Random Introspection of Play Style Preference
Posted by Scott in MMO, Whatever, Xbox 360I still haven’t gotten the new PC working yet. No idea what’s wrong with it. The motherboard LED is lit, showing it has power, but the thing just won’t turn on. I thought it was a broken PSU but I did what the Corsair tech told me and the PSU is functioning properly. Someone on Twitter — @BlueKae I think? — suggested I reset the motherboard. Other than that, SmartPC charges $59 for diagnostics and repair.
The thing is, I’m just not motivated to actually fool with the damned thing! Maybe it’s the whole getting older gradually maturing thing, but I’ve really become spoiled by the 360. I never have to worry about new drivers, buggy third-party services that crash the system, virii or malware, etc. I just turn it on and it works, and everyone I game with gets the same performance.
I’ve always built my own PC’s but this time around, I just wasn’t into it. Not that I’d necessarily be into buying a prefab PC with specs I don’t approve of. I just want to turn the thing on and it works. I’ve lost the thrill of constantly tweaking, working for every ounce I could get out of the PC, and generally jumping through hoops. If I wanted to do all that I’d still be using Linux for games.
The other issue in the back of my mind is the RSI I keep harping about. When I was back in LOTRO and Battlefield 2142 for a couple weeks in November before my PC died, I could feel the mouse wrist tingling after only 30 minutes or less. Hell, even while writing this or doing anything at all on the PC if I don’t make a constant effort to keep my mouse wrist elevated off the desk, I start getting those aching tingles pretty quickly.
The main thing about MMOG’s I miss? Chatting. Kin-mates or guild-mates and friends first, general chat second. I’ve never allowed things to get as bad as they were in the height of my WoW addiction where I’d login because “I just had to” but I had absolutely nothing to do so I’d shift into kitty form and auto-run laps around Ironforge while chatting. But still, in most MMO’s I find that I don’t necessarily play the game all the time; there’s a lot of time idling (or just running, and running, and running) while chatting. Sometimes I just read the chat while running. (Note: riding a mount = running in this respect.) Maybe find a pretty view in the landscape, and pan the camera around, while chatting.
It’s nice, but all that chatting — not to mention using the mouse to move or pan the camera — means my wrist is at constant risk of firing up the RSI again. It’s hard to get motivated to get a new PC working when I know I’ll want to login to LOTRO to see the better performance, better graphics, etc. then spend all day and night running, panning and chatting my way to the doctor again…
I really wish someone would get a fun and high-quality MMOG on the 360 already. One that was built for a console from the ground-up, not a PC MMOG trimmed down because that just won’t work. If a console Age of Conan, for example, ditched the RPG hotbar combat and went to a more action-context-based system (think Batman: Arkham Asylum) I’d be all.over.it!
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As someone who is a PC gamer first, an Xbox gamer second, and who recently built a new machine it is driving me nuts that you still don’t have yours working. I can understand your point of view though and would probably be doing the same thing in your situation.
RSI is something I’m mortally afraid of since I use a mouse/keyboard for work as well as play. Anytime I feel any stiffness in my hands I take a break so that it doesn’t get to the medical stage.