Live Service Games Keep Shutting Down, Why Won’t They Learn?

A lot of live service games have closed lately, games meant to be developed perpetually in a bid to find a golden cash cow. Less games have succeeded at this than have though, and it takes us to where we are today.

You can cite Concord, XDefiant or SEGA killing HYENAS, their most expensive game to date, before even launching it. The failure of these games to grab hold in the intended way is indisputable. What is missing from consideration is where games are today.

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10 Reasons to Play Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery

I cannot begin to describe how much I enjoy Spartacus. It is the opposite of the kind of joined hands I normally love; if there is an opposite to cooperation, then this is it. Lie and scheme your way to victory, or to nearly ending your relationship.

That all being said, it is a hard game to come by if you are a completionist. You will either have to work hard to find the original edition and its expansions, or try for the newer 2020 version that is identical except in its artwork and having not had the expansions released yet. Without further delay, lets discuss…

Reason #1: Wagers

Place your bets!

You can bet on fights, even if you are not involved. You can even take the risky bet that someone is decapitated for a 2 to 1 return!

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Realized Thoughts on Falling Out of Love with Blizzard

I spent countless hours playing Diablo 2 and its expansion, and it probably only barely edges out Starcraft for hours played. My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter. Both gave me a lot of good memories, but Westwood died after NoX and Blizzard also had Starcraft. I was passionate about Blizzard from this point. When World of Warcraft came out, I jumped from Star Wars Galaxies to WoW and never looked back. I was smitten once again. WoW felt like it took the ideas of what I wanted from role playing games and made everything bigger and more realized.

NoX
NoX by Westwood. “My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter.”

However, on reflection and while listening to Kyle Bosman and Jason Schreier talk about Blizzard and WoW, I realize the world of Azeroth was probably what ruined them for me. Despite years of love, and subsequent love-hate, I think the path Blizzard walked for World of Warcraft changed the company from one that made games regularly to one that only focuses on, and before the phrase really existed, live service games. I remember when Starcraft Ghost was canceled and then I just stopped hearing about Blizzard working on new games. I did jump into and play Overwatch thoroughly but even that eventually had its doors closed and got replaced with Overwatch 2, with extra emphasis on forever-money.

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The Morals of an Alley Cat

If you’re Millennial or Gen-Z, or a parent to someone who is, you may know of an aardvark with glasses named Arthur (and I only know how to spell aardvark because it was a part of the spelling bee in one of the episodes). The show addressed issues of sibling rivalry, night terrors, classism, feelings of regret, and a whole host of other things that people face every day. My friend and I discussed it a few years ago and we wondered if it would have been the same if the characters were human children instead of aardvarks, bulldogs, bunnies, and rats. We agreed the show wouldn’t be the same if the children were people.

Consider Stardew Valley vs Animal Crossing. Do the animals add to the charm of Animal Crossing? They seem to have very different audiences and the question remains: is it the species of the characters that makes a difference?

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My Better Firefox

The Firefox browser is my favorite. Its community driven and privacy minded. It may seem like a lot to adjust but its no different than what I have had to do in other browsers.

I will build this post up over time as I make new changes.

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Wellness Check by Andrea Gibson

In any moment,
on any given day,
I can measure
my wellness
by this question:

Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
who isn’t loving me?

Spiral Slides are for Suckers

I recently picked up Parkitect with my good friend, Realeo, what also has a couple of posts here. The game is everything you want from a park simulator with the thing you didn’t know you did: multiplayer. Building alongside a person-person who is just as clueless as you are about how things work is a joy. It also works well as a quiet group activity at times when your both sweating through figuring out how to finish a ride or why people are not buying your bubble tea. I recently got into diving into the numbers, clicking on each ride and looking at the statistics, and this has led me to a discovery. Spiral Slides are for suckers.

Spiral slides are these cool lighthouse looking rides, where a visitor queues up for the chance to climb to the top and slide down in a spiral to much pixelated joy. But this is no happy lighthouse as it appears. It is a sad lighthouse. It is Nickel Creeks’s Lighthouse. The only thing being dashed against the rocks here though are profits.

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Isn’t it Wonderful Now?

I remember my Grandma, trying to figure out what to do with a young boy, asking me if I wanted to get a music player. I came from a poor household, drugs all over, and nobody ever got me anything new. My fathers side was largely a mystery to me but my Grandma had started reaching out and so I got to spend time with one of the nicest people I have ever met. A bit bigger than my 10 year old bobble head, the box was light blue and had a CD player at the top.

The next question, which I had not considered, was “What do you want to get to listen to?” I get to pick my own music as well? I was over the moon. I had always just listened to music when other people were listening to music. When my Grandma asked me what I liked, I had no clue what that was so I did what most kids do in such situations, I guessed based off of which looked the coolest. Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile by Everclear. I could tell my Grandma was not sold that I knew exactly what I was getting, but she let me nonetheless.

I consumed every song, even Unemployed Boyfriend which I saw nothing wrong with at the time or Thrift Store Chair with the “real good sex”. It was also where I first heard Brown Eyed Girl, so much that when I first heard Morrison I thought it was a cover. For a kid who often felt alone though, Wonderful carried me through so much.

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My Favorite Tool

This is my first post of the type, a little more personal, but it felt like a good way to reflect upon how far I have come. Not quite a journal and not really a guide, and probably better as a toot/tweet, but here it is.

The last handful of years have had a lot of growth for me. In my job I have felt like I have done a lot of good, and in my personal life I felt like I grew a great comfort with boundaries and comfort. That is not to say that things do not get topsy-turvy, but I feel a lot better equipped to frame things in a healthy way. I grew up with a lot of broken people and so what may seem practical to others was foreign to me, but I never really learned how to manage all the information other people spoke my way. I took a lot of what was said to me at face value and that led to a lot of problems.

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Slime Rancher: Final Thoughts

I won’t get into too heavy of specifics but there is spoileryness, even while I am as vague as I can be.

In the literal ruins of Hobson’s past, I learned that I can look to his advice but I cannot live in his footsteps. The lesson of the game was that of choice. Hobson imparted knowledge throughout my adventure but, ultimately, taught me that the choices my own through a carefully measured pace of notes that blended with the tasks I found myself choosing to do. There were a lot of decisions to be made as Beatrix, but for every door I chose, another closed. I think we are all choosing doors every single day; what is life if not a series of doors and a mixture of emotions about the ones we did and did not go through?

Slime Rancher let me break convention by allowing me to fly over locked doors, choosing how I approached the world around me. With freedom abound, it is beautiful that they did not take away the culminating final choice. So many games end in a this-or-that scenario masked as decision making that is supposed to be reflective of the person playing. Slime Rancher, while more constrained in overall scope, is so much more. Consequently, Instead, I am now sitting here in my chair, and I am exploring my mixed emotions.

I recommend you play Slime Rancher, or not. The choice is yours.

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