Hawken - Clusterfuck of Happiness

Easter egg: The signs are clear - Pikachu and an angry cat. Not sure wtf the frog is all about.

Something strange has happened: I have passed the enthusiastic first 2 weeks mark and I still haven't lost interest in Hawken, something that rarely happens to me and F2P games - if ever.

I haven't put so many hours into a first person shooter since Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena or the beta 7 of Counter-Strike. Yes, I have to stress the beta bit to sound better than you. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" I hear you ask. Nothing. Hawken is just a fucking good game, which can be summed up as a more complex Call of Duty with mechs.

Yes, I said Call of Duty. Because not only do you run around and shoot stuff, but you gain money and experience as you play the game, which allows you to unlock weapons, upgrades and new mechs, just like in CoD. Okay, sure, there are no 25 different kinds of shotguns, 38 assault rifles and 250 million scopes and silencers to unlock, but nobody gives a shit about those. Instead, you get different kinds of mechs with different abilities. Here, have a pic of my mech getting repaired by another player's healing mech:

You can feel the love just by looking at this picture.

"But why would I want to be a healer when I could just run around and kill things?" Because players don't top the scoreboard depending on the amount of their kills, but their overall contribution. Assist in a kill, heal a team mate, defend a mission objective, be useful and receive bigger rewards. It's that simple. Good stuff.

Despite my rather modest amount of kills, I'm the top-scorer by far. The mission is everything...

Hurray!

Oh yeah, mission objectives. On top of the usual team-/deathmatch modes and a domination thingie (called Missile Launch or something) you get Siege Mode. Players of both teams collect energy from the two dispensers on each map. If you get killed with a full tank, you lose all your energy and it sits around where you died, so anyone can grab it - presumably the guy who just shot you.

Filling up those energy tanks whilst covering each other's asses against potential ambush.

Ideally, you get to fill up that tank of yours and make it back to your base in one piece. Once enough players have delivered their energy, your base will launch a huge-ass battleship.

Aw yiah, suck it all out!

Once your battleship is in the air, you need to fight for control over the anti air unit in the middle of the map. The team which controls this unit can use it to destroy the enemy battleship before it can do any damage.
One possible strategy is to camp and hold the anti air spot, wait for the other team to launch their ship and shoot it down, then launch your own. Or be quicker than the enemy team, launch your ship while they are still harvesting energy, rush to the anti air unit and occupy it while they're still trying to launch their own battleship.

Here is what happens if you don't destroy the enemy battleship:

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

This giant fucker of a ship will head straight for your base and shoot it to bits. Trying to destroy the battleship will take for fucking ever! If your base is blown up completely, you lose.

Well, fuck.

Siege has the potential to be the most awesome, exciting and the most frustrating, stupid mode of Hawken. Ideally, both teams know what they're doing and the match can turn into an arms race, which may take well over a half hour.
But the moment a game gets more complex than "just shoot stuff", stupid players will ruin it. If you've ever been part of a battlegrounds match in any major MMO, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Siege mode has a video tutorial. When you enter the game, a popup screen appears, tells you to collect energy, launch your ship and use the anti air cannon to destroy the enemy ship. The game goes out of its way to explain how it all works. And let's be honest here - it really isn't that fucking complicated.
But 90% of the time, one team wins in a massive landslide victory, because people on the other team have no fucking clue what to do. It's a bit frustrating when the scoreboard shows you as the only player on your team harvesting energy, while everybody else is just running around getting shot. It's more frustrating when team mates collect energy, then have no fucking clue what to do with it. If only there was a giant, flashing mission pointer, that tells you exactly where to deliv... oh wait, there is!

So yeah, it's perfectly normal to be the only player, who actually knows how Siege is played. It's always fun when some idiot on your team spots enemies and tells everyone their map coordinates. "But we're not supposed to farm kills, we gotta launch our battleship!"
-"STFU NOOB!"
Mkay.
Five minutes later, when you've lost with the enemy base completely unscathed, you'll see this, coming from the same guy:
"Fucking noob team!"
And he's probably got 12 kills, 38 deaths, not a single energy unit collected. In fact, you can see a guy like that on my scoreboard screenshot I posted earlier in this entry.
And once more, you'll wish for the ability to strangle stupid people through sheer hatred and willpower across the internet.

To be fair, you get this special little shithead in just about every other mode of the game, as well. Lost by a mile in a session of team deathmatch? Some guy with 2 kills and 14 deaths will blame his team for being fucking noobs. Internet behaviour and small dick syndrome at their greatest moments. "Quickly! We have lost, so I gotta blame it on my team to make perfectly clear that it's everyone else's fault and not my own!"
Another personal favourite of mine is when I'm told to "try again without hacks" whenever I end up in first place. Good times.

How the fuck do I line up a headshot in this game?

There is a huge content patch on the horizon, which will let players customize the abilities and strengths of their mechs. Right now, the game features skill trees, which do amazing things like raise your HP by 3.5% or your damage resistance by 1.6%, which is a fancy way of saying they do nothing. I'm curious to see how they're going to make the whole system more fun and a little more useful and, most of all, how to prevent that absolutely everyone simply puts every last point into the dps tree and ignores everything else. Because who gives a fuck about some extra HP and defenses in a first person shooter, when you could be specced to kill shit faster?

- Cat

Pikachu and the friendly tortoise

What an interesting day this has been! It was the hottest day of the year thus far, so we decided to take Hugo out. Interesting observation #1: Giant reptiles have a magnetic effect on elderly ladies. I was standing around outside the pet shop, which was waaaaaaay too hot. And Hugo, who had spent most of the day walking up and down the street on his weird new leash was fast asleep in my arms... on my chest... on my shoulder... um... yeah, all of the above at the same time, because that's just how big he is now. Head goes on the shoulder, tail is somewhere around the nuts, which is always a bit unpleasant, especially since he uses that thing to hold on to stuff. I kid you not - he climbs out of his tank and gently floats towards the carpet whilst roping himself down using only his tail. Fascinating stuff.

Anyhow. Standing around outside, where the air moves and isn't getting heated up by dozens of reptile tanks. People walk by, turn their heads, stare, stop their cars for a moment, the usual. Because that's the kind of thing you do when you have a chance encounter with a small dinosaur. Seriously, their faces are the closest thing to a real dinosaur you'll ever see.

Not actually Hugo, but it gets the point across.

And then there was this old lady. The stereotype your brain comes up with when you think granny. Tweety's owner. Snow white hair, face like a nutsack and disturbingly fearless and curious when it comes to Hugo. She didn't even stop to ask whether he's gonna spread unholy, leathery wings, breathe fire and proceed to tear out her very soul to drag it down to the 9th circle of hell, where her spiritual remains shall be devoured and shat out in the shape of a newborn divorce lawyer. She just started petting him and started asking about what he eats, how much a guy like him would cost, that kinda thing. She even took a few pictures with her hot pink (!) iPhone. What interesting times we live in.
Granny #2 got into her car and was ready to drive off when she spotted me, stopped her engine, opened the door and asked me if she could have a look. Eep! And again, 10 minutes of petting and Q&A ensued. She told me I had a very precious pet and that I should take good care of him. Yes, ma'am! o_O

What's even more amazing than the fact that the walking dead of England know no fear of reptiles is the intense friendliness of the common red-footed tortoise or whatever the fuck that thing at the shop was called. You see, I don't really know anything about nature's resilient little frisbees. A class mate back in elementary had two viciously aggressive turtles, which I'm told is not the same thing as a tortoise, because the former are water-based and the latter live on land. I also know that our friend, Swiss Guy, has a bunch of tortoises in his yard. Swiss Guy probably has a real name, but who cares, we just call him that.
So this friendly tortoise at the shop tends to scratch at the glass of his tank when he wants attention. He also gets up on his hind legs and then topples over, which is awkward.

He looks like this.

So Claire picked him up and I had to re-learn one of the two things I actually knew about these guys. #1: Their heads are the closest thing to an uncircumcised penis I have ever seen, aside from an actual uncircumcised penis. This is a fact.
#2: As a finger, you don't want to be anywhere near that dickhead, because those guys like to bite. Hard. Our special little friend proved me wrong today.
Long story short, this guy loves a good head-rub. I have never seen anything like it. The head usually just disappears into the shell. Or worse, if you piss them off. This tortoise? He'd push his head against my hand as hard as he could as I stroked him. Weird.

Claire walked him up and down the street. I had Hugo, she had the tortoise, who would happily walk around and explore town. Easily one of the stranger things I've done so far. For a moment, we've brought the entire street to a halt, as everybody would stop, stare and point. Well, what would you do if you walked into something like that?
Our new friend was really more of a tortoise-shaped dog. I can't begin to describe how much this fascinates and surprises me. Alright, sure - how much intelligence can it possibly take to follow the person who feeds you every day? But the whole petting, handling and affection thing really threw me off. I was under the impression that tortoises sit around, wait for food and spend the rest of the day loathing you. Mr. Redfoot was very friendly and adventurous. Fun.

In other news: Mechs.
And surprisingly: No, not Mechwarrior Online. I'm actually afraid to try that one, for two reasons. First of all, it looks incredibly deep, tactical and large-scale. Maybe I'm getting the wrong impression here, but scale-wise it looks a bit like Battlefield or Planetside with Mechs. You know, spend a week walking around until you finally get to the action and then some asshole kills you from 300 miles away with a terribly unrealistic sniper rifle. Or some long distance laser equivalent in case of Mechwarrior. Oh and if you happen to be one of those dickheads, who are about to spam comments about how I'm just butthurt because I suck at Battlefield:

For the slightly more intelligent among you: I simply lack the patience, attention span and tactical ability to enjoy this kind of game. There's nothing wrong with this stuff, I'm just not the target audience.
The other, bigger reason that puts me off Mechwarrior: I don't know shit about the franchise. The last Mechwarrior game I've played came with my Matrox Mystique, sometime in the late '90s. All that battlemech and battletech stuff, fine-tuning weapons, energy-consumption, range, counter-measures, yada, yada, yada... I just don't like the idea of being a complete noob in an environment created and inhabited by nerds. I may as well hang out at a comic convention and argue why Star Trek is better than Star Wars or DC is better than Marvel. I can tell Batman from Captain Kirk, but that's about as good as it gets. I don't need some basement-dweller on my team telling me that, OMFG, you cannot be serious with that fucking gauss cannon on that mech of yours and where the fuck is your gatling laser and I don't even know if any of that stuff exists on there, as the only mech I can somewhat accurately name is a Mad Cat.

So I did the sensible thing and went for the alternative, which is an affront to any true Mechwarrior fan and borderline blasphemy: Hawken. Why is it so offensive, you might ask? Well, let me show you:

A Mad Cat, also known as the most awesome Mech of all times.

'Recruit', a Mech from Hawken. But wait, there's more:

User-customized Recruit. Note the red paintjob and the white hearts.

You see what I'm getting at. Mechwarrior has steel behemoths raining down death and destruction on you, whilst Hawken has bouncy boxes of joy, some of which resemble a walking microwave oven wearing my old valentine's day boxer shorts.

Hawken is also a lot more twitch-based. Mechs on there are surprisingly agile and they jump, run and boost around like lemmings on crack. Which, gameplay-wise, is right up my alley. I want immediate, clusterfuck-style action, no endless running around and planning and sneaking up and getting in position and whatever the fuck you do on the more intelligent shooters out there.

And to be perfectly fair, Hawken isn't all pink hearts and walking tv sets. There are some pretty badass mechs out there. Here's one I have created:

Easily the most awesome-looking toy in my arsenal. Also, I'm so incredibly shit with this thing, it makes me cry. I have another mech, one I'm actually really, really good with. And it's.... well. A bit embarassing, really.

Yes. This tiny... yellow thing. It gets better.
As a match ends on Hawken, the camera highlights the most valuable player (or their mech, to be more precise) on everybody's screen. So every now and then, when I try hard enough, my mech is featured on the mvp screen and everybody gets to look at it. That's what happened the other night. And everybody shouted: PIKACHU!

When Pokémon got famous over here I was already 16. I'm straight. Believe me, I tried, because my friends, my siblings, everyone wanted me to give the games and even the tv show a fair chance, but let's just say the magic never really happened for me. If you're male, about my age and capable of naming all 151 original pokémon, kindly send me an email so I may remove you from my contact list on Facebook.

In all fairness, lots of people actually like this shit. So when they named my mech Pikachu, they didn't try to insult me. In fact, the Hawken community is incredibly friendly, I have only seen one person being accused of cheating in about a week of intense play and the amount of immature players, who use dumbass racist remarks and speculate upon my mother's sexual activity make up but a tiny fraction of an otherwise great player base. Most people just want a good time. Highly unusual for an FPS game, especially of the F2P variety.
So, you know what? To hell with it. May as well roll with that shit, right? Here we go:

Look for the name in the top left section of the screen. :P

I do, however, refuse to shout "Pika! Pika!" as I charge at an enemy, guns blazing.

One thing I genuinely enjoy about Hawken is its decent F2P model. It's not great, but decent. Every mech, every weapon and upgrade, can be purchased with ingame credits, which you earn by playing the game. It takes roughly six hours to earn enough credits to buy a mech and there are no cash only premium mechs. Of course you can just go and buy every single item in the game using cold, hard cash. And stuff doesn't cost an arm and a leg, either. A fiver will get you a mech and a bit of customization on the side. Not too shabby.

What I don't like is the near-complete lack of "try before you buy" factor here. Yes, there are fortnight-long test drive events, which allow you to pilot certain mechs without having to buy them, but if the one you're drooling over is not on test drive week, you're gonna have to buy the proverbial cat in the bag. Games like Smite at least give you the option to test all the playable characters in a practice match against bots, so you'll know exactly what you're getting, but Hawken does no such thing. Not good.

Also, all cosmetic changes cost real money. Want a new paintjob, a fancy new set of legs or a shiny new particle effect with those thrusters? Cough up! That's fine, they gotta make money somehow and looking cool does not give you any real advantage in combat. Still, being the customization whore that I am, I'd greatly appreciate a way to earn new camo and stuff simply by playing the game, even if it's for many, many hours. Oh well.

Despite running on the UnrealEngine, Hawken's visuals are fairly unimpressive and the ever-present texture pop-in is incredibly irritating. The whole thing is a bit of a mess right now - the client only runs on DX9, yet the config file is full of tesselation settings, which tend to lag the shit out of the game at no visual benefit whatsoever. There's also the, admittedly impressive, NVidia only PhysX particle option, which turns the game into a stuttering, unplayable mess and looks like this:

Pay special attention to how many times the guy says PhysX in a really annoying way. Brrr!

My biggest gripe with the game is how there is practically no visual feedback when you get damaged. Half of the time my mech will get shot to pieces while I'm fighting somebody and it always catches me by surprise when the damn thing blows up, because I'm under the impression that I didn't take any damage at all. Yes, there's a tiny number display inside the cockpit, which shows your current armor rating (HP), but the cockpit doesn't quake when I get hit, there are no red lights flashing, all I get is some small cracks in the glass when it's already too late. That's it. You'd think that a six-pack of hellfire rockets to the face would leave a bit of an impact. Huh.

Ah, fuck it. It's annoying, but not annoying enough to stop me from playing. And it's an okay replacement for the now dead Warhammer: Space Marine. No more death matches on the pc side of things. Boo! 

-Cat

FU MMOs, hello co-op!

The more time I spend playing MMOs, the more I'm starting to realize how much I don't actually like MMOs. My biggest problem with these games is how they're all designed to have you compete against and/or team up with people. And people are scum.
They're one of the reasons why I can't enjoy Neverwinter for more than the occasional short session here and there. People are hacking, cheating and exploiting to an extent, where the guys running the game seem powerless to do anything about it. The other day the auction house was flooded with stacks of 99 rare enchantments, which have all been duped. Instructions on how to duplicate items exploiting the mail system and the auction house are all over the 'net, along with downloads and instructions to farm bots and what have you.
It's the kind of shit you have to expect when real money buys everything in a game. Not so much for the sake of having the most powerful and precious items, but mostly because it also works the other way 'round: Virtual goods generate real money. It's shit like that, which has been causing so much trouble with Diablo 3 and its real money auction house and now the same shit is happening all over Neverwinter, again and again.
In all fairness, this is a problem which most individual players, myself included, could probably ignore. It doesn't immediately affect me or my gaming experience. But when I see assholes generating an infinite amount of items that morons like me have to quest, farm and kill for, I'm out.

I had similar unpleasant experiences with the Final Fantasy relaunch beta, where my dungeon party chose to let me die (as their tank!) when I did not immediately know how to defeat a boss, which everbody else in the group had already fought before. Apparently, not killing his minions was part of the strategy, which nobody had bothered to tell me before the fight, so when I started going after them for the sake of keeping the group out of harm's way, they ceased all healing to stop me from screwing up. Because that's quicker and easier than actual communication.
And that's a big problem right there, because group content in Final Fantasy is mandatory if you want to complete the game's storyline. Most other online games allow me to level up and experience my story all by myself, if I so desire. This one does not. Again, this isn't a problem to most people and the biggest part of the community is friendly and helpful, but there is still massive potential for complete strangers to ruin my gaming experience, which is something I simply can't be arsed to put up with.

I do make exceptions when I get to shoot people, of course. Seriously, go play Renaissance Heroes.

Because I enjoy bragging so much more than showing actual gameplay.

I like to play games with Claire. You know, cooperatively, because everything else leads to arguments and lack of sex. And my desire for jolly cooperation leads me to games that people, who wouldn't actually suck at my job, already knew about at least a year ago. You know, like Dark Souls. Or our latest addiction, Saints Row The Third.

Saints Row is something I used to ignore, because it all started out as a console game and I considered it little more than a GTA clone. And I don't care about GTA. Gasp! Blasphemy! It's not even that I "don't care", because everybody else seems to care, so I must not care for the sake of being special or some shit. It's because I only enjoy GTA when I get to dick around and sadly, that's not how it's meant to be played. You know, steal a car, run over random people, take their money, wait for the ambulance, steal their car, run over the ambulance, take their money, you get the idea. That's fun. For a day or two. But the moment I'm supposed to maneuver RC helicopters or some other gimmicky shit in order to beat a mission, I lose interest.

What I did not know until recently is how Saints Row, at least in its third instalment, is all about dicking around. Yes, it also has helicopters and gadgets and shit, but most of the time that stuff only encourages you to dick around even more. Remote control a car and ram a gas station! Run into passing cars and get hurt as badly as possible for insurance money! You know, fuck up, but be good at fucking up and be rewarded. What an interesting concept. What could be better than teaming up with Burt Reynolds to beat a horde of zombies into next week with a giant purple dildo? Teaming up with Burt Reynolds and a friend to beat a horde of zombies into next week with a giant purple dildo! Among other things. This is us playing together:

Another fun thing for those coop-cravings is Super Mario Bros. X:

One interesting thing about this game, which is not shown in the video is how Link is one of the playable characters. Sword and everything. Weird stuff. But very fun.

What's more interesting about successful cooperative gaming sessions is their positive effect on sex. "I love how you blew up that orphanage with your rocket launcher. Allow me to show my appreciation by making love to your face!" I have bloody scratches on parts of my body, which most among you don't care to hear and others secretly fantasize about. I'm not even kidding. We're like a lame, nerdy version of the Natural Born Killers, where all the killing is virtual, but at least we don't just "cyber" afterwards. Hm.

Also, work. Lots of it. Which is good. Lots of money. For whenever that gets here. I wish all of my customers were as reliable as I am. Maybe I should set deadlines for them, as well. You want an article within 48 hours? Righto! Just make sure to pay up within 48 hours as well! Ha! If only...

-Cat

And suddenly I had a voice

Something strange is happening. No, I'm not growing hair in unusual places and developing a strange interest in the opposite sex. I'm becoming... well, I don't wanna say important, but my opinion seems to matter now.

My articles have "evolved" alongside my primary field of expertise - Free2Play. When I started in this business roughly a half decade ago, F2P usually meant "Crappy game, which failed in development and got bought and re-released by some Korean publisher". Okay, sometimes they were Chinese. But you know what I mean. Hellgate London/Global. Mythos. That kind of stuff. F2P also meant "Okay game, which mimics subscription-based MMOs without ever reaching the same level of quality". Runes of Magic fits that example. Nice little game, I'm not gonna knock it.

Today, just about every MMORPG out there is F2P or at least Buy2Play, with the exception of WoW. And that's only a matter of time now - WoW is already free till level 20, they already have an item shop (sorry, "Blizzard Store") and should their subscription numbers drop to a less than legendary level, they'll go F2P and proclaim: WHAM! 200 million users! Why not? Nobody questions the supposed 50 million players in World of Tanks or the 41 million players in the very mediocre Flash-based 'Dofus'.
Long story short, F2P suddenly matters. F2P no longer means "Crappy grinder with overpriced item shop". It means Tera, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, AAA titles with very fair and affordable pricing. Because in a day and age where customers can play whatever they want for free, they're not gonna spend a dime in your cash shop if they feel ripped off. The competition is strong and publishers have to try harder than ever. Good times!

And with F2P becoming more and more important, more accepted by a wider audience, my work suddenly starts to matter as well. When I first got started in this job and I wrote about stuff like La Tale or Hello Kitty Online, I used to tell myself that I can take it easy, because "nobody reads that crap anyway". A self-defense mechanism if you will. Imagine you write your very first review and tens of thousands of people are going to look at it. And people disagree with you, they disagree with everything, criticise not only your work, but you as a person. The internet is not a happy place. I dared write a sarcastic article about the dungeons in Guild Wars 2 (which SUCKED right after release!) and I haven't seen so much hate and so many personal insults against me and my entire family since I've last won a match in Call of Duty. You get used to that stuff over time, but when you're still new to the whole thing it can be very harsh. And, more importantly, you don't want to look bad in front of the guys you work with. I read the reviews and articles of the guy who hired me when I was just eight years old! A personal childhood hero! You don't want to write something that looks crap to a guy you've idealized throughout most of your teens. "It's okay, it's just Hello Kitty, no one is gonna notice if you screw up". I take my work very seriously, I try not to screw up, but... you know. Fear ain't rational.
F2P was very relaxing and easy in that regard. The important writers get Dragon Age, I get Regnum Online. Dragon Age is clearly the cooler game, but if you make factual mistakes or write a stupid review, your readers, the publisher, everyone will get pissed off at you. If I make mistakes reviewing Regnum, well... I bet you didn't even know the game existed until I just mentioned it.

And today? BAM! Neverwinter! Title Story! It's a really big thing. And it's mine. I wrote that stuff!
And you know what the weirdest thing is? PR people. Talking to me. Treating me like I was royalty. Because F2P is big now and so is my opinion. Free mounts. Free companions. Free collector's edition - and a fucking cool one at that!
This is all new to me and I'm not sure how to deal with it. Yes, of course they're buttering me up. It's a fucking dilemma! I play Neverwinter anyway. For fun. Not just for work. So I really like all the freebies they're giving to me. I benefit from that stuff a great deal. My problem is that I can't even write a fair review without feeling a little guilty. I'm not giving the game a perfect score, because it has a few gaping flaws and shortcomings, which I need to address if I want to do my job properly. Makes me look like a bit of a dick, doesn't it? I take all of their stuff, then I go and tell people that the boss battles in Neverwinter suck. Which they really do.

Also, I'm starting to get emotionally attached to the whole damn game. To me, most PR-people are soulless minions, who like whatever game they're paid to like, even though they don't even play any of that shit. I had PR guys asking me why I gave their games (not Neverwinter) a low review score and when I tried to explain certain flaws and problems I saw within their product, they tried to sell them off as features. They're genuinely trying to sell me shit as something cool. With a straight face. Like I'm some kind of drooling idiot. If you know about the E3 presentation of the Xbox One, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

And then there are those PR folks, who actually play their own game, who genuinely care, who are happy and proud to be part of the whole thing. And it's so much cooler when you can feel the love and genuine excitement that goes into a game rather than, "According to this press release I am very satisfied with the launch of our new game."
And then you want them to succeed, you want people to be just as enthusiastic about that game and you get a different perspective on the entire thing, simply because you get a bit of a "behind the scenes" experience. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I guess things just become somewhat different if the games and the companies you criticise have names and faces.

As for Neverwinter, Claire and I are still playing. Here's a picture of my guardian fighter critting for almost 16k. :P

The amount of damage reflects my gearscore fairly accurately

I have even created my own little foundry adventure:

So, everything went okay with that game. Reviews so far have been good, everyone seems happy. I hope to god I'll never sympathise with a bunch of guys who have me review a really, really awful game.

But the real surprise this week is something even bigger!

As I wrote in my previous entry, I'm in the beta of Final Fantasy XIV and I'm anything but impressed. Well, guess what? I get to send a 'mock review' to Square. You know, describe how I feel about the game in its current state, what's good or bad about it, what kind of score it would receive, and, believe it or not - they're actually paying me.

This is SO big!
Now, now. Don't get any wrong ideas. I don't consider this a chance to say, "Suck it, Square! Nobody is gonna play your stupid game! HAHAHAHA!" But it's a chance to point out the many flaws and problems, things that most F2P MMOs out there do better than Final Fantasy right now. Honest, genuine feedback. Whether they're actually gonna listen or even agree with me, is a different matter entirely. But right now they're asking me to tell them what's what. They really want to know. This is a big deal to me, because I genuinely care about FFXIV and I want it to be a good game and it feels so much better to be able to talk to these guys before the release rather than being forced to write about how good this game could have been in a review, when it's too late. Which is exactly what I had to do with the original version of this game. But this time they're asking me ahead of time. My opinion matters all of a sudden. Whee! I feel privileged!

Again, god knows what they're gonna make of all this. I'm gonna put as much effort as possible into that text, explain where I see problems and how and why other games are better in certain key aspects and hope for the best. They might just throw it away, "whatever, dickhead" and that's that. But then they wouldn't pay me to do it in the first place. This is exciting stuff! On the one hand I gotta tell them why I wouldn't pay money to play their game in its current state, on the other hand I don't wanna tread on their toes. It's fucking Yoshi-P, man! Been playing that guy's PC-Engine games since I was seven years old! "Yourgameisawfulpleasedonthurtmeiloveyousomuch!" >.<

-Cat

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Too little, too late?

We're approaching the final beta stages of the FFXIV-remake and the NDA has been "partially lifted", for whatever that means. I have seen previews openly talking about the beta and all the changes, the NDA now allows people to say they're actually playing the beta, so they can agree on a server they wish to play on and so forth. At the same time I see nothing but "official" screenshots and gameplay footage on the 'net, aka nothing but stuff created and released by Square.
Even on official previews and articles, everything you see in the screenshot galeries is stuff created by Square, but not a single screenshot or video created by players or reviewers. Nothing. If I wanted to write a magazine preview about the FF14 re-release, I'd have to send my screenshots to Japan, have them approved by Square and if I'm lucky, they might allow me to use them.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Now, let me show you a Square-approved screenshot or two:

Right.
I don't wanna break any rules here, I don't wanna risk my account by posting any actual screenshots, so let me just say that I'm still waiting for my game to look as amazing as that shit above.

Don't get me wrong. The new engine doesn't look bad. In fact, the game looks pretty fucking decent, the landscapes are beautiful and the expression of fear, anger or joy on the faces of your character and the NPCs you interact with are more believable and realistic than anything I have ever seen in an RPG before. But those amazing spell effects up there? That realistic lighting? I dunno where that's from, but I sure as fuck haven't seen it in the beta. And while the new engine performs at a stable 60FPS even on my lower mid-range machine, the game also features its fair share of ugly, muddy textures and the most hideous, pixellated hair-textures you can possibly imagine. And in a Japanese game full of spiky, gravity-defying haircuts, that's a pretty huge deal.
Instead of the breath-taking special FX my battles are full of ugly particle-effects, which fill the whole damn screen and make it impossible to see what the hell is going on most of the time. But they're nice and rainbow-coloured. Purple particles, blue particles, lots of red particles and sometimes yellow particles. Whee! I'm sure there's a monster hiding somewhere beneath all of that crap.

Still. All nit-picking and pointing out of shameless bullshots aside, this is still going to be one of the most visually appealing MMOs to date. Provided, you're not put off by the angrogynous character design, cat-girls (and cat boys now, too, apparently... ugh!) and midgets, who resemble six year olds - with facial hair!

AAAARGH! It's like Mr. Spock fucked Asterix!

Dear Square, please don't ban me. This is a screenshot of the 1.0 client. Old version. The thing that failed so horribly.

In case you're not familiar with the original, awful Final Fantasy XIV, which failed so hard that the entire dev team got fired, the servers were shut down and they came up with this 'new and improved' version, allow me to summarize some of the original's most gaping flaws:

- Nothing to do: Quests were limited to a small amount per 48 hours, grinding was punished with experience penalties up to 100%, some small amount of story quests, which were impossible to follow and made no sense

- Boring, repetitive game world: The world was split into three different starting zones and two high level zones. Each zone was incredibly huge, but offered no unique, distinct landmarks. One zone was simply a forest, another zone was a desert and so forth. A bit like the planets of the Star Wars universe.

- No tutorials: Most features of FFXIV weren't explained, even veterans had a hard time figuring out how to play the game, even the most simple and basic functions like maps, trading with other players or figuring out where to go for a quest usually involved lots of trial & error or a google search

- Zero user-friendliness and comfort: Shitty UI and menu system, no proper LFG tool, no auction house, overpriced item repairs... the list goes on.

Now, if you're familiar with my blog, then you know that I have still played the original and raised a paladin all the way to the level cap. That's because I loved FFXI, which was the previous Final Fantasy MMORPG, and I really, seriously wanted to love FXIV. I managed to like it for a while, despite all of its gaping flaws and problems, but that's as far as I'll go.
Now Square was nice enough to grant veterans access to their powerful characters from the previous version, allowing them to explore the new game with their old avatars. And I gave it a go.

Good news first - the game does start with some quick and easy tutorial-style quests. This is how you interact with NPCs, this is how you use the brand new quest tracker and find your way on the map, here's your inventory, you get the idea. The one thing FFXIV has not done in the roughly 20 levels of main storyline I've played so far, was explain to me how crafting works now. I'll admit I always hated the crafting in the original version, I didn't care to get into it in the new version, but while the game taught me about guild leves, resting, fighting and just about everything else, it has never even touched the subject of crafting. I guess that's still work in progress or I'm completely retarded and just missing something.

Another problem of the original, the almost complete lack of quests and things to do, has been dealt with. I've run into quest NPCs left, right and center, on top of the main storyline, which continues every couple of levels or so. Unfortunately, most of these quests are so unbelievably dull, stupid and boring, I quickly gave up on accepting them and only followed the main storyline (I'm level 50, I can skip all the filler crap). Let me give you an example: I bumped into a noblewoman (at least her wall of text suggested that I did), causing her to drop some coins on the floor, so I had to collect the coins by right-clicking them and give them back to her. Other quests had me deliver a letter from one NPC to another (who was standing IN THE SAME FUCKING ROOM!), deliver a pumpkin, deliver a ring, fetch an earring... for fuck's sake, I'm not a god damn errand boy!

Holy shit, about a half hour later I even recieved a quest to collect some blood, pelts and other random bodily shit from the level 1 critters right outside the city gates. Can you believe I was actually glad to receive a simple kill-quest, because those were at least a little less boring than all that FedEx shit?
Okay, sure, there's a whole story questline, which is fun and tells and exciting story and everything, right? Well....

I won't lie to you. I have no idea what the fuck the story is supposed to be about. My character passes out at random, then she literally flies through space with a bunch of random strangers and talks to floating crystals. I'm not making this up. Some girlish-looking "male" NPCs show up and babble random nonsense like: "I believe we have... oh, nevermind!" and walk off again. Then my character faints and gets random flashbacks involving some of the NPCs, but it's impossible to make heads or tails of any of this crap. The storytelling is abysmal, I have zero clue wtf is going on, I don't know, understand or even care for any of the characters. What's worse, the story-quests thus far aren't fun, they aren't challenging and they're 75% errands.

During one particular (main!) quest I had to enter a restaurant of sorts and talk to an NPC. But the quest NPC was too busy and asked me to take fucking FOOD ORDERS from the god damn guests around the place! I literally had to walk from one patron to another and ask them what they wanted to eat, then hand the orders to the NPC before he'd allow me to continue on a quest. And shit like that happens all the time! Survey some ore nodes. Hand cookies to children. Kill five ants and take their mandibles to some random dude. Who the fuck enjoys that kind of shit anymore?

Okay, let's not forget to mention the little boss fights and story-based battles you get on some rare occasions. When you're done with your crappy FedEx and handing out cookies and delivering pumpkins, the game will send some nasty gargoyle, a golem or some other shit you way. Most of that stuff looks really threatening until some asshole NPCs appear and do all the work for you. Which, so far, has happened in every single "boss" event. An NPC shows up and takes the aggro right off me. I'm a level 50 paladin. The very definition of a tank in this game. I can taunt those monsters all the way I want, they won't attack me. They attack the NPC. And if I do get hit by harmless minions or random AoE, the NPC companion heals me. I cannot fail. It is impossible to fail story quests. There is no challenge here, no excitement and no sense of achievement when you win yet another completely meaningless battle you were never meant to lose to begin with.

The one new type of quest I have actually enjoyed involved the new 'FATE'-system. Fate meaning 'Full Active Time Event, which is really just a fancy expression from "random event copied straight from Rift and Guild Wars 2". A bunch of powerful monsters appears somewhere, you can jump right in and fight them and depending on your acontribution you get rewarded with some money (gil) and experience. That's nice, it's fun, it's level-scaled and you get random players to join and help on the fly. And that's about all the fun I had with the quests in this game.

As for the zones, I have only explored what I believe to be a small fraction of the game's world, but there's a ton of variety right there, beautiful landscapes, no complaints here. And since we're already talking aesthetics, let me move right on to the new UI and menu system. Good news is, it's a lot better, nicer to look at and hell of a lot easier to use than the original crap. The bad news is, it's still not great and far from 'on par' with any modern MMO out there. Realigning and moving my action bars was a chore, making them appear in the first place was anything but intuitive and I can't resize them or make unused slots invisible. You know, shit that WoW has been doing for more than a half decade.

In fact, the whole damn game is still in the stone age when it comes to comfort and user-friendliness. My sprint is a god damn skill, which needs to be hotkeyed, because simply pressing shift like in any other game is too easy, apparently. Want to mount up in town? FUCK YOU! Want to interact with NPCs whilst mounted up? FUCK YOU TWICE! Want to attack an enemy without having to hit the dismount button? Ffffff... well, you know. YOU CAN'T DO SHIT WHILE YOU'RE RIDING!
Yes, this may not be a big deal to some of you, but it pisses me off, because the whole damn game is like that! I have to use fucking "retainers" instead of just putting my shit on an auction house. I have to wait 12 hours in between 3 killquests. I don't see the exact location of a quest marker on my map if the quest leads me to a different area. Dungeons come with a fucking time limit, which kicks me out if my group takes too long to beat it. And so on.
It feels like it was made by a bunch of guys who have never even touched a modern MMO. I mean, if you're already ripping off Rift with your FATE stuff (which is a good thing), why don't you folks at Square spend a day or two playing WoW or any successful online game out there and then look back at your own game and see how awkward, how unneccessarily complicated, how downright annoying it is in places?

And that doesn't even include Final Fantasy's outdated combat-system. Oh wow, you made it faster, you added more hotkeys to click, well fuck, have you checked out Guild Wars 2 or Neverwinter? Stand around and click hotkeys, that shit got boring in 2005! What's worse, there are NO skilltrees, there is NO class customization, NOTHING! Even ancient Final Fantasy XI allowed you to at least "multiclass" your characters to some extent, i.e. combine paladin and ninja and become an agile, dual-wielding tank. A Realm Reborn (ARR) lets you choose up to 5 abilities from any of your unlocked classes you're not currently using and that's it for customization.

Sure, ARR is better than what Square now refers to as "version 1.0". Well, duh. It's better because it has actual quests, a UI which isn't complete garbage (but still far from good) and visual variety in its game world. And so does every other MMORPG out there. But guess what? Every other MMORPG out there is F2P or B2P. With the exception of WoW (yet). FFXIV used to cost monthly fees. So far, there have been no news on a F2P transition. Players expect them to start charging fees again. Who the hell is gonna pay to play this stuff? Every month? Die-hard fans? Yeah sure, maybe those who like the freaky races and the winks at the older FF-titles ('Warriors of Light', Bahamut, the Crystal Tower). But guess what? Star Wars has fans. Warhammer has fans. That didn't really help the mediocre MMORPGs, which used these licenses. And somehow I doubt it's gonna help ARR.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a bad game. It's awkward, complicated, derivative and completely lacks innovation, but it's an okay game. But what MMO out there isn't? What, aside from the unique setting, do I get in Final Fantasy that I can't get in WoW, Rift, Aion, Tera, SWTOR and god knows how many other games out there? Are nice visuals and a popular name really enough to make this game stand out? I highly doubt it. What's worse - who is even going to play it after the disastrous original launch? Other games failed at launch and got fixed over time (Age of Conan comes to mind), but never managed to appeal to the amounts of players their creators had once hoped for.

If you're just looking for some new MMO to play, the new Final Fantasy is not going to be it. If you're a die-hard fan and seriously hoping to get into ARR after the initial version put you off, you may get some fun out of this one, but even then, this is likely going to be some quick, short-lived fun, until you'll realise this is not the virtual home you have been looking for. This isn't Vana'Diel. It's still Eorzea. And it's simply not a very exciting place.

-Cat

Video Game Justice

Possibly the most important thing about a healthy relationship is that you share a major hobby. That you spend several hours a week doing the same thing, together. And the thing which ultimately destroyed countless relationships for me (aside from me being a major dickhole) is my dedication to gaming. I'm a gamer, my girlfriends were not. Some of them thought they were, because modern society has somehow made it hip and socially acceptable to call yourself a gamer.

Stop eating my fucking controller, you slut!

Seriously, this is getting way out of hand! The first thing I have to do every day is shoo random bitches out of my living room, who try to eat, fondle and make love to my gaming peripherals. I don't know how the fuck they get in here, I don't know where they come from, but I'm getting seriously annoyed with this bullshit.

Actually, you can stay for a bit...

Point being, you can be as blonde, horny and underage as you want, if you can't tell your trolls from your goblins, you can GTFO.

So, the Bear and I have that one thing in common. Gaming. That's probably it, but it's good enough. I don't know if she's into anything else and I only call her the Bear because I can't really remember her name right now, but we're solid. We're a great couple. We play our video games together. Usually co-op, because when we end up on opposite sides in pvp, it usually ends with somebody getting slapped in the face by a penis. Seriously though, that was an accident. We're just really bad at sex. We don't deliberately hit each other or anything.

If you're a regular visitor to this blog or my FB profile, you will have noticed that our favourite game right now is Dark Souls. We're about to start our 4th cooperative playthrough. And if you're somewhat familiar with Dark Souls, then you'll know that the game is designed to team you up with random strangers rather than friends, there is no real communication, no coordination, you just invite a random guy and hope he's competent enough.
There are mods and workarounds for that, Bear and I play with each other all the time, but the vast majority of players out there either plays alone or with people they don't really know. Make a mental note, that's gonna be important in a bit. :P

And whenever I team up with the Bear, we get harassed by invaders. The game actually calls them that. There's a mechanic in Dark Souls, which lets you invade other people's peaceful pve sessions and your only objective is to kill these players. Why the fuck anyone would think this is a great design idea, which generates nothing but grief, frustration and abuse is beyond me, but that's Japanese game design for ya.
Mind you, Dark Souls also offers consensual pvp if you aren't a total pussy. First of all, there's an arena, which allows you to queue up for duels, 2vs2 and so forth. There is also a pvp summoning stone. Using it will place a red marker on the ground for everyone who is currently playing to see, and if anybody is looking for a fight, they may activate said marker and summon you for a duel.

The pvp crowd is very active across all platforms. They're also the biggest bunch of whiny cunts you'll encounter anywhere outside a Blizzard-hosted internet forum. They live by some made up code of honour: Using magic makes you a faggot, you're a cunt when you use tower shields and wearing plate armor makes you a noob and so forth. They're the kind of people who used to demand 32 timeouts in a 5 minute game of dodgeball in school.
Still. Whiny or not, if you're looking for people who are willing to fight you, there are several quick and easy ways to get in touch with them and exchange a few friendly blows. And if you're a coward, a complete dickhead and an untalented loser, who wants to fight people with pve builds, zero experience with pvp and no desire to engage other players in combat, you invade other players against their will.

The Bear and I don't invade people. We don't challenge players in consensual pvp. We don't even fight each other in pvp. We're like the Klitschkos. We're a team. We don't fight. That only complicates things and causes bad blood. But we get invaded a lot, like I said.
Now, remember when I said that most people either play their pve solo or with random strangers and zero communication? Bear and I sit in the same room. We talk. We're a team. We're lovers. There's some chemistry going on here. And whenever some dickhead invades our session, we position our asses in opposite corners of a room and wait to ambush them. We put the bad guy right between us. Like so:

Half of the time, the invader doesn't even notice there's two of us and will just start attacking one of us and ignore the other. So we close in and beat the shit out of them:

If an invader starts running circles around Bear and attempts to outmaneuver us, she simply turtles up (tower shield ftw) and I shoot them in the back with my repeating crossbow:

Alternatively, they go after me, I do the turtling and she does the backstabbing.
As you can see, this isn't rocket surgery, there is no master strategist at work, it's just basic 2vs1 exploited in the most unfair manner possible. But no matter how simple the whole thing is, pulling it off becomes so much easier and more efficient if you can communicate with your partner. Random strangers can't talk to you (outside of windows live chat), there's no coordination, they might be drooling morons for all you know. And invaders know that. That's why they fucking invade you in the first place. Unfair advantage and all that.

So we did our thing last night, killed one invader, killed another and after the first one I was greeted by this message here:

Mkay. So you invaded our game against our will, clearly hoping for an unfair advantage and instead we ganged up on you and kicked you ass, so we're noobs and gankers. Love that logic.

Well, you know how it goes. I was stupid enough to write back, of course. Told him I didn't invite him and I couldn't remember forcing him to invade our fucking game. Funny how he tried to fuck up our co-op session and then insults us when we kick him out.
And of course he just kept on going on and on and on about how we're noobs and faggots and the usual stuff you get to hear on just about every online game with a pvp component.

So let me get this straight: You invade pve sessions because you don't have the balls to play consensual pvp with people who are ready and willing to fight. You do so with only one goal in mind - to kill generally helpless players, take away their experience points and currency (pardon, 'souls') and force them to start over from the nearest safe spot, yet you start complaining when they fight back and kick you the fuck out? Seriously?

Okay, he's talking about "ganking" here, probably referring to the fact that we sandwiched him and went Ken Barlow on his ass. But that only makes it more hilarious. What the fuck was that asshole expecting? A formal bow, maybe a kiss on the cheek, the two of us taking turns and maybe waiting for him to send us a note on all the gear and spells we were or weren't allowed to use? You invaded our fucking game! We didn't ask you to do it, we didn't message you and say, "Hey, come here and attack us, we promise not to fight back!" or some shit. You come into my session, try to kill me, attack my partner and I'll take you down by any means necessary, no holds barred. No fucking rules, no bullshit imaginary code of honour, you're going to die and that's that. And where I'm from, people have the common sense to expect that sort of reaction, they take it like a man and shut the fuck up about it, not start whining like a 12 year old who has to buy female hygiene products for the first time in her life. What the fuck is wrong with you stupid kids? You didn't see that kind of bullshit back in Quake or Unreal. At least not on that level. We just played our fucking games and shut the fuck up. This new generation of gamers whines about "endgame content" and "balancing" and feeds greedy publishers by purchasing shitty DLC and competes over who wears the fanciest dress at fucking cosplay conventions. You don't like me kicking you out of my game any way I see fit? Then stay the fuck out! Or do it like the last cowardly cunt and Alt+F4 your way to safety. Which was just as pathetic, but at least he didn't bother me with his stupid opinion.

-Cat

My New Coworker

Ahh yes, work! That time where people tell me to send a list of all the games I'd like to review and then they pick the good ones for themselves and ask me to test Hello Kitty Online. Okay, that has only happened once in four years, but let's go with it for the sake of the joke. Then comes the fun part: Brib... errr communication! Yes, communication. Talking to the PR guys, getting free cash shop currency, premium mounts, special collector's editions, that sort of thing. And the actual play time, of course. Best part of the job. Plow through the levels, try all of the game's features, get some random guild ("I'm writing a review for XXX, pls halp!") to show me all the raid bosses and do all the work for me.

But then...
Writing.
Brrrr!

In the time it took to create this first paragraph I have fed our beardies, given the cats some water, baked and eaten a box of Tesco's Ultimate Chicken Nuggets and fixed Hugo's heating thingie, which had been unplugged by our stupid cats. I may have watched a cat video or two, that people put on my wall on Facebook. Or was that this morning? What day is it?
So yeah. Concentration problems.

They're fucking delicious.

People want me to be funny. They expect it. Maybe they don't and I'm just expecting myself to be funny. I want to be funny. And many truly funny people are spontaneous, which I'm absolutely jealous of. Watch a comedian in an interview or a talkshow and they're just funny, they come up with puns and witty stuff just like that, outta nowhere. Then there's me. I'm about as entertaining as a sock full of peanuts. This is why I hate and avoid podcasts.

See, I'm a bit of a random extra. Some of my friends are hosting a cast, one of their regulars can't make it, hey I know, let's grab Kitten! He doesn't know wtf he's talking about, but at least he's funny! Except I'm not. My bitching about cash shops and my sexy voice granted me the appreciation of my peers that time, but funny... nah. I need to plan my funny. I need to sit down and think and wait for ideas. Better still, I pace around the room like I'm receiving an imaginary phone call. I do get good ideas from that. I'm particularly proud of making up the term 'feckish'.

Alas, no amount of pacing cures my inability to focus or stops the lovely old granny in the house opposite to ours to get her ancient tits out. I don't know whether it's the heat, dementia or a blunt attempt at flirting with me, but holy fucking shit look at these wrinkly sacks of flesh! Damn carpet needs vacuuming. Was the ceiling always covered in cobwebs? God I love my sword. Cost me a fortune and my parents thought I was fucking insane, but look at how cool it is up there, just mounted to the wall above the fireplace. I wonder how many zombies I could take before they eat me.

Brain refuses to compute. Or computes too much, in too many directions. So I need a fetish, a talisman, a focus, some magical trinket that helps me keep my train of thoughts on track. In the past I relied on my old work mate here:

Luna and Olf.

Snakes wiggle around a lot, they try to get into your clothes (sleeves, collars, nothing is safe!) and I don't know shit about them, which makes me nervous. When an urgent article was due, I used to get the snake out (oh, shut up!) and pace around the room with it. And of course the snake would distract me. Gotta make sure it's not gonna slither off and fall on the floor or get stuck under my shirt or... oh god, it's looking at me, I bet it'll bite me any second!
So, how the fuck does distracting myself from distractions with another distraction help, you might ask. Simple.

See, grannytits, hyperactive cats, cobwebs, they all distract me as much as the snake does. But they're everywhere I look! Too much input. Too many stupid things happening all over the place. And multitasking only goes so far. I can brush my teeth and pee in the sink at the same time, but put a shaver in my other hand and stuff gets compl... okay, maybe that's not a good example. My point is, the snake is just one distraction, but one big enough to keep me away from all other distractions. I can focus on the critter and on my work and that's it. And the constant feeling of 'Ohshitohshitohshititsgonnabitemeeee!1' helps with the flow of adrenaline, which, in turn, helps with the creative process. I've never been bitten by our snakes, but that only makes me more paranoid, because I don't know what to expect when it happens. Like giving a cat a belly rub for the first time.


The problem with elderly snakes, and all things elderly, really, is their life expectancy. Or lack thereof. Long story short, we eventually went from snake to no snake. And then got a different snake to fill the position, but royal pythons, well...
"Royal python" sounds amazing. Majestic. Awe-inspiring. You know what else they call them? Ball pythons. Because when you touch them, they don't hiss, they don't bite, they just curl up into a little ball and hope for you to go away.
So yeah. Chokie is a nice snake and all, but she's not scary, she doesn't make me nervous and she doesn't really do enough to keep me focused. I don't know. We get along and all, but there's no chemistry. She's just not a good work snake.
I also tried Chompy, our dearly departed beardie, but she'd just run off and shit on the printer. Always. Not the kind of distraction I had hoped for.

So for the past few months I've been going through a bit of a difficult time, work-wise. Working from 9-5 (9 at night and 5 in the morning, that is), kept distractions to a minimum, but that's also when they run Mythbusters marathons. Not good for productivity.
But all is not lost. Not anymore! Meet Nomnom:

The happy one on the right.

She eats carrots.

She sits on my shoulder. That's it. Sometimes she eats a carrot. She goes soooooooo yellow. And orange. And red. When she's in the mood. I don't even know how the fuck that helps me focus on my work, but it does. Maybe she's a placebo. Placebo lizard. Maybe I should have named her Placebo.

I gotta do my part for a new magazine issue, soon. I think I'll hire Nomnom as a trainee for now. Put her on my shoulder. Pace around. See how the articles turn out. We'll go from there. I think I can afford paying her a carrot or two per article. See how we get along, if she grows into the job and all that. I have a good feeling about this. I may be getting ahead of myself, but I think I can sense a potential partnership here. Strictly work-based, of course. Most importantly, she does not shit on the equipment. That's always a plus. All your trainees need to be housebroken.

-Cat