Monthly Archives: November 2015

Fallout 4

Posted on by

So let’s forego the usual pretext and jump right into it.  Fallout 4 is great.

It’s not perfect, there are still the usual bevy of Bethesda bugs (ooh, that was nice) and the pacing/long-game has weird stretches, but the impressive majority of the game is of high quality.

The game uses the same engine as before, the same interface for lockpicking we’ve had since Oblivion, the same computer hacking password guessing mini game as well.  VATS is back, PIPBoy is near identical to before, body parts, physics, enemy types (more or less), quest volumes, hidden nooks, books and bobbleheads abound.  There’s a lot of “the same”, but when that stuff was working before, why throw it out the door (looking at you Blizzard and Ubi).

Instead, the various systems are augmented.  VATS isn’t a freeze-time attack anymore, things just move in slow-mo.  Weapon diversity is through the roof, with the additional of weapon/armor modifications.  Enemy AI is better, where they attack from multiple sides, use cover more often and hide if they can’t reach you.  It still goes full Gump from time to time but overall it feels like you’re climbing a mountain.  A dumb super mutant still hits like a freight train (or a mini-nuke train since they carry those too).  Creating a settlement seems pretty neat but even after a fair chunk of time, I’m not quite sure of the purpose – or how to get the various settlements to work together, even with the appropriate perks.

And perks are a bit of a weird one for me.  RPGs are about numbers, but the only real numbers you have control over are your items.  I honestly have no idea what a character with 3 perception looks like compared to one with 9.  I do know that they can unlock more perks, but the base stat certainly has some effect.  Perks themselves are neat-o, and it’s a novel approach to show everything under the covers from level 1. It’s a massive wall of perk options and you get to plan your way through it.  Gone are the days of hitting level 18 and realizing to get a perk you needed to start specializing at level 10.  But that’s the general feel of the game, saturate the player with information, let them make informed choices.  So while it was certainly jarring to see, it’s very welcome.  It’s a game that’s less about the now and more about the way forward.

The less obvious stuff is also quite improved.  Controls seem a lot tighter, and firing from the hip actually works now.  The music is still well above the norm and very mood appropriate.  Character animations have moved out of the uncanny valley, voice overs are delivered by humans rather than robots and the art style has moved out of the “grey, grey everywhere!” phase we’d been stuck in.  Death is everywhere this time, with a notably higher difficulty level than before.  Companions are actually useful.  Quests are multi-tiered, usually letting you move around and explore on the way to the next goal.

And I think that’s really the theme here, continuous movement forward.  The BoS motto ad victoriam is the heart of the game, ever moving forward towards the next goal, the next victory.  I am far from complete in the game but what I’ve seen so far is very impressive.   I’d be surprised if by the tail end of this I don’t end up with over 100 hours.

You’ve Increased Your Management Skills (101)

Posted on by

Training is over.  Well, that part of the training is at any rate.  I’m a little split on it mind you, given that I’ve taken training that was more “advanced” than this in the past.  So I considered it as a refresher, plus the time to meet new people and share some ideas.  To further point, while I was in this course – let’s call it level 1 for lack of a better term – I was accepted into another course in March, which ostensibly we can call level 3.

I will say that I’m glad I was taking a refresher course and not a deep dive course of completely new material.  With a new government, and cabinet (because it’s 2015 is a great line), meant that I was rather busy.  The past 10 years of government have been, um, challenging.  Lots of good people were shut out of any decision making.  That’s changed overnight.  But old habits die hard and there’s still a risk-aversion attitude. I have a very just do it attitude at work, and while that’s been a double edged sword for some time, in this particular case it’s paid dividends.  Dealing with the highest level of government throughout the day is fun.  People are people after all, and this new government clearly wants to go social rather than the totalitarian viewset of the past (which as an aside, is a poor reflection on the high quality members that were present in the past).  I’m quite curious to see how the next year or so rolls out.

BlizzCon

This was the first year where it was evident I could care less what was being spouted.  You can check out MMO-Champ for a massive log of what did go down.  The highlights are: SC2’s final expansion is live today, D3 is the ugly step brother, HS is getting a new deck and mode, HotS is eating paint chips, OW’s closed beta is starting with a launch in spring, and WoW:L is still a year out.

That last one…I dunno.  The game is at 5.5M, a near 50% loss from the WoD launch. It’s still going to be 18 months between the final patch and the expansion.  And it’s not like the con didn’t talk about WoW, a lot of it was about that MMO.  But with the marketplace today, the sheer competition of everything else, it really makes you wonder what’s being smoked in those offices.  And some of the design promises just seem like a massive stretch for a 10 year old game.  After the sales pitch and delivery of WoD…I’d expect that most people have just plain ol’ given up and are ready to move on.

Wildstar

I decided to draw up another alt, this time a Stalker.  Back to my Rogue roots I guess.  Having gone through the leveling cycle a LOT, the first few zones were pretty quick runs.  The trick is to keep a 1-2 quest level buffer above your current level and simply move on when it gets easy.  More specifically, avoid quests that are tagged as tasks.  Think of it like SWTOR’s class quests being the most efficient XP route, same here.

So he’s level 30 now, has done some group content and the broad strokes of each zone.  The F2P tweaks and previous changes are obvious enough.  There are no more 5+ person quests, just 2+.  Mind you, soloing a 2 person boss is now actually hard.  The Stalker’s stealth mode is pretty sweet, making infiltration much easier.  Having a mount at level 1 is awesome.  Fast travel rocks.  Enemy HPs have been tweaked.  Quest objectives have been standardizes (very rare where you need to “farm” a quest for drops) and the social tools are super.  It really puts into contrast what was in the game at launch and what’s there today.

I will say that the burst damage appeal of the Stalker is neat, and much different than the sustain of my Esper, or the build up from my Engineer.  The downside is that if the enemy isn’t dead in 5 seconds, it turns into a slog.  When it does work, whoo is it satisfying.

The largest downside to the game right now is the lag, and not the network kind.  I’m well under 100ms ping and there is a consistent 3s lag that shows up every couple fights.  It’s much worse on weekends.  T reminds me a lot of WoW’s vanilla launch, and well, every expansion since.  It’s rather clear that the servers are unable to take the load, and it begs the question what NCsoft is going to do about it.  Always a tough question in a F2P environment.  My guess is that they are going to defer this issue for a little while.  I know I don’t care about it so much, as of today, because “war, war never changes”.

Fallout 4

So, early reviews claim this is the second coming.  I’m looking forward to the Bethesda bug-fest, combined with an amazing world and story.  I bought the game and it’s pre-loading for my play session in the evening.  Tell my wife and kids I love them, and I’ll see them in a month.

Away On Training

Posted on by

This week is training week.  It’s also work-is-going-crazy week too, since a new cabinet is about to be named and that has a rather significant impact.  I’m not quite sure how I got nominated as the “he can fix it” guy, but I’m certainly the key point on a few of these things.

Ok, I’m lying.  I know exactly how I got here.

The training I’m on is about developing management skills.  One of the first topics is personality profiles, and this course focuses on the DISC model.  There’s a self-assessment as part of the course and it provides 2 results – one for “environment” and the other for “baseline”.  The former is how you are at work, the latter for general cases.

My baseline is an even D/C.  I like to analyse (duh!) and make decisions.  I’m not terribly concerned about what people think of me.

At work though, I am a solid D.  Everything else drops off the map.

So, given that I project an air of dominance, to a massive degree, I get the fun problem cases.  There’s a saying that goes “if you want something done, give it to the busy person”, so my plate seems to get bigger every year.

And while that’s manageable for pieces of time, there’s a point where the return on personal investment goes away.  There’s only so long you can juggle all those issues, manage that stress.  The whole idea of work/life balance is a very hard thing to manage when you’re tasked with making firm decisions, constantly.

So while I’ve been managing for some time and these personality profiles aren’t exactly news to me, I’m more in this for selfish reasons.  How do I personally manage all these various issues without going off the deep end.  And training, especially group training, is awesome for that.

I get to bounce ideas off other members, see their own experiences, relate to mine and work on refining my skills and style.  It isn’t so much about finding a true balance for myself, I know that isn’t possible, or even likely.  I will always be an outlier, and I’ve accepted that.  What I can do is find additional coping mechanisms, different communication tools to relate with other personality types.  Find a way to delegate some of these files, and do it in such a way that I feel comfortable having it leave my desk and that the person feels capable and supported while working on it.

I know it sounds pie in the sky, wishy-washy.  And truth be told, it is for a large part.  But when you get put into a position where people report to you, where you have authority, building a trusting relationship where all parties benefit (and you stay sane) is really the entire point.

I’ve already gotten a lot of useful info, looking forward to the remainder of the week.