Last night I completed a play through of Mass Effect. I've been avidly playing Mass Effect 2 and decided to do a play through of the original because the choices your character makes in that game carry through into #2 and will ultimately affect the conclusion to the trilogy as well.
The first game feels really clunky during combat compared to the much smoother experience of ME2, but the storytelling and emotional investment in the characters are still top notch and overall still a very enjoyable experience.
And the ending is just plain awesome. You know how most (RPG) games will have this big boss fight at the end where every skill and ability you learned throughout the game is useless and your get frustrated by having to adopt completely different playstyle/strategy just to finish the bloody thing? Well Bioware tends to do things a little different.
First of all, you have the option of getting the Big Bad Baddy to put a pistol against his head and pull the trigger. Unprecedented awesomeness right there. After that some Awgner worthy cutscenes of a spacebattle that have George Lucas crying into his pillow wondering when he lost it (around the time you cooked up Phantom Menace George) and then they play with you a bit.
It gets better when your main character tells your party members to confirm Saren,(the Big Bad Baddy) is really dead. The following cutscene sets you up to expect the classic bending over the corpse to see if he's dead only to have the 'corpse' put your neck in a vice-like grip dramatic effect. Instead your team members show uncommon sense by stopping at three yards to put another round through his brains to make sure he's dead. The fact that this enables the Even Bigger Bad Influence directing Saren to take over his body and transform into to be destroyed mutant boss takes nothing away from the whole awesomeness. The battle itself isn't easy (certainly not as easy as Mine-blind Marek in KoToR) but not too hard either. You end up with a very satisfied ending feeling.
I finished at 22:05 sharp. So what to do then? Switch on the TV. *Click* End battle for Naboo opening scene commences and Starwars theme music plays over the surround set *click* Hmmm, I haven't finished reading Shadow of the Apt yet.
Contrast...
I fully expect Mass Effect 3 to be a fitting end to the trilogy. Where your protagonist will have to bring together several factions currently in various states of cold to hot wars in order to fight the ultimate evil known as The Reapers. For some reason I kinda expect you find a new race of furry fuzzballs to help fight the final battle
Spellborn Goes Free to Play While in Redevelopment
It happens sometimes; a really good game will slip through the cracks. There are a lot of reasons why this happens and I know you will have opinions, but I�m not here to talk about that.
I feel like Spellborn was one of those games. A solid MMORPG with a twitch combat interface that meant that player skill actually mattered in PvP. Most of those who played it enjoyed it. And it did pretty well in the reviews online. It was originally a subscription based game with servers in EU and North America, and is now in redevelopment to be converted to a F2P. Acclaim still has servers running the original version and that is why I�m writing this.
We felt like people missed out. They didn�t get to see what Spellborn was really like. And we are going to fix that.
Today, as you read this, Spellborn as it currently exists is now free to play. Keep in mind that there will be no upgrades and no patches. It has become in effect, an Action RPG with superior Multiplayer. The only thing it will cost you to play is the time it takes to download.
So play it.
Now because it is frozen in time, we will be creating events for the players and we will help support any players that want to make their own events. And if you have thoughts on how we might make this version more enjoyable as we wait for the New free to play version, we are glad to listen.
David Historian DeWald Community Manager Acclaim Games Inc. community@acclaim.com
I was a part of the closed beta for this game for quite a while and when I could play it, it was rather enjoyable (if you could get past some of the bugs, but heck, it was still in beta then). When I quit, it was in an enjoyable state (I think it was open beta at that point), and will be checking it out again...when I once again have internet access at the house.
This post is going to have very little purpose. No great insights. I just wanted to share some of my Fallen Earth stories. About a week and a half ago our entire clan, Saints Incorparated, got thrown into a big and brilliant thought up role playing adventure. The whole purpose was just to have fun, and to create some reasons for us to team up a bit more. All events related to our mishaps had to be share by at least two or three clan mates. As a result I did quite some running up and down including a one hour ride into insta-kill territory. If you are really interested you can find the whole log here. But I'll just copy my own scriblings.
27 March 2157:
It was promising to be a great day. Two months after Mikayla had asked me to sign up with the Saints I finally got to meet several of them face to face. Of course I have been keeping contact via our radio system, but that is different. Since I was excited about the meeting I had not noticed the radio had stopped working. But that got cleared up rather quickly when I stepped into the Beauville's Tavern. About ten grim looking faces were discussing radio towers, lack of communication, and static noice. Only then I quietly tried out the radio and realized it was indeed dead. I am glad I am so observative.
It was clearly not the day for cheerful introductions. I greeted Ivan and Irina since I recognized their voices, but kept quiet for the rest. Marcus and a couple of the other Saints went off checking on the nearby tower, while the rest of us stood around in the bar a bit lost. I tried to make some smalltalk with the people around, but quickly decided to not make a fool of myself. So beer it was. But even the beer tasted more stale than usual.
After what felt like an eternity they returned, and a lively discussion broke out on what happened and what to do next. A lot of crazy ideas where thrown around, but in the end everybody knew what to do. I volunteered to try to find the spare parts that had gone missing during transport between Chemtown and New Flagstaff. So I left the tavern and went looking for the transport agency in town.
2 April 2157:
First a quick update of the past week. After we broke up at the Beauville Tavern last week I started asking around about the lost convoy. But didn't get much useful information. I went back to the tavern the next day where I found Marcus stressed out behind a table. He was somehow communicating with several people using old style one-way communication units. I told him I have found nothing yet, but that I will continue on. Near the bank I found a few more Saints but they were so purposefully busy they didn't even notice me. And that was the last time I saw anybody. My search for information let to nothing much. I tried a few more towns, but no luck. I felt pretty lost.
But then all of a sudden I heard a new voice over radio! It took me a few seconds to realize what that meant. The radio is working again! While I was idling around the others had managed to fix the radio. The strange voice turned out to be Jenny, a new recruit that didn't even know the radio had been down. She couldn't really explain to me what had happened the past days. I probably made a weird impression on her with all my questions and excitement.
A little bit later Ivy's voice came through as well. She asked me to help her fixing the radio tower near Sunshine. Of course I was a bit confused as to why since the signal seemed to work loud and clear. She explain that it is only a temporary fix, and that we need to get the dish down for a complete repair. Having finally something concrete to do I dropped what I was doing, and rushed towards the tower.
I had never actually been close to any of these towers. I had only seen them from a long distance. But here I was standing at its feet, and it is freaking huge! Ivy started pulling parts and pieces of a winch from the trunk. I grabbed the ropes and pulley. With all equipment in hand we got over the fence, and I started to get ready to scale one of the legs of the tower. Fortunately Ivy saw what I was up to and pointed out the ladder the steps to the left. Yep, being observent is not my strong suit.
To avoid making more daft mistakes I quickly grabbed hold of the ladder and started my ascent. It was a bit wobbly, and carrying ropes and pullies along doesn't make it easier, but I persevered and reached the landing where the dish was located. After shouting into the wind and make some gestures Ivy understood I had removed the dish from its fixture and tied it up with the rope. A couple of minutes later the dish and me were both down. We tied the dish securely on top of Ivy's car. We packed up the winch as well, but left the rope and pullies till we return.
I would have loved to see Ivy Labs and learned some more about communication technology, but I was worn out. Fortunately the radio is somewhat working again, so hopefully I can be there when we try to put the repaired dish back up again.
3 April 2157:
My plan for the day was to head over to Post 23 and learn a bit about the mutation skills the enforcers have specialized in. But just about every word that comes out of their mouths makes me want to punch them in the face. I managed to talk to a few people there, but after that I just had to run out of that place. That kind of messed up my day, so on a wimp I decided to head over to Kiabab Forest, and visit Ivy's lab. She had given me sort of the directions yesterday, so I had a good idea where to go.
Apart from a few raiders, road side camps and hungry wild life the trip was uneventful. It was further than I thought, but there was a nice breeze, and lots of trees, so it was a perfect day out. When I finally reached Ivy's lab I didn't find what I expected. Actually not sure what I expected, but not a completely bored looking Andrea at the doorstep.
Apparently Ivy had taken Andrea up to the lab yesterday to help with repairing the dish. Ivy had left at some point, and she was stuck there with a pile of books she was supposed to study. A beer at the bar in Banker's Hole sounded like a much better plan though. Andrea warned me not to, but I went inside the lab to leave a note for Ivy. On a nearby desk I found some papers and started to writeChennie here. We m,and then I saw some gnastly animal rushing my way. I jumped out of the lab, and smashed the door behind me. It was high time to get that beer.
At the bunker bar we got our beers. (Did you know Andrea hates beer? So strange.) And we started to talk what we should do next. I told Andrea about my failed attempts to find the missing caravan with Sarah's spare relays. She suggested we should follow the route and see if we can find out what happened. We pulled out a map and at least till Blaine the caravan from Chemtown could have only taken one route. And their first stop must have been right where we were now. So we had a plan.
I went to talk to Nick, who seems to be the guy charge in town, and asked him if a caravan had passed through. He said a caravan had passed through two weeks ago. Happy with that information I walked back to Andrea and told her what I had learned. But then I started to wonder if two weeks would have been the right time. Sarah didn't really say when she had ordered the transfer. So we went back to Nick. He was in no mood at all anymore to talk to me, and literally kicked me off his porch. Andrea went up next to set him straight, and a few seconds later we had to run out of town.
The next stop was Diesel Town. There is a convinient Franklin Riders outpost annex petrol station right off the main road. Anybody passing through stops there. The lady behind the counter confirmed a caravan passed through two weeks ago. In fact several pased through. That was bad news, because how the hell do we know which one is which. Then I noticed the ledger on her desk and ask if I could see it. Quietly I managed to rip the page with the most recent caravans out of the ledger while Andrea made some small talk to keep them distracted.
Next stop would be Kristo's Rest. But somewhere along the way we got ambushed by some White Crow thugs. We managed to get away, but I got a bullit in my shoulder. Andrea fortunately had some vodka, painkillers and bandages and managed to patch me up. But it hurt like hell! At Kristo's I waited outside while Andrea went in for a talk. A minute later she comes running out waving a ledger. It was time to run again.
What happened after that is a bit fussy to me. The endless horse back riding, vodka and painkillers started all doing there work. I think we made it to Flagstaff, but not sure actually.
One of the most heated debates at the moment on the Fallen Earth forums is need for instant travel options. The world as it is now is split in 3 sectors, each having content for their respective level range. Sector 1 for level 1 to 17. Sector 2 for level 18 to 32. Sector 3 for level 33 to 46 (soon 50). Crossing S1 on horseback takes about 15 minutes. Going from S1 to S3 takes more than an hour. I think it is great. It really helps to the sense of the enormous wasteland I live in. If I want to be cross sector I really have to plan for it, and I really enjoy the fact it greatly inconveniences me.
Now there are other folks who argue that travel is just boring and stupid. We need instant hubs from one town to the other. There are already lifenet regeneration pods everywhere, so we should be able to use that. According to them it is now impossible to have social interactions with your clan mates. If it takes half an hour to get to a mission it is not worth it. Also any kind of social gathering are impossible to do.
But I think that as soon as something like that is implemented the world collapses. If everything is instantly available there is no world anymore, just quest hubs. Now an S1 player can be sure he will run into only players his level. Those players are just as stuck in that location. Real common sense human contact is the result. Our clan has a weekly meeting in central S2. I have been there a few times now, and just love the idea we all took the effort to ride/drive that 10 to 30 minutes to get there and meet the others. It only adds to the whole feel of wastelands. I know it is just a bit of a ramble, but I just wanted to get it off my chest.
So here we are. Mom wanted to go away for a weekend with her children and their spouse (that's my brother's, I have the complete SG-1 series. No spouse) in a bungalow in a bungalow park.
For some reason we got a bungalow with Internet access. Also for some reason I was the only one not to notice that or birng a laptop to the bungalow. Naturally I was the one who ended up at the reception buying a UTP cable and thereby re-enforcing the image of the computer nerd who can't go without Internet for a weekend to the girls behind the counter, because no-one thought to consider that the permium Internet service might not be Wifi given that non-networked cabins are intermixed with networked ones.
I just hate it when I'm being non-nerdy and somehow end up being the nerd who solves all the problems for the non-nerds, like a Morlock serving the Eloi. Then again, I am the only one here who has a blog to vent their frustration on...
Hmmmm, since when is there a 4096 character limit to comments? That's barely enough to set up your argument structure!
They way I look at MMO's is similar yet subtly different at the moment. Maybe because I don't have an Old Faithful like Cuppycake and Phè.
When I look at the wide selections of MMO's available now and in the future, nothing cathces my eye really. I foresaw Star Trek Online being the bitter disappointment it is to most people interested in it, but I couldn't get up the energy to blog about it. Part of that is my new life/schedule which in a complete inversion of my old style has me more socializing and doing other stuff I neglected for the most part during those days at a cost to my online gaming and socializing. The other reason is that I couldn't be bothered STO was making the same mistake every MMO maker does when trying to bank on their first prior IP so far has made. They're made with Hollywood Blockbuster checklists. Of course since tons of people per-order these games, sometimes multiple times, before the bad news gets out, these games do well on opening weekend which is another check on the Hollywood checklist. It's financially sound, just not a good MMO.
It happened with DDO, Matrix Online, WAR, CHampions Online and now STO. Turbine learned something from DDO I think and did better with LoTRO, Cryptic didn't learn from Champions or it was too late to change anything. Age of Conan was a bit different maybe, or it felt that way to me. It wasn't just exploiting the IP. There was genuine love for the IP, the MMMO genre and a desire to make a 'good game' rather than just big bucks.
I'm still hoping to find another MMO sometime which I feel I can sink my teeth in again. My main worry is that with the wide spread of flavours these days we've become jaded. Meaning that where when viable the options were 3-4 fantasy MMO's and 1-2 Sci-Fi ones it was easier to get in an MMO with your friends than it's now with over a score of Fantasy MMO's to pick from and even a handfull of Sci-Fi ones. It's so easy to get disheartened with an MMO which is unpolished in one area or another. But because we're all different, no current day MMO can ever satisfy us all. Odds of getting into an MMO that everyone likes (everyone being a group of friends betwen 5-20 with the latter being a persistent guild I guess) are slim.
The Old Faithfull MMO is like a well worn shoe. It's comfortable, and you've learned to walk so that the rough bits don't chafe anymore. No new MMO will ever give you that comfy feeling. Despite that we all keep claymoring for NEW and INNOVATION. This has developpers trying to do that for us. Resulting in games that do a few things well and a lot of things poorly to barely adequate. Somehting else the "Great MMO's of yore" did was do a few core things very well and added additional things as they became good enough. Even WOW did that and didn't nearly have the sleuth of polished features it has now. Unfortunately a new MMO needs to compete with that, or manage to tap into that "Artistic vein" that'll allow them to do the Few Things Very Well, add more later. I think two MMO's managed to capture that in recent years. Darkfall and Fallen Earth. Both do their core gameplay well, and in such a way there's no-one complaining within 2 weeks that they "finished" the game and there's no end-game. They're adding additional stuff after launch and their subscribers are for the most part patient with them and happy with the additions.
Of course, both games are what we'd call Niche Games today and don't appeal to a wide variety of players.
One difference between Cuppy and Phè I noticed: Whereas Phè foresees having to socialize in RL rother than virtually, Cuppy is shifting towards the genre of "Social Network gaming and Twitting". I'm personally not interested at all in the 45 second attention-span crowd or the games built to further diminish their ability to delay reward. I wonder though if Phè or Cuppy's reaction is the more common reaction to the situation?
Well, sort of. Read her post WoW, I heart you. Also, end of an era. A month or two ago she figured out she had this pile of single player games lying she never gets to play since her usual MMO is demanding all her time. That MMO that should be boring by now, but we keep playing. Oops, I switched from 'she' to 'we'. It is just too close to my own opinion. Today she figured out any MMO (apart from the usual one) is boring. There is no real joy anymore in stepping in a new virtual world and struggle to kil those 10 rats. What is the use? And more important, what is there for us to write about? No wonder there are hardly any posts anymore. Another era is really ending? What does that really mean for us? The end of being virtually social maybe. The days of living behind the screen is over, and we another form of entertainment takes over. Maybe I'll be more often in the pub now. Hmm, not a bad idea actually.
So the trapped nerve means my usual extremely active PC enjoyment has been replaced by more sedentary PC activities; I've been catching up on some TV via BBC Iplayer, running through my DvD archive and hunting down anything that might look interesting to stream on the net. I've watched a fair few movies this past few weeks, there have been some low points - the remake of 'The Day The earth Stood Still' being a fine example of hollywood taking a classic and turning it into something truly banal and utterly lifeless, somehow I watched it until the bitter end. In contrast Pixar's 'Up', in spite of its maudlin begining, I'm glad to say did just that. In a sea of what has been mostly mediocre movies today I finally found a real gem.
Ink
It's hard to make parallels with other movies, Dark City and The Matrix because of the common theme of others being in control came to mind. While aliens in Dark City affected our lives via our sleep and in The Matrix we are kept asleep to live a life provided for us, Ink gives others control of our sleep and it seems rarely does that cross in to our real lives. There are those that give us dreams, there are those that give us nightmares and there are those that walk inbetween.
The central theme of 'a very young girl in danger' (played extremely well by Quinn Hunchar) made me think briefly of Pan's Labrynth, but they are poles apart, too far to make any real comparison.
It's been accused of being 'deliberately obfuscating' and having a 'complex narrative', I have to disagree with both, it just takes its time to tell you the story and rather than handing it to you on a plate, it weaves its tale with grace. Once that tale has been told, and this to me is what makes it such a gem, the end becomes predictable, almost painfully so, any pain caused by the obvious and it's subsequent failure to suspend belief is so soon overshadowed by the beauty of this (almost) masterpiece, you're immediately beginning to care again, sucked in by it's beautiful hypnotic pace.
It takes it's time to draw you in, the synergy between choice of colour, cinematography, editing, direction and music create a strong, slow natural rhythm that aims to seduce, you need to let it. If you want immediate gratification, leave this one for another time.
The performances aren't universally strong, Ink himself was lacking, I was unsure if the motivation of the performance was to have less depth of character beause of who he had become and was trying to be, or it was a combination of lower budget prosthetics and a weak performance that made me wish Ink had more 'ooomph', it didn't really matter until close toward the end.
Flawed it maybe but the beauty and pace of the whole made it really easy for me to forgive and get sucked right back in.
It's unique, it's indie, it's definately Art with a capital A and it apparently had 400,000 illegal downloads the first week after release, those that loved it as much as I did will have then gone on to buy the DvD. The producers relished the piracy as it meant exposure and that exposure also meant a massive lift in sales. There is no way you can't own this on DvD if you got as much from it as I did. Piracy worked well for this indie company (hell I'm even going to get myself the t-shirt!) but it's a damn fine work of art, whereas piracy and most hollywood titles won't get on because quality isn't uppermost, Ink is a keeper :)
Earth Eternal: Finally, a real MMO for your browser - well that's how it sells itself, I guess it's ignoring Runescape then? I would also add a ? at the end of that claim. If the fans are to be believed rather than the ubiquitous 'WoW killer' we have a 'Runescape killer' on our hands...
It's currently in open beta, however the cash shop is already open, rare even for a F2P title in OB, guess those development costs need to be regained pretty soon. So far though items in the cash shop don't look like they are necessary unless you want the upper hand or that fancy armour straight away. In comparison to the Runescape shop, your limitations so far seem to be less in EE if you choose not to use it.
Open Beta means it is plagued with a few rather game breaking problems; very long loading times (go make a cup of tea or read a book), low FPS regardless of video settings and plenty of lag. One of the strangest things I've seen in a game is that while assets are loading for NPCs and players, the game displays floating sparkling orbs, which I guess gives you at least something to target and lets you know danger is imminent.
The game can be played in a browser but you get better performance launching it as it's own app.
There are 22 anthropomorphic 'Races', there's a robot thrown in for good measure in case you don't want pointy eared and waggy tailed.
Customisation allows 3 different body types, 3 different faces and plenty of colour options, if you want a rainbow coloured mess you can have one. You are then given the option of 4 different armour designs for each starting armour part, no colour options for those though. Names are double barreled and the game will give you suggestions for both, you can choose to ignore those and create your own.
There are 4 classes to choose from, Mage, Knight, Druid and Rogue, each have their own skill trees, you can unlock or power up skills through using attribute points gained as you level (or bought from the cash shop), some skills also have a coin cost. The interesting thing is that you don't have to stick to your own skill trees, while some of the skills are locked to outside classes, some are also available to any, if you want to use Druid skills as a Mage you can, this could provide some interesting progression but as armour is limited to class, along with its associated stats then I doubt many will take advantage of this to its fullest. On top of the 4 main class trees there are 4 other trees to invest points in:
Travel: You have 2 unlocked skills at start, the ability to set your bind location and the ability to warp to it, further unlocks provide the ability to warp yourself, team members or other individuals to specific locations and there are skills to increase movement speed.
Weapons: Classes are locked to what type of weapon can be used, unlocked skills in this tree increase specific weapon damage.
Protection: Your initial armour skill is unlocked, further skills include removing buffs from opponents or removing debuffs from yourself or other players, getting further in to the tree increases overall protection from individual damage types.
Restoration: Provides heals, the ability to resurrect and increase healing effectiveness.
The Mage Skill Tree
It's an interesting system, a great deal of room for building a unique character, the limits of armour stats will keep choices limited for most players but at least the choice is there. Attribute points can be reset at any given time, the only loss you incur is the loss of any coin you spent on gaining skills, that gives you plenty of scope to experiment.
Graphics; the only fair thing to do is compare it to it's competitors which I guess would be Runescape and Sony's Freerealms, I haven't played Runescape so no comment on that, compared to Freerealms though I would say it lacks the smooth look achieved by that game, things like trees are more obviously made from blocks, there is more ground clutter if you play at max settings (once it loads) which does look nice. It's very cartoony, as you would expect from a game of this nature, overall it gels together nicely, it has day and night cycles, I found night to be much better looking. Don't expect any convincingly scary mobs, your first encounter will be against plants in their pots and you'll come across their big brothers later in your first instance.
Armour is as you would expect from a game whose polygon count and textures needs to be low, the looks are generally bad but the great thing is that if you find a piece you do like you can use an NPC to transfer the stats from one piece to another, something I've only seen in one true MMO, it's a nice touch, sadly there is no option to dye pieces.
Audio is sparse, music doesn't loop and the game is a bit too quiet. Animations aren't anything special and if you travel down any incline, no matter how shallow you will find yourself jumping down.
The UI is efficient, there is no real scaling of the chat window, even at its smallest setting it looks too big. The hot bars allow you to add a further eight, each of which can be moved anywhere you like and can be flipped. Each quest will show a marker on your compass pointing you in the right direction.
Inventory size is limited requiring frequent visits to an NPC to offload your goods, I received one upgrade as a quest reward and I understand further upgrades can be bought in game, to increase it to a reasonable size though I'm guessing the cash shop is the only way to go.
The game has some interesting mechanics, as melee characters have a miss chance, mage types have a spell failure chance, it's no big deal as nothing is lost from a failed spell, it just increases combat time and means the foe has a chance to get more hits in . There is a stat called 'heroism' that fills up as you defeat foes, the higher your heroism is the more 'lucky' you become, that luck means higher XP and better loot from mobs, it's a mechanic that encourages you to grind and grind you will need to do. Quests are the usual kill ten rats and fed ex types but to level effectively you will need to kill more mobs than the required kill count, I've only played a few hours and to get through to level 7 via quests I had to grind more mobs than needed in order to be successful, of course that grinding means better loot. There are 'Bulletin Board' repeatable quests that offer a choice of rewards, the first will enable you to get a full set of very good armour if you repeat it enough times.
There are dungeons and instances which are locked to just you or your team, the first is a solo instance, the game informs you of the mechanics for instances when you first spawn in, the games description is 'Step up spawner', meaning you have to kill a certain amount of the lower level mobs to start spawning the next tier, in the first instance it just meant clearing the trash to spawn the boss. The boss will drop a token to spend in the chest that spawns on it's defeat, you then choose what to spend that token on, instances are repeatable so going back to get the other goodies is possible.
The game does contain crafting but as far as I can tell resource gathering is only from mob drops, recipes can be bought from vendors and some may drop from mobs (not 100% on that one), crafting takes place at a vendor, there doesn't seem to be any 'luck' chance or any way to create improvements, so recipes give you exactly what they say on the tin.
Is it a true MMO in a browser? Hard to say with such limited time play, it has some classic MMO attributes, a persistent world with instancing and meaningful stat progression, in comparison to Freerealms then yes it's closer to a classic MMO experience. There needs to be some serious optimisation development for me to spend any quality time investigating it further but I do think it has potential for a lot of fun for a wide range of players. My first small look leads me to think the developers have a potential winner on their hands.
Early January we all three figured out that we miss the times to hang out in a game together. Lani made a great rambling post about it, and we all rambled on some more in the comments and via email. We all tried out Allods for a day, and finally Lani and me decided to go to middle earth to play Lord of the Rings Online. Before we could lure Geekie in as well he rekindled his joys n his favourite MMO, Age of Conan.
So LOTRO. I started playing on January 19th. I created the hopelessly named rune keeper Thoayanor... Thoayaianor ... Thoay-something. The set up of the tutorial and training village is done very nice. I had fun playing through it the first two days, especially since Lani was there to chat to as well on the second day. Very few other players around. Which I though is ok since I was not playing to meet other players. I was there to meet Lani. And we managed to pull that off on day three. We had a spiffy crawl into a spider nest. Of course the time was rather short. I think we had at most 2 hours, pro bably more 1 hour and a bit.
Then I went off partying in Holland, on return din't see Lani online and went back to Fallen Earth, the game I still consider my favourite MMO. The next day I was busy, the day after Lani was busy, etc. etc. We emailed up and down a bit and said we should really get together because it was great fun.
Last Tuesday, nearly two weeks after I last logged in, I returned. I found Thoay-something standing where I left here in the middle on a hobbit village. So I moved around a bit, talk to a few quest givers. Got the fun quest about delivering mail and staying clear of nosey hobbits. I did another quest killing 10 bats. And then I started to wonder how things are in Fallen Earth. So shortly after that I logged off and switched to the game I love.
The problem with LOTRO is basically the same as I have with the 10 single player games I haven't started yet. I feel no connection to the game (yet). There is nothing compelling me to log in. On the other hand I am almost feeling guilty not logging in on Fallen Earth. Pilatus, my new pistoleer, needs me somehow. She is a real character that wants to survive. Thoay-something does not need me. She is not alive. She is pixels that are waiting for me to control so I can talk and fight with Lani.
The problem is not really that LOTRO is bad game. I think the problem is that it feels too much like a single player game, not an MMO. And that is mostly my own fault. If I wouldn't have the compulsion to play FE I might have logged in more and tried to seek out other players, get into the lore, become alive. Another hurdle is the fact we somehow don't have as much time to do tings anymore. When we were playing Vanguard we were online every day for a couple of hours, and we had often adventures together or with other people we knew. The last three weeks we have been online at the same time (and without other commitments) maybe 3 or 4 times.
I think our LOTRO experiment is doomed to fail. You won't be able to pull me away from FE. And the 1 or 2 hours a week we have is not enough to sustain a new MMO. Until that great new game comes along we both (or better, all three) want to play, really want to play, we will be wandering the Virtual separate. We can't really force this. Maybe what we could force ourselves is to keep this blog alive some more. There is still plenty to talk. We actually should have even more to talk about now.
Ok, done rambling. Does it make sense or do you see some clever solution to make any lasting teaming up work?
As a good video gaming associated company we have a subscription to Edge. Last month it had a big article about the upcoming FPS/rpg game Metro 2033. The game is way too FPS for me, but the concept of the game is rather intriguing. The game is based on the book Metro 2033 by the Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The story is set in the metro of Moscow after the apocalypse.
The author worked close together with the development team. Of course he had some issues with how his story got butchered in a FPS. But he was still happy to see his story come to life like that. I think it is one of the first books that get turned into a game before it got turned into a movie. Although the article talked more about the game than the book I got excited enough what I wanted to read it. Life in the metro of Moscow just sounds like must-read stuff.
So my search started. As always with books I want to read I start with bookshops. Not much luck at Waterstones, WHSmith or Books Etc. But I had my trip to Chicago few weeks back. No luck there either! This only made me want to get my hands on it more. So last week Friday I gave in and went to amazon.co.uk. It is just not as much fun to buy books online, but I was getting desperate.
A search for Metro 2033 resulted in plenty of options. I could pre-order the game in a couple of flavours. But I could also pre-order the book!? The book was written in 2007. I assumed it would be a special re-release to go with the game. So I clicked a bit more and found I could get it in hardcover with apparently the exact same cover. Amazon was even so friendly to tell me I could get Metro 2034 as well in a handy double deal. Sounded perfect. I didn't see much reason to wait for the next month released version. So I was all set. Now just waiting for it to arrive.
And this morning they arrived. Getting packages at work is always fun. So I opened it up with five collegues instantly cowering around my desk. The books where there. Nice cover. I turn it around and aaargh... I ordered them in German!
Apparently there is no English translation yet. No wonder I couldn't find it anywhere.
Instead of posting something interesting, like my time in LOTRO, or my thoughts about PvP, or how our gaming times have changed, I am posting a silly animation about the size of stuff. It is really neat though. It goes from Planck Length to 930Ym.
And we are probably not the center of the universe.
Robert E. Howard's birthday recently passed so it's time for some AoC news :)
Things, as ever, are moving forward in AoC. Patch 1.5 bought us the itemisation revamp along with the Commons District and now we have patch 1.6 looming on the horizon. 1.6 introduces Tier 3 raiding and a massive guild revamp. Guild's will now be able to gain/grind renown, guild cities made it clear from the outset guilds are important, this revamp confirms it and has some added bonuses, those bonuses include a tonne of RP elements to bring your guild city alive, as it stands a guild city has already seen some substantial growth, many vendors, whores, soldiers and trainers have moved in to take advantage of the protection and shelter and soon an abundance of decorations, statues and plant life will become available to those prepared to work for it. From what I've seen I would say RP players aren't grind/large guild orientated and these things will remain less than RP and just simple decorations for guilds who have achieved everything else? There are a couple of smaller RP elements introduced including the ability to rent out rooms in a tavern for those wanting to RP something of an adult nature or maybe for privacy to plot and scheme.
AoC has always been balanced around group play, sadly as yet one of their promised crowning glories; mass sieges, have yet to be optimised, that along with probably one of the worst crafting systems out there and not enough PvP variety are a few rather sharp, deep thorns in it's side that may well be overlooked by some returners and maybe new players. 1.6 does promise some new PvP but it's likely to come towards the end of this set of patching. House of Crom, the new play field will be part of 1.6 but has yet to hit the test servers.
Tier 3 raiding along with a new token system for raid loot is already on the test server and is getting good reviews, seems that the more interesting mechanics, started with the Thunder River instance of Xibaluku have been carried forward in to raid instances. As somebody who enjoys the concept of 24 people working in harmony towards an end, I'm looking forward to T3, it's easy to tire of the hamster wheel of raiding and a recent visit back to my old guild shows that the majority there felt the same and have hung up their swords, staves and bows, maybe they will return when T3 hits live?
Further trickles of news about the expansion show cases some of the faction armours:
The Last legion
The Scarlet Circle
Scholars of Cheng-ho
Tamarin Tigers
Wolves of the Steppes
The Shadows of Jade
Children of Yagkosha
The Hyrkanians
Looking forward to new raid content , the rest 1.6 has to offer and the 'Rise of the Godslayer' expansion was enough to get me back in to the game, rolled a carbon copy of my Tempest of Set back on the Hyrkania RP server, I transferred my toons to Crom a while back, so far it's been a joy, discovering the new twists and turns introduced since I last started a new toon, relishing the lush graphics and the so very nicely written quests and lore, after the dissapointment of Aion and the many F2P titles I tried, it feels like I've come home again. The new server merges this week will see an increase in population on our quiet RP server with no signs of discontent, it seems they did their homework well. The English speaking community will see the servers go down from 6 to 4.
Nahkti (V2) Facing a foe during his last act of heroism in Tortage
From before the AvP franchise got fscked up by Hollywood, the original Aliens vs Predator game by Rebellion for just 2,99€.
The Marine campaign is still one of the best computer-game attempts at capturing a movie's feel and atmosphere ever. And multiplayer allows you to fight the final fight on an LV-422 map amongst others. It's a good way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Standing on a stepladder inside a closet in order to screw tight a screw.
Definately a first time experience for me.
In defence of the ludricous mental image, the closet is 7.7 feet high or 236 cm with an inside height of 226 cm. Width is 150cm or 4.9 feet and 66cm or 2 feet depth. Mounting the sldiing doors were also a new experience, but a painful one at that.
Let me start of the New Year by wishing all the best for the coming year to everyone still reading this excuse for a Blog.
I've had a busy time of it. Moving house, losing one job and getting another. Damn! I'm going to miss those 4 day weekends. THe regular ones are way too short and has too many people shopping on Saturdays and not enough stores open on Sundays. With any luck I'll be rid of the old place completely this Monday. Handing in the keys. I'm also grudginly settling into that 5x8.5 hours work schedule...
This means I have more regular hours to play MMO's in even if I actually have fewer irregular free time. So what should I do with it? I haven't been missing MMO's quite as much as I expected. I've been hanging out in Second Life a lot over the last half year or so and that accounts for some of it, but it doesn't quite give me that MMO fix. More importantly it doesn't give me my killing things with Phè fix. So I put this to Phè a week or so ago and got some responses:
"Although I love Fallen Earth it is not really the game for you. It has an even higher fail/success ratio as Vanguard for you, I think. You will be more iritated by the flaws than enjoying the charms." This one puzzled me a bit, my problem with Vanguard is that it's so close to what I want it to be but falling just short of it that the flaws indeed spoil the charms for me. I don't have that much of an emotional response to Fallen Earth. If Vanguard is the Incredibly cool Rock Band which touched my soul but somehow sells out at the same time, Fallen Earth is the quirky brainy Indie Pop band I kinda dig but never bought any records from.
I keep meaning to revisit it, but somehow never get around to it. Something I haven't managed to formulate stops me. Maybe it's a spectre of fear for having to manage spreadsheets just to keep track of Inventory and crafting components, or maybe it's a more generic sense of "I'll just end up bored with it in a few months like I always do". I'm not sure. I just know it's not what Phè thinks, or at least not the way it came across :-)
So what are the other options? Top of the list come COH, LOTRO and EQ2, I actually fired up CoX one more time, and I wish I hadn't... If I hadn't I'd have remembered it with nostalgia as a great game that unfortunately I'd outgrown the Superness aspect of, I've never been one to enjoy superheroes or vigilantes much you see. But fire it up I did and I had a real hard time coping with its dated graphics engine this time. It didn't help that I spawned at Facemakers, the clothing store, as this made the realization that while COX's customization is awesome inits expansiveness if I want to play dressup doll I really should stick with Second Life instead. So CoX is off the list and I regret having tried it. Maybe with the new City, I mean expansion, that promises a GFX overhaul? CoX Gameplay is still rock solid and some of the best, especially when it comes to scaling and generated content Scripted, User or Randomized.
I know Phè has some deep seated personal trauma regarding EverQuest II which means we'll probably never get to explore the rich lore of Norrath together which I think is a shame. EverQuest II really does a lot of things right, and you really need some friends to play with in order to really enjoy it these days as the lower levels are a bit desolate now. And it seems Phè also has a bit of a snobbish streak (just teasing) as the following sentiment shows: Maybe Allods could work. If it looks great for an F2P that means it doesn't look great at all to me, and I rather skip it. Great for an F2P in my book means it's great period. Since there's very little difference in terms of quality between the two different styles. It just depends on whether you prefer to play in a system that wants you to hang around and grind alot raking in that subscription fee or a system that wants you to all but pay per view for your direct fun. Personally I'm leaning more towards the latter of late. F2P generally costs more on a Monthly basis than subscription based games, that's true. I can understand if that's a problem for some. Allods Online tickles my "want to discover a new game and its systems" bone more than my "this is something I can spend months of my life playing" artery though so maybe I'll just go it alone when and if it launches or lets me into the Beta. I don't consider it a long term investment really. And I would really like to prod buttock and slay critters that look at us funny with Phè.
So what's left? LotRO? I get the feeling it's mentioned because Phè hasn't got an actual cause for dislike rather than an avid interest. I mean, I gave him a copy for free 10 months ago and spent three months in Middle Earth all by my self afterwards. Not a sterling statement of interest that :-) I liked LotRO more than I expected, but I never really touched base with the community for some reason. It's pretty close to EQ-2 in some good respects but my main qualm is that the only two classes I really liked were the two that had been introduced with the Moria expansion. Warden and Runekeeper.
It so happens those two are rather well suited for both Solo and Duo play, maybe even a small group of three. Warden is a spear wielding (Yay!) tank/melee DPS hybrid class with a combo system that's reminiscent of Age of Conan, and the Runekeeper is a DPS/Healer Hybrid which works a bit like some CoX classes. I.e. you build up power in either DPS or Healing by casting Runes of that type. Casting a Rune of the other branch negates the buildup. So a Runekeeper can spend a few minutes nuking away and dealing ever more damage, then heal him/herself and lose most of that Overkill whilst saving his/her skin or that of his/her mate.
So what do I do? - Further ruin fond memories of CoX by forcing myself to play it at this time? - Browbeat Phè into giving EverQuest-II a shot knowing it'll never get a fair shot? - Give Fallen Earth another shot and run the risk of disappointing Phè by not liking it or worse, repeat the "Vanguard effect" within myself? - Try LotRO and somehow convince Phè to play a Runekeeper? - Do something completely different?
Darn. I think Phè and my expectations of the other's enjoyment of these games are almost completely opposite to each other. We really have not been playing together for way too long is the message. Of course if we somehow manage to cross this huge hurdle and find something we both enjoy step#2 is to get Geeky on board too :-) Sorry for the rambliness, apparent Phè bashing and otherwise low quality of this post. I just threw this out with no editting as it's something I've been thinking about in the back of my head this last week and I really felt I should put something on here even if it's of low quality. I'm really not trying to bash on Phè's chocies. I do think there's one or two less than perfectly nuanced opionions concerning some games on his part but that's a crime I'm just as guilty of and quite alright with me when it doesn't get in the way of us having fun together. :-)
It appears Lani's uber cool bear will survive the apocalypse. Well, maybe it is not Lani's bear, but I think it is save to say all uber cool bears of the world will survive!
Finding that little bear sitting there all alone was already sad and yet fitting. But it got even worse when I wandered around some more in the town I was passing through. I was busy brewing some Old Kingman Iced Tea. A good iced tea takes it time. So while it was brewing I decided to walk around the house a bit. Normally houses are empty except for some NPC vendors or quest givers. But when I stepped inside the first floor bathroom of this particular house I found an extremely sad girl sitting in the tub looking utterly desolate. I genuine felt embarrassed. I mumbled some apology, but she didn't even look up. So I quickly left.
The game is just simply perfect for me. It is doing exactly what I am looking for. I think I know a bit more about what Geek means about social play, MMO play, etc. A new post is cooking in my head. It will be ready soon :) Oh, and I made my first ATV too. I think. Last night I learned the last piece. So I started crafting one. But it takes 4 hours to make so I will have to see the result when I get home tonight.
Tip for moving: If at all possible try not to move house during snowstorms and/or one foot of snow.
Well, that was.... different :-) We moved on Sunday, well actually we moved 2 out of 2.5 truckloads, the last ride we cancelled due to blizzardlike (to us soft Dutch people anyway) conditions. So I'm still missing some parts of furniture and other little essentials which were left out at the last moment.
Here be pictures:
We'll be trying to move those asap but since there's still a half foot of compacted snow covering just about everything, we'll have to see as to when.
It looked even awesomer when the snow on it was three inches thick, but you couldn't really distinguish it from the background on that picture :-)
2 hours after movers left
24 hours after movers left
Close up of bookcases. Red insets hide plates, glasses & cutlery as the dining table is opposite that bookcase
The kitchen is also more or less complete (dishwasher needs a pipe so I won't flood the place using it) and the bedroom partially (some of the missing bits include all planks and the doors to my wardrobe). All in all I've moved in and now the settling in must begin. I hope to have those bookcases and not to mention my DVD collection sorted by the end of January.
Out of all the F2P games I've tried this one has definitely provided me with the most fun, while containing the staples of a classic MMO it has some significant differences, the most obvious and the one that will be the deciding factor of your enjoyment of this game is the combat.
Combat is turn based, instanced and requires some strategy, especially in PvP. The persistent world contains mobs, unlike classic MMO's these mobs won't go out of their way to attack you, combat is initiated by either running into the mob or by clicking on it. On initiating an encounter you are immediately drawn into an instance to fight, either solo with your mercenaries (more about those later) or as a team with other players. If you initiated the fight then the round starts with your turn, if however the mob snagged you by wondering in to you then they get the first turn. Your group members who can participate in a turn have a green circle, you can select any of these to attack or to perform other tasks such as buff/debuff or heal your group members. The strategy comes in to play when deciding which team member to use and what to do with it, formation of the team is also important, you don't want your squishies on the front line. The combat is highly reminiscent of the combat in Final Fantasy 7 and 8 (if you played and enjoyed those games you'll love it). Your attack turn has a time limit, 15 seconds at the beginning, in which to take all your attacks before the enemy gets it's turn. Each player or mercenary has the option of either a regular attack or magic attack, left click on the mob for regular or right click for magic, if the player has more than one magic attack, left click the skill then the mob or player if its a buff or heal. The default game settings has attack animations and cut scenes switched on, they add a nice visual dynamic to battles but these soon get in the way as they eat up your time limit and get in the way of your view, they can be switched off from the settings tab. If you don't like this style of combat, you won't like the game.
You can choose your class from a range of weapon types which include, Sword, Spear, Axe, Staff, Bow and Gun, the range widens if you already have a high level character to include Cannon and Maniac.
Character creation is extremely limited, you have the choice of gender, 3 or 4 faces, 5 or 6 hairstyles and hair colour, the lack of individuality is also born out through the armour system. If your really bothered about having a unique looking character then your going to be very disappointed. I'm currently visually offended by my characters look, luckily the other aspects of the game are keeping me happy enough to forgive it.
Mercenaries: Your first quests will require you to choose some mercenaries to fight at your side, you need to think about your choice, as you level you get more mercenaries and a wider choice, at around lvl 20 you will also receive quests to obtain different kinds of mercenaries, Viking and Monk, your quota won't be big enough to accept both unless you store another in the mercenary room, the room is obtained through a license and is time limited, the license can be bought at the market or through the cash shop. You are given one free to start with, I have no idea what will happen to my stored gunner when that time runs out, perhaps she goes to gunner heaven? Mercenaries can also be upgraded to increase their stats which requires dropped items of a certain level.
Shadow Dungeon Interior
The armour and weapon system is simple and fun, there are obviously different weapons for the different classes and different armour types for magic, melee and ranged. They are obtained through drops of an 'equipment box' from mobs, these stack in your inventory (space is extremely limited) until you decide to open them, on opening a box you get a random piece of equipment, a small screen pops up and cycles through the possible content until it stops at one. You can't be guaranteed you'll get what you want and may end up with multiples of something you don't want cluttering up your inventory, luckily there is the enchant system to help sort that problem out.
Weapons and Armour can be enchanted to increase their stats, again it's a simple process and relies on the drops of enchantment stones from mobs, the stones are dropped in an enchant box which stacks in your inventory, opening one gives you the choice of an enchant stone for either weapons or armour, you will receive either one or two of the selected stone. Enchanting an item requires multiples of the same item, to get a +1 staff you need two staves and one weapon enchant stone, to get a +2 staff you need two +1 staves and 2 weapon enchant stones, a +3 staff then requires two +2 staves and 3 weapon enchant stones, so to get a +4 staff you will have got through 16 staves and 26 weapon enchant stones. If you don't get enough drops of stones then there's always the Market.
Crafting is a weird one, instead of having armour crafting you learn to craft each armour piece as a seperate craft skill, same goes for weapons. The initial lesson to start crafting is gained from an NPC, most of these NPC's wander around the world so your never sure were they are going to be, it's a pain when you need to level up, however there is an NPC called Livingstone just outside Bucharest who is in the know regarding their current location. Players can also pass on their crafting skills to other players. Mats are dropped from mobs and can also be bought from the Market. Crafting also includes medicine for replenishing health, mana and life potions for reviving dead party members (alchemy in any other game) and foods (cookery), among many others. The crafting process takes place while your fighting, select what you want to craft then enter a battle to get it done, strange way of doing things and hardly immersive but later at lvl 30 you gain the ability to auto craft which can be done while afk. I'm currently crafting the chest armour piece, I can craft lvl 25 items while the drops I get are only lvl 20, it's worth the expence.
Windmills just outside Amsterdam
Getting around is by foot, there are mounts but I believe these are cash shop items, you can travel from outpost to outpost via the Travel Agent, at a cost, in any town as long as you have previously visited the outpost you wish to travel to. Towns are guild owned and have a variety of resources including a Bank (just for money but needed if your selling on the market), Hospitals (replenish mana/health or revive a dead party member, also buy medicines) and Market for selling and buying. The worlds geography is based on ours, today I decided to go find Livingstone near Bucharest and go to Helsinki to get access to the Christmas event dungeon, on the way I passed through Calcutta, London (via the Channel Tunnel), Amsterdam and St Petersburg amongst many other well known locations, it was a nice journey as the graphics changed to reflect the locales quite nicely. The lore hasn't sunk in, I've no idea why the world has changed to have all these fantastical creatures in it.
Somewhere in Southern Europe
The graphics are OK, just below the original GW standard I would say. There are some surprisingly nice details in some places while in other places it looks like they forgot to replace the heavily pixelated test textures, it's easily pleasing enough on the eyes to be playable.
The game is linear, while your always free to go off and explore you are required to complete some quest chains in order to progress, movement is sometimes restricted, there is no jumping, falling off a cliff or diving into water. The game does a great job of teaching you as you progress.
The quest system is great, you have a quest marker to point you in the right direction or you can use auto run to go straight there while you do other stuff, the quest log contains all quests so if you think your stuck for quests or just fancy a change of scenery you can see straight away where to go for more quests.
Music and sound effects are generally horrible and annoying, turn them off! They are exactly like those early Playstation games even the battle music sounds like the one used in FF8.
It may not be a triple A title but for a F2P title there is something unique and a lot to enjoy in this game, it costs you nothing but the download time and 2gb of HD space, if you want something a little different and like the idea of turned based combat, give it a go, I've had hours of fun with this one and it gives PvP a whole new twist. At lvl 28 I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface, there's a lot left still to learn.
If anyone fancies giving it a go you can join me on the Delphi Server playing a staff called MsAnthropy.
I went last night to the premiere of Avatar. In 3D. And I was awestruck. You must go see this movie. It was absolutely one of those masterpieces you simply can't skip. And if at all possible make sure you get to see it in 3D. I was a bit sceptical about the 3D thing. I had to wear one of those funky glasses. But they didn't have a red and green glass, but something about polarization. There were a few previews before the movie started and they had the kind of shoebox with a looking hole feel. Cut-out 2D characters that are standing in front of a 2D background. But Avatar is nothing like that. But you just have to see for yourself. What made it extra fun for me is that James Cameron is clearly a big fan of Anarchy Online. Several creatures and locations could have been copied straight out of the Shadowlands. And even some of the human technology and ideas can be found on Rubi-Ka. So yeah, go see it. I think I will do so again too.
Last night I completed a play through of Mass Effect. I've been avidly playing Mass Effect 2 and decided to do a play through of the original because the choices your character makes in that game carry through into #2 and will ultimately affect the conclusion to the trilogy as well.
First of all, you have the option of getting the Big Bad Baddy to put a pistol against his head and pull the trigger. Unprecedented awesomeness right there. After that some Awgner worthy cutscenes of a spacebattle that have George Lucas crying into his pillow wondering when he lost it (around the time you cooked up Phantom Menace George) and then they play with you a bit.
I finished at 22:05 sharp. So what to do then? Switch on the TV. *Click* End battle for Naboo opening scene commences and Starwars theme music plays over the surround set *click* Hmmm, I haven't finished reading Shadow of the Apt yet.
