and over again.
I think I'll have to take a "wait and see" approach here. I like manipulating the economy and seeing my company grow, but I dislike the way the game forces an eliminationist conflict so quickly. I think the main takeaway here is . . . that I like grinding?
That seems plausible. Which means that the main theme I'm going to be thinking of, going forward, is the difference between drawing out a process in order to pad the game's running time versus allowing for an ever-expanding player ambition by including open-ended high-tier content. It will probably take me a few hours to get a handle on it, though.
But I also get the feeling that this is the sort of game that is difficult to comment on at 2 hours. Eithr I've already seen most of what Offworld Trading Company has to offer, or there is a profound level of depth that will take me hours to appreciate. Possibly both. It certainly doesn't hide mechanics from you. There is a fairly shallow chain of infrastructure and most of the challenge in any individual mission appears to be adapting to the map. I'm sure that there are nuances to using the more advanced buildings, but individual matches tend to be over before that's necessary.
My guess is that this game is optimized for short multiplayer matches, and the intent is that you experience the whole of your company's arc - founding to expansion followed by either bankruptcy or monopoly - in about 30-60 minutes. It's something that doesn't take a lot of commitment, and which you're supposed to find interesting enough that you don't mind repeating it over and over again.
I think I'll have to take a "wait and see" approach here. I like manipulating the economy and seeing my company grow, but I dislike the way the game forces an eliminationist conflict so quickly. I think the main takeaway here is . . . that I like grinding?
That seems plausible. Which means that the main theme I'm going to be thinking of, going forward, is the difference between drawing out a process in order to pad the game's running time versus allowing for an ever-expanding player ambition by including open-ended high-tier content. It will probably take me a few hours to get a handle on it, though.
Friday, October 6, 2017
Offworld Trading Company - Initial Thoughts
About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
Mars has been colonized. Now, Earth's greatest corporate titans have been invited to build companies to support it. The competition to dominate the market is fierce in this fast-paced economic RTS from Civilization IV lead Designer, Soren Johnson.
Venture to Mars to Earn Your Fortune
With space travel becoming a reality and the easy-to-reach resources on Earth dwindling, hopeful people seeking their fortune are rushing to the next great frontier: Mars. Rekindle humanity’s adventurous spirit by leaving Earth behind and make a new name for yourself as a titan of industry on the red planet.
Discover the Origin of the Major Martian Businesses
Determine the fate of the Martian colonization effort in the dynamic single-player campaign mode. Multiple types of CEOs, each with unique traits and abilities, deliver many hours of discovery into their motivations and how they intend to dominate the future of Mars.
Experience New Adventure in Multiplayer
Turn your friends into frenemies! With a robust and exciting multiplayer mode that can support up to eight players, no two games of Offworld Trading Company are the same! The market fluctuates depending on which of the four starting corporations you and your opponents choose and what resources you accumulate. Strategy is key, and tenuous alliances between rivals are easily broken when the opportunity arises.
Control the Market before your Competition Controls You
In Offworld Trading Company, market forces are your weapons, not guns or bombs. The real-time player driven market is your sword and your shield here. In order to win, you will need to make tough choices on what resources to acquire, what goods to build and sell, how to interact with the planet's thriving underworld, and what stocks to acquire and when. With over a dozen different resources available and a constantly changing market economy, no two paths of victory are alike -- each game holds a different “key” to dominating your competition.
Previous Playtime
6 hours
Expectations and Prior Experience
My friend Daniel bought this for me as a gift awhile back, and we've played multiplayer maybe a dozen times since then. Aside from the tutorial, this will be my first time going solo and I basically have only one agenda - learn enough about the game to beat the AI. Most of the time, when we play, it was on a team against the computer, and every time we get spanked. One of these days, I'd really like to avenge myself and my friend.
That is also, ironically, my main worry about the game. It is intensely competitive, almost off-puttingly so. I like that it is a (mostly) pacifist game, but am somewhat discombobulated by the idea that the goal is to non-violently destroy your rivals. It will be interesting to see which of my tendencies wins out - my love for peacefully building things or my dislike of absolutist victory conditions.
I think the outlook is favorable, though, especially if there is an option to disable the black market. This is an RTS that focuses on base building and economy and dispenses with all that tedious military conflict and associated battlefield tactics. The worst case scenario is that I turn out to be so bad at it that my matches don't last long enough for me to enjoy the game's central premise. But that's what easy mode is for.
Mars has been colonized. Now, Earth's greatest corporate titans have been invited to build companies to support it. The competition to dominate the market is fierce in this fast-paced economic RTS from Civilization IV lead Designer, Soren Johnson.
Venture to Mars to Earn Your Fortune
With space travel becoming a reality and the easy-to-reach resources on Earth dwindling, hopeful people seeking their fortune are rushing to the next great frontier: Mars. Rekindle humanity’s adventurous spirit by leaving Earth behind and make a new name for yourself as a titan of industry on the red planet.
Discover the Origin of the Major Martian Businesses
Determine the fate of the Martian colonization effort in the dynamic single-player campaign mode. Multiple types of CEOs, each with unique traits and abilities, deliver many hours of discovery into their motivations and how they intend to dominate the future of Mars.
Experience New Adventure in Multiplayer
Turn your friends into frenemies! With a robust and exciting multiplayer mode that can support up to eight players, no two games of Offworld Trading Company are the same! The market fluctuates depending on which of the four starting corporations you and your opponents choose and what resources you accumulate. Strategy is key, and tenuous alliances between rivals are easily broken when the opportunity arises.
Control the Market before your Competition Controls You
In Offworld Trading Company, market forces are your weapons, not guns or bombs. The real-time player driven market is your sword and your shield here. In order to win, you will need to make tough choices on what resources to acquire, what goods to build and sell, how to interact with the planet's thriving underworld, and what stocks to acquire and when. With over a dozen different resources available and a constantly changing market economy, no two paths of victory are alike -- each game holds a different “key” to dominating your competition.
Previous Playtime
6 hours
Expectations and Prior Experience
My friend Daniel bought this for me as a gift awhile back, and we've played multiplayer maybe a dozen times since then. Aside from the tutorial, this will be my first time going solo and I basically have only one agenda - learn enough about the game to beat the AI. Most of the time, when we play, it was on a team against the computer, and every time we get spanked. One of these days, I'd really like to avenge myself and my friend.
That is also, ironically, my main worry about the game. It is intensely competitive, almost off-puttingly so. I like that it is a (mostly) pacifist game, but am somewhat discombobulated by the idea that the goal is to non-violently destroy your rivals. It will be interesting to see which of my tendencies wins out - my love for peacefully building things or my dislike of absolutist victory conditions.
I think the outlook is favorable, though, especially if there is an option to disable the black market. This is an RTS that focuses on base building and economy and dispenses with all that tedious military conflict and associated battlefield tactics. The worst case scenario is that I turn out to be so bad at it that my matches don't last long enough for me to enjoy the game's central premise. But that's what easy mode is for.
Monaco - 20/20 hours
I'm finally done with Monaco. I think the main thing holding me back from finishing this game was the fact that I didn't want to. For most of the last week, I've been playing Starbound instead. It was primarily embarrassment at the thought of taking more than two weeks to finish a game that got me through it. Last night, I just sat down and did a seven hour marathon session.
Sort of. I actually just set the game on God Mode and ground for achievements. I feel a little bad about that, because I didn't actually earn things like the "Unscathed" achievement for finishing every mission without dying, and thus my Steam profile will seem deceptive to anyone who might take a look at it, but it gave me a goal and a direction. Without that, I'd have had to spend all that time sneaking around, and that's basically a non-starter.
I did play a couple of honest co-op games, and those were interesting. I could see how this game could be a lot of fun with four players, communicating over voice chat, and using their individual characters' unique abilities to execute a complex plan. However, that's not really the experience you get with random matches. All the times I tried it, I had only one teammate and we each did our separate thing in absolute silence. I'd rank that as slightly better than single-player stealth, but not by so much that I was willing to give up invisibility.
In the end, Monaco is another one of those games I respect rather than enjoy. It has a very simple presentation, but the intricate levels allowed for multiple approaches that could take advantage of a wide variety of character abilities, constrained be a tense fog-of-war mechanic that rewards observation, memory, and careful planning. It's impressive that so much of the game's complexity lies in the meta-game, and I think if I were an obsessive stealth game fan I would be able to get a lot of mileage out of it.
But I'm not, so I won't. Before cheating my way through and making it a sub-par shooter, I was mostly frustrated by its difficulty. And it wasn't the sort of uplifting frustration that made me want to excel. It was the sort dull frustration that edges me towards despair. I didn't care enough about the game's core challenge to want to develop the game's core skills. I'm fully willing to admit that it's a personal failing, and not something that's wrong with the game itself. But there you have it. Another game that wound up as an endurance test.
Although, I suppose the god thing about being so far down my list is that I surely have only a couple of those left . . .
Sort of. I actually just set the game on God Mode and ground for achievements. I feel a little bad about that, because I didn't actually earn things like the "Unscathed" achievement for finishing every mission without dying, and thus my Steam profile will seem deceptive to anyone who might take a look at it, but it gave me a goal and a direction. Without that, I'd have had to spend all that time sneaking around, and that's basically a non-starter.
I did play a couple of honest co-op games, and those were interesting. I could see how this game could be a lot of fun with four players, communicating over voice chat, and using their individual characters' unique abilities to execute a complex plan. However, that's not really the experience you get with random matches. All the times I tried it, I had only one teammate and we each did our separate thing in absolute silence. I'd rank that as slightly better than single-player stealth, but not by so much that I was willing to give up invisibility.
In the end, Monaco is another one of those games I respect rather than enjoy. It has a very simple presentation, but the intricate levels allowed for multiple approaches that could take advantage of a wide variety of character abilities, constrained be a tense fog-of-war mechanic that rewards observation, memory, and careful planning. It's impressive that so much of the game's complexity lies in the meta-game, and I think if I were an obsessive stealth game fan I would be able to get a lot of mileage out of it.
But I'm not, so I won't. Before cheating my way through and making it a sub-par shooter, I was mostly frustrated by its difficulty. And it wasn't the sort of uplifting frustration that made me want to excel. It was the sort dull frustration that edges me towards despair. I didn't care enough about the game's core challenge to want to develop the game's core skills. I'm fully willing to admit that it's a personal failing, and not something that's wrong with the game itself. But there you have it. Another game that wound up as an endurance test.
Although, I suppose the god thing about being so far down my list is that I surely have only a couple of those left . . .
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