Titanite or Tediumite? An Argument for a Purely Stat Based Equipment System in the Souls Series

Going back to the Dark Souls PvP scene, I've found the decision to include a weapon/armor upgrade system perplexing. From my perspective, it only achieves three things. 1) It limits one's weapon options by adding tedium to the PvP process, 2) it creates an artificial gap between players who have time/desire to grind out gear and players who don't, and 3) it results in unfair inequities between player builds. What is truly frustrating about these things is that they are totally unnecessary. They could all be fixed by a simple adjustment: make equipment upgrades a purely stat based process.

First, let me explain the problems as I see them.  As things stand in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, fully upgraded equipment is a requirement for competitive PvP. If your weapons and armor are not leveled to the highest degree, you will be at a distinct disadvantage against the majority of opponents you come up against. This means that to have a chance, you will have to collect a large number of items (called titanite) to bring your equipment up to par, a tedious process that will mainly involve grinding enemies in certain areas of the game.

This is especially infuriating given the large number of weapons potentially available to the player. In Dark Souls 2, for example, in theory the player has many weapon types to chose from and experiment with. But in practice, the player will have to focus on only one or two of these in order to consolidate upgrade materials. The other weapons are left collecting dust as a result because without upgrading they remain vastly inferior.

Some will object here and say, "Don't expect the game to cater to casual players." The thing is, the equipment upgrade process isn't about skill, but the willingness to sink large amounts of time into a repetitive process of killing the same enemies over and over again.

This brings me to my second point. The upgrade system creates a gap between players who have fully upgraded equipment and those that don't, and what that gap essentially represents is not a difference in skill but a difference in time devoted to repetitive play. The division here is not between hardcore players and casual ones, but between players willing to engage in hours of mind-numbing gameplay and those who demand that gameplay always be engaging. The former is not something that should ever be encouraged in game design.

Finally, the current weapon upgrading system enables all sorts of loop holes through the checks and balances built into the game. Soul level, and now soul memory in Dark Souls 2, is used to match players evenly with each other. Weapon upgrading can evade this kind of check, especially when you get people "muling," i.e., gifting low level players powerfully upgraded items. It also brings imbalance to the game by allowing magic based characters to wield extremely powerful melee weapons that in theory should only be available to players who have invested in melee stats.

A switch to a purely stat based equipment system would fix all of these issues in one fell swoop. In this system, the strength of a weapon would be determined entirely by the stats it scales with. For example, a greatsword's damage output would depend entirely on a player's strength stat, or some combination of strength and dexterity. The particulars aren't important. What is key is that there is no upgrading of one's equipment independently of upgrading one's character stats.

Consider the impact this would have on the issues I raise above. The tedium of weapon upgrading would be eliminated. By simply leveling the appropriate stats, your equipment will grow with you, becoming stronger as you become stronger. The process is far more elegant, as leveling up is a natural part of the game, while titanite collecting is more an artificial graft/side-quest.

All the weapons you collected would now be viable so long as you invest in the stats that they scale with. Thus, the available range of weapon options would be dramatically widened for players, introducing more variety and more strategy to more players.

Players would no longer be divided into those willing to grind and those who don't. Instead, skill along with effective stat management would become the deciding factor of PvP encounters. It's the players' builds that should be pitted against each other, not their equipment upgrades.

Finally, muling would be rendered a moot point. It won't matter if some experienced player gives a low level player a powerful weapon, because the weapon won't be effective unless its user invests in the stats that it scales with, thus increasing their soul level and soul memory appropriately.

Indeed, this solution is so simple and so effective, it truly perplexes me that From has not already implemented it. The only reasons I can think of for them not doing it are 1) it hasn't occurred to them, or, and more likely, 2) they are worried that certain elements of the fan base would react negatively to it.

Why? From might be concerned that certain "hardcore" gamers thrive on the idea that by investing hundreds of hours into a game they will get a guaranteed competitive advantage over other players. I emphasize guaranteed because this advantage is not about accruing skill but about accruing goods. The difference is this: gaining skill cannot be guaranteed. One can simply remain bad at a game, no matter how long one plays it, if he/she doen't grasp certain fundamentals. Goods, however, will be gained no matter how smart or talented the player is. So what we're really talking about here is a desire for a structural advantage over other players, i.e., one built into the system itself rather than being dependent upon the talent of the player.

I'm very interested to hear others' thoughts on this. What do you think about this stat based system? Am I missing something? Let me know in the comments below.

Is Dark Souls Better than Dark Souls II? A Critique of Nostalgia

Now that we are a month or so past the release of the latest entry into the Souls series, people are beginning to make comparisons between it and the previous game. Unfortunately, many of those comparisons have veered towards the negative. People have been quick to point out Dark Souls II's faults and shortcomings vis-a-vis Dark Souls. And while I agree that there are grounds for criticism, I think in many cases people are letting feelings of nostalgia get in the way of objective assessment.

More often than not, when people compare Dark Souls II to its predecessor, they are viewing the latter through rose-tinted glasses. They aren't thinking about the entire experience of Dark Souls I, but isolated moments remembered fondly, such as the run through Sen's Fortress and Anor Londo. Who could forget  those swinging guillotines or those archers guarding the palace? The icing on the cake was, of course, Ornstein and Smough, perhaps the single greatest boss fight in video game history. People bring such examples up, and feel convinced that the first game was pure and simply better. And no wonder, in such unbalanced comparison (the highlights of Dark Souls versus the whole of Dark Souls II) there really is no question about which appears better. But the truth is, Sen's Fortress-Anor Londo was a mere sliver of Dark Souls, a piece of a long game with high points and low points.

The lead-up to AL is quite good, so long as you ignore the tedious nature of most of the enemies you come up against and the overall linear nature of the journey. You start in the Burg and things are pretty interesting. But then you go down and spend hours fighting rats, dogs, and frogs, baiting them to strike your shield so you can hit them back safely. If the enemy was bigger than this, you circled him and stabbed him in the back.This is pretty much the first 35 hours of Dark Souls. Block with your shield and strike, circle around your opponent and strike. Now get to a bonfire and level up and then continue down the corridor filled with more dogs, rats, and frogs.

The fact is, there is very little adventuring in Dark Souls, especially in the first half. You can briefly visit a few areas early, if you're feeling suicidal, but the reality is, these areas are designed to seriously deter you from going very far into them. Instead, you are pressured to take the "correct" path, and this is how you'll spend much of the game leading up to and including Anor Londo.

Contrast this with Dark Souls II. Once you get to Majula, there are two paths immediately obvious to you. One is clearly harder than the other, but not impossibly so. You could realistically take it on first and there are good reasons to do so, including opening another path. There's also a big, empty well in the town with platforms for you to drop down on. A simple to acquire ring will open this area to you very early as well. So near the beginning of things, you have four different paths to take, each with its own challenges and rewards. Moreover, you aren't stuck with any one of them once you start it, because you can always warp back to Majula and take another route.

This is real adventuring. Carving out one's own path through a game according to one's own inclinations and luck. There's a lot of variety in player experience in DSII compared to DSI consequently. I didn't realize there was another way to get to the Lost Bastille outside of the hawk that transports you after the Pursuer battle until way later in the game. Others found it but never fought or beat the Pursuer. Some went down into the well early. Others waited and ventured into Huntsman's Copse. All were legitimate pathways that made for unique journeys. Locked doors and sealed passageways also gave you fresh reasons to return to earlier areas--something Dark Souls really lacked.

There are challenges that come with this more open design, mainly dealing with enemy difficulty. It was easier for the creators of Dark Souls to consistently match difficulty of levels with the progression of the player, as they always had a fairly good idea of what level a player would be at a given segment of the game. DSII made this calculation much harder because it gave the player real choices. But despite this, they managed to have challenging scenarios and bosses along each path, no matter when you took it.

Speaking of bosses, Dark Souls II has some great ones. The whole line running from the Pursuer to the Ruin Sentinels to the Lost Sinner was fantastic, particularly if you do it early and don't summon. Each boss meaningfully ramped up the difficulty and provided new challenges to overcome. Other notable battles include the Charioteer, Iron King, and the Ancient Dragon. All of these were well-designed bosses that presented unique scenarios for the player to take on.

Dark Souls II has its share of less impressive bosses, but so does Dark Souls. Don't get me wrong, the Gargoyles were intense, and the Iron Golem fight had great atmosphere. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. Most of the bosses in DSI are just giant damage sponges that hit hard and move little. More often than not, the mechanics of the battle are wonky, making the confrontation feel more like a clusterfuck than the elegant dance that is achieved in many DSII encounters.

This elegance, by the way, has a lot to do with the refined combat system of DSII. The mechanics of battle are just flat out better in DSII than Dark Souls or Demon's Souls. Animations are smoother and more realistic. Sword swings are weightier and more visually discernible when incoming. The timing and mechanics of rolling are better implemented too. All around, the battle system is more precise.

Dark Souls II also manages to give us a much better second half than the first game.

And if Dark Souls II doesn't have anything to quite match Ornstein and Smough, it makes up for this with a superior second half. After O&S, you are sent back down to the deep, dark depths of the world. People forget how anti-climatic this is. Narratively, this just doesn't work. You can't repeat the rising structure after it has happened once and get the same results. Going back down is a drag. As a result, the second half of the game becomes a chore. It doesn't help that the bosses and levels in this half aren't very inspired. The main thing motivating you to continue on at this point is the sheer investment of time and energy already sunk into the game and the desire to see it through to the end.

It's a strange fact, but the quality of Dark Souls directly corresponds with the relative elevation of your character on the world map. The higher up you are, the better the game.

Dark Souls II does better. In its second half, there are once again choices to made about which path you will take. They lead to some exciting and devious places, and previews of the game let you know that there are some real treats yet to be seen which keeps you motivated. I was still wondering when I would find the Mirror Knight. I also knew that dragons would come into the picture sometime. Finally, I wanted to find the King. This kept the latter half of DSII a lot fresher and more engaging than the second half of Dark Souls.

Some people have taken issue with the lack of world interconnectedness in Dark Souls II. The incongruous transition from Earthen Peak and Iron Keep is the chief example brought up in this context. This is a good point, and I don't want to come off as simply dismissing it, but people really exaggerate the quality of interconnectedness in the first game. The way some people laud it, you'd think the game is very open and that you can get to all areas of the map from tons of different directions. But this isn't the case. You can see The Demon Ruins from the Tomb of the Giants, but it's not like you can get down there from that vantage. You're still bound to the preset path determined by the game's designers. So the interconnectedness exists visually, not materially. It gives the illusion of depth where there really isn't any, like a matte painting in a film.

This doesn't excuse Dark Souls II for lacking the interconnected of its predecessor, even if it is largely cosmetic, because it did clearly show the care and thought the first game's creators put into it. For me, however, the contrast highlights the need for a marriage of the two in a future game: a deeply interconnected world that also facilitates truly open exploration. 

I haven't mentioned the online components of the games. Suffice it to say, the online component of Dark Souls was a real step back from Demon's Souls. The switch to P2P meant far fewer messages and phantoms appeared while playing. The balance between human and hollowed was totally under-thought in the game as well. The effect of which was to severely diminish the quality of certain PvP elements, namely invasions. DSII, by returning to a server based system and by allowing invasions regardless of the host's status rectified both these serious flaws of the predecessor to some degree.

None of this is to say that DSII doesn't have its faults. It does, certainly. But most of them are faults that are common to the series as a whole rather than unique to DSII. Both games have anti-climatic final boss fights which is something FROM has yet to getting a handle on. The series still relies too often on bosses that essentially require circling and dodging. FROM need to press themselves to come up with more innovative encounters or reduce the number of bosses and focus on making a few great ones.The same goes for level designs. They need to stop re-using the Valley of Defilement/Blighttown template and come up with something new. Also, they need to give the multiple gargoyles boss a rest, because it's no longer exciting.

If Dark Souls II has an individual fault, I would say it is a lack of commitment to some of its best and novel ideas. The torch mechanic ended up being implemented half-heartedly and consequently has no real purpose in the game. The gradual hollowing of the character upon each death (with corresponding reductions to the health bar) was a bold move that FROM significantly undercut by including the Ring of Binding early in the game. Finally, the frightening prospect of always being vulnerable to invasions never fully materialized because of the scarcity of red orbs and lack of incentives for invasions.

On the whole, however, I would argue Dark Souls II represents a substantive step-forward for the Souls series. It loses ground in some areas, such as interconnectedness and having a truly breathtaking, stand-out boss fight, but gains in more important areas such as combat depth, exploration, and online play. So let's take stock of this and try not to let our nostalgia for what never was prevent us from appreciating what now is.

Some Advice on the Eve of Dark Souls II

Before you tear into your midnight release copy of Dark Souls II, consider this:

You will only be able to play this game for the first time once, and that no matter what, a certain magic will be lost for all the subsequent playthroughs.

No doubt the game will have much to reward players with in their second, third, and fourth runs. But, as the cliche goes, there's nothing quite like the first time.

For this reason, I encourage you to take it slow. Test unusual pathways, search for hidden depths, attempt unorthodox strategies. Do not try to rush to the finish line.

I've been noticing the large number of people with advanced copies posting about finishing the game. The fact that they couldn't have had it for more than a week shows me that, in their frenzy to brag about beating the final boss, they squandered the chance of losing themselves in the mysteries of a strange world.

Don't let this happen to you.

Like fine meals, great games are meant to be savored over time. Try to keep this mind when you put that game disc in the system later today.

Kojima's Finest Moment: The Snake-Raiden Affair

In my mind, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, represents the high-water mark of the series. Not only did it constitute a tremendous technical leap over its predecessor, Metal Gear Solid, it engaged in a level of narrative and ludic experimentation yet to be truly rivaled by any other game. Kojima wanted to make a statement with MGS2, and he pulled it off with panache.

Perhaps no moment in MGS2 captures its ambitions more effectively than its most infamous one. After completing an opening prologue in which the player once again takes control of the super soldier, Solid Snake, he or she finds out that for the rest of the main game, he/she will actually be playing as a slightly effeminate and utterly unknown rookie, codenamed Raiden. The move was a total bait and switch. Kojima had carefully concealed the new character from all promotional materials and previews of the game. Many fans of the first installment were outraged, others were simply baffled. It was the memorable character of Solid Snake that had made so many of them fall in love with the first game, and they fully, and reasonably, expected to reprise that role in the sequel.

I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that Kojima castrates the gamer by making him play as Raiden. His notable femininity (long, flowing hair, wide hips and narrow waist, soft voice and smooth skin) all point to an essential unmanning of the player. The same can be said for the introduction of Raiden's girlfriend, Rose, as part of the mission team. She calls Raiden on the codec to discuss relationship issues as often as she calls for mission support. The emotional talk, like Raiden's body and demeanor, has the effect of making the player feel like he is losing control over the situation.

The strong reaction of so many (mostly male) players to the switch supports this reading. The guys did not like having their "Solid Snakes" taken away from them, only to be replaced by what they perceived to be an inferior and androgynous "sissy-boy." They were angered and frustrated because their power trip was stolen from them before it even got started.

The sudden introduction of Raiden in this way, however, wasn't about trolling players, nor was it merely a plot device to make Solid Snake an even more larger than life figure, as a recent Edge retrospective claims. The point was to disrupt the identificatory link between the gamer and the game, to create a critical distance between the player and the "information machine."

The discovery of Raiden was immersion breaking in the extreme. As an act of castration, it severed the player from his connection to the game. Suddenly, he is pulled out of the immediacy of action and pressed to contemplate the meaning of the moment. Amidst that spell, the player is presented with a host of themes and problems to begin to consider.

For instance, riding that elevator up to the top of the Big Shell, each and every player had ask him or herself, on some level, who is this new character?

As it turns out, Raiden represents the player's self as a gamer.

Raiden has no real combat experience. All of his training comes from VR simulation. Like the player, he is the mere image or reflection of what Solid Snake is in actuality.

Although we learn these details over the course of the game, during that elevator sequence, we actually experience their impact for ourselves in real time. We too are mere simulations of heroes, dreamers who forgot momentarily that they were in a dream, and the revelation of Raiden was like a bucket of cold water thrown in our faces.

We don't have to imagine how Raiden feels in relation to Snake because we have already undergone the same realization in relation to the game itself. And so right from the get-go, by cutting us off from the self we invested our egos in, the game involves us in the search for identity that is  the center of MGS2's narrative.

The conversations about the dawn of the internet, VR, meme theory, and genetics that will follow all attempt to approach this concern from different angles. But the switch to Raiden is perhaps the moment in which the issue most powerfully impresses itself upon the player, even if for some it remains latent or unconscious.

This moment of having the rug pulled out from under player was clearly something Kojima felt passionately about. MGS2 was, without exaggeration, the event of the PS2 era. It was the mega-blockbuster console exclusive to end all mega-blockbuster console exclusives. Thus, the financial stakes of the game were immense. Such scenarios are not ones in which game makers and producers are wont to take chances. It would have been easy enough not to rock the boat and just give players more of the Solid Snake they were looking for. But Kojima defied them, and consequently risked alienating them as well as severely undermining the series' future, for the sake of creating a powerful moment to frame a narrative journey that would continue to the game's end.

Kojima did this at a time when hardly anyone was taking video games seriously as aesthetic objects. Consequently, through MGS2, he contributed greatly to the currently developing appreciation of the medium as more than mere entertainment. For this reason, it marks one of Kojima's and the series' finest moments.

VaatiVidya's Corporate Partnership

A great deal of controversy concerning the revelation of a partnership between the well-known Dark Souls commentator/youtuber, VaatiVidya, and videogame retailer, Gamestop, has flared up in recent weeks. The partnership was leaked through the appearance of a video, authored by VaatiVidya and "powered" by Gamestop, on the company's website. Suffice it to say, the surfacing of the video surprised a lot of people in the Souls community, including VaatiVidya himself, who apparently did not know that Gamestop was going to release it in this manner. More significantly, the video sparked a substantial backlash within the community, enough that VaatiVidya felt compelled to clarify his position both on the reddit forums and on youtube, assuring followers that he was not paid for it and that he had not "sold out."

Let me be perfectly clear and say that I am not persuaded by VaatiVidya's explanations and re-assurances. His claim that he is not being "paid" is disingenuous and misleading. More importantly, his account overlooks the more glaring problems with his corporate partnership. He seems to think that he can go on making Souls videos in an unbiased manner, despite being joined to entities representing the financial interests of the game. This is just wrong and the signs of it are starting to show.

First, it is important to note that VaatiVidya didn't actually come clean about his relationship with GameStop until he was outed by accident. His explanation was more like damage control than genuine transparency, and if we look backwards, we can see that this was something he was doing before the revelation too. Running up to GameStop-gate, people had noticed VaatiVidya's videos beginning to take on an unusually promotional tone, including links to GameStop pre-orders in the "relevant links" section. Many, understandably, were a bit taken aback by this. It became a topic of discussion in the community. Some even posted comments about it on VaatiVidya's youtube channel.

VaatiVidya's response to these criticisms was simply to delete them from his website.

You might say he was just annoyed and decided he wasn't going to let such comments stand. But the fact is, VaatiVidya gets hundreds of comments everyday, some kind, some not so kind, and this hasn't seemed to bother him in the past. The suggestion that he was being less than 100% genuine apparently touched a nerve. Prior to the GameStop incident, one could interpret VaatiVidya's actions in a number of ways. But after the revelation of his partnership, it becomes extremely difficult not to see what did as a kind of covering up

VaatiVidya's apologia posted to youtube and reddit might be said to be equally dubious. On reddit, he made the following statement:

these videos were allowed to be hosted on GameStop's channel and webpage. I don't think it's completely fair to even say they were made FOR GameStop, because i'm not getting paid for them and these are videos I plan on making anyway. I was the one who pitched the concept for each one.

Saying that he is "not getting paid" for these videos is a misleading equivocation on his part. It may be true that neither Namco-Bandai nor GameStop is paying him money for these videos. But they are paying him with content, which VaatiVidya subsequently monetizes. Through his partnership, VaatiVidya receives footage of Dark Souls II that no one else has access to. This access has value, financial value, and the proof of this is in the sky-high number of views he is getting (two to three times more than his videos usually get).

There's nothing wrong with someone getting paid for his or her creative work. It's a labor like any other.  But VaatiVidya's partnering with GameStop and Namco-Bandai constitutes a different case. In legal speak, we have a "conflict of interest."

By partnering with the distributors of the game, VaatiVidya has tied his work to its corporate interests.These interests have the profitability of the game as their and first and foremost concern. All other considerations are secondary. Through his partnership, this set of values becomes his as well. It works like this: Whatever content VaatiVidya creates will inevitably be framed by his own knowledge that his special relationship with Namco-Bandai and GameStop, and the exclusive content it gains him, depends upon his work aligning with the priorities of the corporations. If, for example, he were to decide that he didn't think DSII was as good as the first game, or had serious complaints about major design decisions, and posted a video about it, Namco-Bandai certainly wouldn't provide him with any early access in the future. VaatiVidya knows this and the knowing of it can't help but affect his assessment of the game, even in ways that he might not be conscious of. Saying something that might negatively impact the game's profitability could cost VaatiVidya real financial gain, and there's simply no way that this situation wouldn't have some bearing on his work, even if on an unconscious level. Thus the corporate interests in the game, the interests that place profit above all else, become VaatiVidya's interest, whether he wants them to or not.

As a gamer and fan of the Souls series, I of course have a different set of interests (as am sure you do too). While I certainly wish From and Namco-Bandai well financially, I do not place their bottom line above my own appreciation of the game as an aesthetic object. Accordingly, I feel free to critique the game (positively or negatively) as I see fit, with no ulterior motives about profit influencing those judgments. By partnering with Namco-Bandai and GameStop, however, VaatiVidya has lost that ability by making profit one of the deciding factors for his critical appreciation of the game. Consequently, he will have to judge the game according to a metric that is alien to the pure enjoyment of the game as an aesthetic object. For him, it becomes a commodity to be sold, and when he speaks about it, he does so with this condition in mind.

The upshot is that VaatiVidya has severely compromised his own capacity to evaluate the next and future Souls games in an unbiased manner.

Believing that VaatiVidya could just go on making the videos 'he wants' after partnering with Namco-Bandai and GameStop is just wishful thinking. His own assertions to the contrary are naive at best. The fact of the matter is, he has bound his work to the outlook held by the money-making side of Souls series and as a result, his work will have to incorporate that outlook into his own.

There's a reason why we don't want a judge to decide a case involving members of his family. It's the same reason you don't want a journalist reporting on a company in which he is financially invested. Bias is unavoidable in such situations, and bias unavoidably taints people's perspectives.VaatiVidya has tainted his relation to the Souls series by partnering with forces that value its profit above all else. His opinions will be informed by theirs. And as a result, he can no longer speak to the community simply as a fellow gamer. Instead, he now represents the corporate arm of the Souls series, and all the values that come with it. Take that as you will.

Dark Souls II: The Death of a Dream

The recent announcement of preorder bonus items for Dark Souls II disturbs me on multiple levels. Superficially, I'm concerned that certain players will gain an unfair advantage (which they essentially bought) by wielding these weapons, undermining the "achievement through perseverance" ethic that defines the Souls series. But more deeply, I'm troubled by what the bonus says is happening to the series.

I won't beat around the bush, but state straight-out what I mean. The Souls series seems to be being stripped of it's grassroots character. Instead, it is being transformed into a market-driven commodity that is more concerned with profit than it is with the integrity of its game world.

This shift from fan-base to corporate-base has been presaged by several announcements leading up to the preorder bonus. First, the maker's (From Software) partnership with the conglomerate Namco-Bandai for the sequel was ominous. Then, the director's mention of increased "accessibility" set off bells warning of corporate meddling. Many were later assuaged when journalists started reporting that the game was still difficult. But shortly after this, a bombshell hit when From revealed that Dark Souls II would feature voice-chat and mechanisms for facilitating co-op with friends, both changes in design which seemed to go against the core aesthetic of isolation that defined the earlier games.

The preorder bonus is thus just the most recent indication of the series losing its soul. More specifically, it is one of many signs pointing to the intrusion of for-profit ideologies into the very core of the game where once they did not exist.

In Dark Souls, for example, there was the Drake Sword. Though it could be acquired early in the game and would give players a distinct advantage, it was an in-game item only. It could only be acquired through gameplay, either discovering oneself or learning about it through others. The pre-order items are of another class. They are purchased by the player before the game even begins, not played for. The fact that you can also find the items in game (as From has stated) doesn't change this.

The difference is this: the Drake Sword was not COMMODIFIED. The preorder bonus items are commodified. The Drake Sword was a special item whose acquisition was completely bounded and contained within the artistic unity of the game and the free community of players that grew up around it. The preorder bonus comes from a system of values external to the game world and its community, a space governed by capital, i.e., private ownership, profit, and marketing, which the game community has little to no direct control over.

The contrast here between pure in-game items and pre-release DLC is of course one that has been the subject of much debate. For the Souls series in particular, however, it poses a special threat to one of its defining attributes: its community-led distribution. The Souls series has one of the most active communities in gaming history. Its success has largely been driven by a fan base motivated by personal passions rather than profit. The preorder bonus betokens a turning point in which that collective, community-based ownership of the series' past is being subordinated to the private aims of its corporate future.

The signs of this sea change are written all over the wall. Many of the game's most prolific and established community members have already been co-opted. Epic Name Bro, one the biggest voices in the community, has been officially silenced due to his paid work on a forthcoming strategy guide. Another major contributor known for his lore videos, VaatiVidya, after being invited by Namco-Bandai to try out a preview demo of the game, is now effectively doing PR videos for the company in which he dismisses legitimate concerns about the questionable changes to the series and tells fans to go preorder the game now! Other prominent community members have been invited to special preview events that subtly pressure them to talk up the game afterwards. Whereas once these people were free to express themselves as individuals within the community, they are now in part owned by and serve the corporate interests taking charge of the game.

It's sad that this is happening. Some might say it was inevitable. The Souls series could be said to be victim of its own success. The pure, genuine love of fans that propelled Demons' Souls and Dark Souls to Game of the Year status has come to the attention of capital and it is working hard to convert that affection into cash. We all know how it will end. The people that see Dark Souls II as a way to make money will never understand what made the game such a hit without their big advertising budgets and market research. They'll simply cannibalize the good-will of the fans until nothing is left but a hollow husk.

So begins the death of a dream in which art triumphs over greed. It was certainly nice while it lasted.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Makes No Sense!

I just finished Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker on PS3 and I have to say that the game has left me completely baffled (and frankly concerned) about the narrative future of the series.

The premise and motives behind the game's story simply make no sense. I say this fully aware of the fact that Metal Gear games always border on the absurd and wacky. But no matter how crazy the other games were, at the very least, they were intelligible, even if they required a great suspension of disbelief. Peace Walker is something different. It defies comprehension.

OK, on the most basic level, the story of Peace Walker goes something like this: Big Boss, after completing a mission that forced him to kill his former mentor, has become disillusioned with Cold War politics and the nation-state system. Out of this disillusionment, he founds an organization called MSF (Militaires San Frontieres) and its headquarters, an offshore facility dubbed Mother Base. The latter operates as a kind of haven for disaffected soldiers and mercenaries searching (I guess) for like-minded amoralists to hang out with.

In the game, Big Boss gets involved in a series of operations in Central American (in the mid 70s). The KGB and a new secret organization, Cipher, are involved in the development of a fully automated nuclear deterrence robot that is supposed to be necessary for detente because mere humans don't have the courage/evilness within them to annihilate the planet. Thus they need a machine to do it for them. Classic Metal Gear hijinks ensue, people are double and triple crossed. By the end, Big Boss has stopped at least three nuclear strikes against the United States from happening and acquired his very own Metal Gear prototype, Metal Gear Zeke.

Now none of this is that difficult to follow, at least when it's laid out. It's when you probe deeper into the matter that things become much less clear.

For instance, what exactly is MSF?  According to Big Boss and others, it's an organization without nationality, without a philosophy, without ideology. This is confusing on a number of levels. First off, it is a contradiction in terms. An organization, to quote Merriam-Webster, is "a company, business, club, etc., that is formed for a particular purpose." MSF, following Big Boss's definition, lacks such a purpose (this is what an ideology or philosophy would be). So MSF is an organization with no organizing principle.

Some might object that MSF does have a purpose. Big Boss says (more than once) that they fight for themselves now. OK, fine, but that's not a organizational principle. That's not a code that an organization can function by. That's willy-nilly saying do whatever the hell you want. Good luck running an organization with that notion!

There are a lot of other issues that hang on this lack of direction. Why are the mercenaries willing to serve MSF? What's in it for them? Big Boss talks a lot about the "freedom" that MSF provides, but never defines concretely what that freedom actually entails. The freedom to do what? Follow Big Boss's orders? Are these guys getting paid? I'm not even going to get into the absurd manner in which you recruit these people.

How does MSF fund itself? Does it take contracts? If so, doesn't that compromise its free-wheeling philosophy of no philosophies. Wouldn't that make MSF nothing more than a tax shelter for hired killers? If not, if they do discriminate between clients for moral reasons, how would they do that? Wouldn't that require a philosophy of some sort, i.e., a belief system or, yes, an i-d-e-o-l-o-g-y.

The biggest problems, however, involve Big Boss's motivations. What is he after exactly in this game? Why does he get entangled in the plots taking place in Central America? Again, there is a lot of talk of freedom (always in the abstract, never concrete), distrust of nation-state politics, and peace. But I don't see how a rogue military organization is supposed to help this situation. Are they supposed to act as a counter-force to the super-powers? Are they going to police the world and impose a new global order? But wouldn't such things simply replicate the authoritarian structures of power that Big Boss opposes? I don't see what Big Boss could be thinking here. What's more, Big Boss doesn't seem to know either. He just repeats the same platitudes again and again.

I suspect Big Boss's lack of clarity stems form the inherent lack of sense in the concept of MSF. This really does trouble me, mainly for what it bodes for the future. The next Metal Gear game (Ground Zeroes) follows shortly after the events of Peace Walker. As a result, I don't see how it will avoid getting bogged down in the same nonsensical premise that undermines the narrative of its immediate predecessor. That would be bad. Peace Walker was originally a PSP game. As such, I can see being a little forgiving about its production values in terms of scripting. But it is canon and its ideas and events can't simply be pushed aside in the next game. My worry is that Ground Zeroes (and the Phantom Pain after it), won't be able to put the pieces back together, so to speak, and Peace Walker's nonsense will infect the future games and make them stupid at best, nigh incomprehensible at worst.

But what do you think? Were you able to make more sense of MSF and Big Boss's motivations? Do you see ways that they could be made more intelligible in Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.