Category Archives: Games

Star Wars

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The Old Republic is out and naturally, I’ve been able to get some time in.  Two guides are up too.  The Sith Sorcerer Guide and the General Strat Guide.  They pay for the game and the monthly sub, which is nice.

I’m playing on the Imperial side, on Sith Meditation Sphere.  Called Asmiroth, naturally.I’m quite ahead of the leveling curve as the planets indicate how many people are playing with you.  Lower planets have 150-200 players while the ones I’m on have 10 or so.  I’ve unlocked my Legacy as well, which gives all your characters the same last name.  You unlock it after Chapter 1, which is around level 32.

The game has improved by leaps and bound from the beta stage.  It’s actually quite surprising how much they improved gameplay in a short period of time.  I was really worried about crafting and mods and they pulled an 11th hour switcheroo which works out pretty well.  From level 10 on up, you can get orange colored gear, which is 100% modifiable.  If you like the look, you can mod it all the way to level 50 and keep the same look.  I’ve had the same helmet for 20 levels now.  This works for all armor but does not work for weapons.  Weapons have a DPS component that is separate from the mods and even for an Inquisitor/Sage, where DPS doesn’t matter, it has Force Power which doesn’t come from mods.  So while you can upgrade your weapon with mods for 5 or so levels, you will eventually be replacing it.

Heroic quests, for 2 or 4 people, are interesting but not required to level.  Getting 2 people together is simple enough, on a populated planet.  Getting 4, especially after level 25 or so where roles are important, is next to impossible.  No one purposefully levels as a healer, so when you need one, it stinks.  Plus, everyone has piles of area effect attacks, making it a pain for a tank to do their job properly, especially if they are geared for DPS instead.

Also, it’s clear that level 35+ content wasn’t tested enough.  There are less things to do and way more bugs.  Sort of like Age of Conan.  Balance is off as well, where some enemy placements are next to impossible to get through unless you get lucky.   Here’s an example.  At level 35 there was a Heroic-2 quest I tried to solo.  Stuns and shields and planning and I was able to complete it without dying.  A level 40, with the same companion and talents, couldn’t get past the first group.  Things are balanced around the harder difficulty by that point.  I do know that Hard Flashpoints were largely broken as were all operations at the last beta.  We’ll see how that goes when I get there.

Leveling pace is decent.  If you skip all the story (spacebar) you can rush to 50 in about 80 hours.  Otherwise, it’s about 1.5-2 hours per level, after level 20 and fairly steady from that point.  There are still some balancing issues to work out (Heroics are not worth the time/experience) but it feels a good pace.

The story aspect is pretty strong.  It really plays like a single player BioWare game.  I won’t spoil anything but the story is quite a bit more solid than anything Lucas has written and you do feel invested in your character.  My questions revolve around what happens after you crush the Republic on a planet.  If you return, are they still there, story-wise?

Fun game, should last a couple months for me.

Race to World First

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A nice doc on the elite raider mentality.  The first 40 minutes are about the people while the last 20 is an actual account of the race to world first in Cataclysm at launch.

Two items of note.  First, you can see a large difference in between the Europeans and Americans social skills and values set.  The former is dedicated yet quiet while the latter is boisterous and conflicted.  Second is the amount of time EU players have to invest in order to progress.  Either their social system is more conducive to getting the time off from other engagements or there’s something in the water.  I think it might have more to do with the social stigma attached to extreme gaming that exists in NA.  Asians have schools for Starcraft and some of the best FPS players are in the EU.

Some of the highlights for me are:

– geek saturation is well past the point of social acceptance and worn as a badge of honor

– the prime age of a extreme gamer seems to be under 30 due to real-life constraints.  Akin to the 40 year old football player.

– the sport is in flux.  Hockey has been around 100 years but WoW certainly won’t.

– fame is international at the gaming platform.  Maybe 500,000 people know who Max Keeping is but millions know of Paragon or Ensidia.  Strange to look at that measure of scope.

 

Not sure how long the video will be free to watch though.

Race to World First from Looking for Group Productions on Vimeo.

Posted in WoW

Star Wars

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More info from the beta.

Last weekend was the last massive stress test for beta.  There were about 50 servers, filled to the brim.  Many disconnects, corrupt characters, failed connections.  Exactly what a beta is supposed to find but still concerning at this point in the game.  A high level server was supposed to be launched on the 16th, it finally did on the 25th with no notice.  90% of the people can’t access it.  The game is getting another big patch today, what I expect to be the final one since early access starts in 2 weeks.

I’ll put more thoughts up later but for now a quick rundown of the various systems.

Crafting

A tad more complicated than what we see in other games due to the ability to deconstruct items and learn better version.  You have collection skills and mission skills which also collect items but for the rarer recipes.  And one crafting skill per player.  As simple as the system is, it’s inherently broken in that none of the items are currently upgrades to anyone playing the game up until the mid 30s and then stop being useful at final levels.  One particular skill, Slicing, allows you to pull cash out of boxes in the wild – with zero other use.  It’s essentially an ATM skill – so a requirement if you want to be rich.

Combat

If not for the fact that they send 3-4 enemies against you at once, this would be the same as any other game.  The downside to this is that there are only 2 types of enemies throughout the entire game – humanoids and droids.  They look the same at level 1 as they do at level 50, so it’s insanely boring after you’ve killed a few thousand (by level 15, easily).   The feel is the same as all other games, click a button, watch something happen, click another button.  Also, there is a fair amount of skill bloat, where by level 30 you’ll have 2 bars (at least) full of abilities.  That’s crazy.

Class Balance

Melee classes are insanely gimped.  Since there are always 3 enemies to fight, you need to move between them while the ranged folk just stand there.  Really bad for melee tanks.  So out of 8 possible advanced classes, 3 are an a huge disadvantage. Since TOR is keeping the holy trinity (tank, healer, dps) and keeping group sizes at 4, there is a massive lack of healers in the game.  Theoretically, there should be enough but healers don’t level as fast as tanks, let alone DPS, so good luck finding one.  Classes that fill roles are fairly well balanced between themselves but time will tell which are better, especially in longer lasting fights where Force users are at a disadvantage.

Story

This part is well done.  There are a lot of options, though rarely do they have any impact other than light or dark side points.  Still, it’s fun to see what your actions have as consequences.  Light/Dark side only impact appearance, which is unfortunate.  From 1-20 you’ll have a lot of fun with your class quests.  Past that point, those quests are rare as heck.  If you play another character on the same faction, expect to replay a good 95% of the content and story.

Companions

At first they were horribly broken, now it’s only a little broken.  Tanks no longer have armor so lose their value in the 30s and healers pick up the pace.  Having to equip no only yourself but your companion means that you can’t easily swap companions – they will be heavily undergeared.  It’s a very odd thought. You can give them gifts to get small quests but all of them that I’ve see so far as just clicking text boxes.

Interface

Looks and feels Star Wars.  Clean too.  You can’t modify anything, which is VERY odd and some of the basic UI items such as macros, assists, target of target and mouseovers do not exist.  This currently makes healing about 10x as hard as it should be since DPS can’t help the tank and you need to manually click people to heal – so no moving while healing.   No looking for group feature or dual spec either – the latter of which is again making finding healers a pain.

Overall

If you’ve played a themepark MMO before (WoW, Rift, LOTRO, DDO, EQ, etc..) and are happy with what’s there, stay there.  If the story is old, then moving over could work.  If you dislike the mechanics of your themepark, you will be even more disappointed here.  If you’re looking for depth or polish, come back in 6 months.  Many of the systems that have been refined in the past have been reverted to horrible states or are simply broken.  With next to no developer input on the forums, it doesn’t help.

If you’re somewhat casual or new to the MMO sphere, then there’s stuff to see here and you should have fun for a while.

 

The game will sell piles of boxes and have a subscriber drop of 50% or more after 6 months.  I do expect it to be profitable but nowhere near what EA and BioWare are hoping for.

Star Wars – The Old Republic Impressions

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So the NDA lifted last week and I said I’d put up my thoughts on the game, here we are.

First impressions are simple enough, it’s a themepark.  If you’ve played WoW or Rift, then the game will be intimately familiar.  If you like either of those, there really isn’t a valid reason to swap over.  If you’re tired of the setting but not the mechanics, then a swap makes sense.

From a core mechanics perspective – combat, equipment, groups – the game is as you expect.  Decently balanced with variety across all classes.  There is a significant hindrance to all melee characters (of which 3 of the 8 advanced classes belong) since the majority of the game is played at a distance and against multiple enemies.  Each character, due to the good story and diverse skill set, plays somewhat uniquely and as you would expect from Star Wars canon.  Sith Sorcerers shoot lightning, Troopers use big guns, Smugglers dual wield blasters.  Each advanced class (except 2) offer dual roles.  They all DPS but some can tank or heal.  This makes it a lot easier to play through the game without having to create a new character.  The single role characters are a thing of the past and I expect those 2 other classes to swap to something else in short order – especially the pure DPS melee one.

The planets and visuals are spot on.  You feel like you’re in a Star Wars setting.  Enemies are cool looking but there are about 10 types total through the game and 95% of your combat is against humans or droids.  That does dull it up somewhat.  Groups work well together and there are a lot of group quests.  You can also get into dungeons, of which there should be 15 at launch and all of them available again at 50 at an expert difficulty.  Some of the more basic group UI elements are missing though, such as Target of Target, Focus, Mouseover (for heals) and an Assist option.  This isn’t such an issue at first but on harder difficulty, where control is important, it begins to show.  Still no Looking for Group tool, which is a bummer.  All but 2 of the dungeons are accessible from the same location – away from the planets – making it for an odd choice to actually find a group to do them.  Your only option now is to sit in that zone, twiddle your thumbs and hopefully find a group.

Crafting, as the system currently stands, is for lack of a better term, broken.  Nearly nothing you create has any practical use since your quest rewards will always be better.  One particular skill, Slicing, it essentially an ATM skill providing money out of thin air.  All characters will be using this to supplement their income.  Speaking of which, money means next to nothing aside from paying for skill upgrades and a mount.  Unless you’re giving it away by the bucketfull, you’ll reach max level with close to a million credits and nothing to do with it.  I’m sure that will change with time.

Finally, the story.  A  lot has been said about this aspect and Bioware does it well – better than Dragon Age 2, that’s for sure.  Every mission has a voice over and some options, though some of those options aren’t clear cut.  Personal missions (for your class) provide a unique backdrop to your progress and make you develop an interest in what’s going on around you.  You can replay as a different class and see different class quests but the zone quests (per planet) will always remain the same.  And those account for 80% of all quests, so replayability is questionable unless you play the opposing faction.  Still, better than other games out there.

Overall, the game is simple and fun and will keep people playing to see through the entire story at least once, so perhaps 2 months total of play.  There are some serious questions about advanced systems and mechanics but those don’t begin to apply until you’re at level 50 and there has been a total of 1 week of testing at that level – lots of missing details.  Since this is the first MMO for Bioware, and the experience thusfar as been mixed, I won’t hold my breath that launch + 2 months will be smooth.  I do expect the game to be a flash in the pan with spiked sales and under 1 million subs for the long run.  Still, if you can play with some friends, it’s not a bad way to spend 2 months.

Choices!

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I don’t have the best computer but I have a decent one.  The specs to play Skyrim are less than they are to play Rift for some reason, even though I think they look better here.  Eh.  Regardless, I’ve killed 2 dragons now, explored a half-dozen dungeons, freed a town, climbed a mountain, killed a bunch of mountain cats (saber tooths!) on the way up and put in about 8 hours into the game.  My quest log is still full of items, and I have oh, maybe 15 spots on the map discovered. I think I could play this game for 100 hours and still have stuff to find.

Great stuff: Play how you want, voices are better than Oblivion, dual spell casting, no base stats, great perk choices, lots of crafting choices, music, the entire look of the world, lighting is much better, giants, dragons!!!

Bad stuff: Bugs and enough to find one per play session, poor inventory management (though better than Oblivion), console controls, never enough magicka (mana) making it near impossible to play a pure caster, things weigh too much (50 lbs of potions, really?), uneven difficulty (better than Oblivion though) and it feels like crack.

 

Secondly is the SWTOR beta.  Last weekend was an open beta and the devs say players logged in 1 million hours.  If the average play over the weekend was 4 hours, that’s 250K people, which I highly doubt.  Naturally, the server populations were high during that time, now they are practically empty.  You can find a beta key on what, 99% of gaming websites now?  Tens of thousands are being handed out for free so it’s an open closed beta I guess.  Waiting on the NDA to lift before I can put up some impressions and details but all of you can see that it’s a themepark MMO in the style of WoW, Rift and LOTRO.  When that NDA drops though, expect a point by point post.

Uncharted 3

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I finished the campaign for Uncharted 3 last night.  Last month I had replayed Uncharted 2, just to get into the feel of things before this one came out.  It’s surely one of the best games on the PS3, making the last few weeks interesting in games (Batman and Skyrim too).

Compared to the second one, the game engine is superior.  Worlds are bigger, much better lit and with a whole lot more movement.  A melee system – with counters and throws – has been added, which brings some needed depth to the game.  Water plays a really big role, as does fire and they both look amazing.  There are 2 ocean sections that just feel as if you’re part of the action, really well done.  The music is also top notch, with grand scores that play at the right times and push you more into the plot.  There are less guns, which is actually a good thing.  2 shotguns, 2 rifles, 4 pistols is more than enough.  Of course, you have the RPG, sniper and grenade launcher for those tougher fights.

What is missing is pacing.  The game has tremendous ups and downs without much reason.  The real start of the game doesn’t happen til at least 2 hours in and some of the fight scenes just draw on for much too long.  The last 3 chapters are of such high difficulty when compared to the rest if makes you wonder how it was tested.  Also missing are puzzles – not that previous ones had a ton but this game has you moving from point A to B, in a straight line much too often without having to figure something out.  Granted the wall hanging portions are cool, there is only one that I would consider fun. I want a reason to open my notebook and see the art and story and at the 1/3 point, I just don’t need it anymore.  A shame.

Overall, a great game and a worthy purchase.  Best system and mechanics than the previous but poorer pacing and story.

Batman: Arkham City

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I played the heck out of Batman: Arkham Asylum since its release a few years ago.  It was just an overall amazing game that had a perfect mix of stealth, combat and exploration.  Its sequel came out last week and naturally I picked it up and it does not disappoint.

The engine is the same and combat is essentially the same – everything just flows.  The difference is using gadgets in combat.  You can stick bombs on people in combat, or run up on their shoulders or dive bomb from the skys onto their heads.  There just isn’t a break in the combat, which feels great.   The game has an overworld of sorts, where you’re essentially in a city and have access to mini-zones (in the form of buildings) for story driven content.  The overworld is big enough and diverse enough but with upgrades to your cape and grapnel, you can travel from one end to the other in about 90 seconds in the air.  I’m sure it would be 5-10 minutes on foot.  Plenty of Riddler trophies and achievements to get (400 total), all of which can be marked on the map if you find an informant.

Voice acting is still amazing, a lot out of the 90s cartoon.  The story is pretty strong and the gameplay diversity is strong (throw ice bombs to create patches that you can float on, then pull yourself along the water) but at the same time it throws nearly all of it at you at once.  You’ll find Riddler trophies all over the place and 30% of them you won’t be able to get until you have the proper upgrades.  Even some of the missions will try your patience due to wonky situations and just simple bad luck.

That being said, it’s an amazingly strong game.  I wouldn’t put it equal to Deus Ex since it’s a different target audience but it’s one of the best games I’ve played in a very long time.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

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So WoW has a new expansion coming out and it’s all about Pandas.  Jump the shark much?

  •  level to 90 (5 more levels)
  • re-using existing dungeons, making them heroic
  • new race (Pandas), new class (Monk – melee DPS, healer, tank)
  • new talent system (18 total instead of 40)
  • scenarios (1-3 players, timed combat with medals)
  • timed dungeon runs
  • pet battle system (Pokemon!)
  • 3 new raids
Basically, they are adding new systems to try and keep the more casual players around.  Cataclysm, rather than increasing numbers, dropped them by over 10% with it’s more hard set focus.  We’re in the Angry Birds age now, games need to have a friggin’ strong appeal to be worth 15$ a month.
Finally, as an interesting aside since I wrote a Rogue Guide  for the game, they have been slowly taking a giant dumparoo on the class.  They were the only true melee damage class at first as each class had one specific role they did well and some other ones they were ok at.  Well now Warriors, Death Knights, Druids and Monks are all  in melee and every single one provides additional utility.  To quote Blizzard on reasons to bring a Rogue:
reasons to get a rogue now are things like poisons, interrupts and stuns

Just so everyone is clear on this, every class has an interrupt and a stun.  Every last one.  Poisons only affect the rogue  (increased damage) and provide no benefit to the group.  Take a look at their new talents and see how out of 18 talents, there are maybe 4 you’d take if you were not actively PvPing.  I guess they want to remove Rogues from the PvE game.

Posted in WoW

WoW Finally Caves to RMT

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Blizzard has, for a while now, offered vanity pets on their website that can be used in game.  10-20$ per item and the catch was that once purchased, it only worked on the characters linked to your account.  That’s changed.

Blizz is introducing a pet that can be traded.

Why the change of heart?  To quote:

Since the introduction of the Pet Store, many players have been asking for ways to get the companions we offer there without having to spend real-world cash. By making the Guardian Cub tradable (much like the BoE mounts from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game), players interested in the new pet will have fun, alternative in-game ways to get one. In addition to trading the pet, players can give the Guardian Cub as a gift to another character for a special occasion; guild leaders can use them to reward members for a job well done; and so on. We also hope this change will help reduce the number of incidents of scamming via trading for invalid pet codes.

Basically, they want people to have the change to legitimately buy in-game gold with real world cash.  Of course, the actual value of gold in-game will vary depending on what people are willing to spend and it is guaranteed to be a much worse deal than buying from a farmer.  The difference is that Blizzard takes your money.

I have reservations about a sub+item shop game.  I pay X amount of dollars for all content, why should I be paying more?  In most cases, the items are not game related, in that they don’t give you some sort of edge or benefit.  WoW is similar in this regard while games like Star Trek Online (going F2P in few weeks) is the opposite.  Diablo 3 however is a pure item shop game, but it’s not planned to be a competitive game, so the impact should be negligible.  Then again, Blizz is making money on trades.

It really is an interesting market we see nowdays.  Blizzard is moving more and more towards the casual, time-restricted crowd that has disposable income to bypass the grind that people with more free time are willing to blow through.  Sadly, they are also trying to keep raiders around and that honestly died a year ago.

 

 

 

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Fun or Not?

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I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to play games for over 20 years.  I’ve seen the good (Zelda, Diablo, UO), the bad (half the n64 library) and the ugly (Contra’s difficulty, FF’s downward spiral).  Through it all, the only binding factor is fun.

When I’m playing I don’t think “Am I having fun?”, since I wouldn’t be playing if I didn’t.  Sure, there are games that take a while to get going (Kingdom Hearts 2 I’m looking at you) and some games that go through bad patches (Deus Ex:HR) but are in their essence, great games.  Rarely do I find a game so bad that I just drop it completely.  I guess that’s why I buy so few games, I only play the ones I know I will want to play.

Certainly back in the day there were more crappy games.  They cost next to nothing to produce, there were no aggregate review scores and the internet didn’t let people play the game before release.  We have better quality today but in the same token we have more games to chose from.  To set themselves apart, the games focus on niche areas – harvesting, Smurfs, combat, FPS and so on.  It’s easier to find a game that provides your type of fun but at the same time, there are dozens more games that you simply will not touch because they have no appeal.  I think I played 75% of the SNES library and I have a grand total of 6 PS3 games.

It’s interesting to see a game that aims for the most sales and the most diversity while also appealing to their base crowd.  MMOs fit that rather well since they require thousands of players together in order to succeed.  It’s also interesting to hear the people complain about the game going one way instead of another, while still playing it.  How MMOs will work in the future is another post entirely but it surely seems that the persistent online game world (Farmville counts) is the way to ensure maximum fun (since everyone wants some social aspect) while piecemealing in the niche products.  Kinda like Jello with fruit inside.