It has been a while since I have posted anything, so it is time for some more ramblings. But this I am cheering it up a bit with a few choice screenshots. All the screenshots had to come from Fallen Earth since that is still the only game I am seriously playing.
Pilatus is trying to sit relaxed and comfortable in South Burb.
But her short skirt makes her a bit too self conscience.
But I am not playing it a lot. I find myself often dilly-dallying before actually entering the wastelands. Reading up on FE forums posts, browsing through not too relevant websites, and even solving a silly Sudoku puzzle. I haven't really figured out yet why I do that. The most logic thing would be that I don't really feel like playing it anymore. But then I get on and be enthralled by the wide open world, and love running up and down, crafting complex vehicles, and talk to friends and clan members.
While crossing the plains Chennie is trying shoot some fresh lunch.
I had set myself a goal to explore some of the PvP areas a few weeks ago. I would just finish up my crafting work, and a few loose questing ends, and off I should go. That finishing up stuff took me a week. And I finally made it to New Gallows, the PvP area east of Haven. Only to find out it is actually not a PvP area anymore! Silly me. It had turned into a special Human League town quest-ish kind of place. They had new veteran NPCs. They were a fun challanging bunch. I got a request from a nearby Tech camp to kill some for a nice reward. But then Lani mentioned something about a dune buggy. So I rushed back to New Flasgstaff and locked myself up in the science lab (and went to Chicago for work).
It just learned it won't get shot at anymore.
A quiet life at the stables is awaiting.
I managed to build the buggy, and all the components from the raw materials Lani had send me. But diner parties, and whiskey drinking put a stop to further playing. In stead I read up on Tobold's EVE adventures. It really made me want to play EVE. I even blurred that out somewhere. Maybe I actually will do it.
We just stepped out of a Lifenet bunker talking to Graham.
Life in the wastelands can be very good sometimes.
Saturday I made it back home again, after circling north around Iceland. So I had time to pick up where I left of in Fallen Earth. But I didn't. In stead I went to Paragon City and went shopping for enhancements and a new costume slot for Sylva Varescu. She had turned 32 the last Sunday we played City of Heroes, and needed the upgrade before yesterday's session.
But as it turned out half the COH gang was out. And the other half is also playing Fallen Earth like me. So I ended up in the wastelands after all. And as usual we had a great time. We did some tough group missions at Last Stop, and an instanced fort near Devon. There were two bosses our level. On both bosses we got a team wipe (3 of us), but we got them on the rerun. It was epic fighting. And we got a truly stunning sunrise on top! I still love this game. (Or am I trying to convince myself here?)
No idea when I will have time to play this, but Steam had the entire Civilization IV collection on sale for 6.49 GBP. I just couldn't resist. I do know if I start that up I won't be back anywhere any time soon.
In an announcement made today, Chief Executive Officer of Icarus Studios, Inc., James Hettinger, announced a restructure of the company resources and staffing, effective immediately. The changes come on the heels of the six-month anniversary of Fallen Earth, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game co-developed with FALLEN EARTH, LLC.
"While this is a challenging step for us," said Hettinger, "the steps were taken to maintain the growth, continued development and profitability of Fallen Earth."
As a result of today's reorganization and in an effort to maintain development, the combined companies will support core members of staff for ongoing customer service and continued development of Fallen Earth and company projects.
Team leads are continuing production and development on Fallen Earth Blood Sports Patch 1.4, scheduled for release on May 7. Community support and scheduled events, such as Slots Night (scheduled for tonight, April 30), will continue as announced.
Forum thread, mostly people talking about how this will affect the game they play in their leisure time. Very few seem to realise this means 80% of Icarus' employee's lost their livelihood today.
…if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2
Anet have started a GW2 blog to celebrate 5 years of GW. The first installment makes for some interesting reading, I've stuck a couple of quotes below to wet your appetite, go read the full blog here
Grouping:
We think of GW2 as the first MMO that actually has a cooperative PvE experience. When I’m out hunting and suddenly there’s a huge explosion over the next hill – the ground is shaking and smoke is pouring into the sky – I’m going to want to investigate, and most other players in the area will too. Or if the sky darkens on a sunny day, and I look up and see a dragon circling overhead preparing to attack, I know I’d better fight or flee, and everyone around me knows that too.With traditional MMOs you can choose to solo or you can find a good guild or party to play with. With GW2 there’s a third option too: you can just naturally play with all the people around you.
I personally spend a big chunk of my time in traditional MMOs soloing, but when I play GW2 I always find myself naturally working with everyone around me to accomplish world objectives, and before long we find ourselves saying, “Hey, there’s a bunch of us here; let’s see if we can take down the swamp boss together,” without ever having bothered to form a party.
Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs, because your interests are always aligned with all other nearby players anyway. When someone kills a monster, not just that player’s party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.
Combat
If a Stone Elemental throws a boulder at you, pick it up and throw it back. Or as an Elementalist, use that boulder to create a meteor storm. If you’re fighting an Oakheart with an axe and you manage to hack off a branch, pick up the branch and try using it as a weapon. If you meet a beekeeper outside town, buy a jar of bees from him and see what happens when you lob it at nearby enemies.
If the game is as dynamic as they make it sound it's going to be loads of fun.
Some new info appeared regarding the Professions on the official site, so far they have only unveiled the Elementalist on the new professions page.
Here are some skill animation videos for the Elementalist
Meteor Shower
Phoenix
Static Field
Water Trident
Churning Earth
With the exception of Static Field, these are all skill names that carry on from GW1, I'm hoping the voices can be muted..
Note in the Phoenix there seems to be a buff from getting in to the tail end of the skill, nice touch
1) Upon acquiring the companion dog, Mutt, in Fallen Earth and immediately trying the rename option I quickly learned that dog names, like player names, have to be unique. Dogmeat (from Fallout fame) was already taken. So is Benji (from Benji fame) but Gaspode (from Terry Pratchett's Discworld fame) wasn't, yay!
2) Level 16 mutants have social aggro. It's best to realize this before taking potshots at a group of 5, or atleast don't try to do so while at level 15 yourself.
3) Gasoline is crafted in batches of 5, not 1. Don't freak out if you decided to start with a modest batch of 5 cans for your first gasoline refining session.
4) There's really nothing wrong with Zip guns and Air rifles. Seriously, the main benefit of the "Magnum Rimfire Rifle" over the "Snipershot Air Rifle" or the "Sportman's Crossbow" is that the Rimfire atleast actually sounds like a gun when it goes off and that's really all the advantage it needs after a week of 'pfft' 'pfft'-ing.
5) When surrounded by Wild Dogs attacking you in the middle of the night, the one sitting on its haunches presenting you with a paw to shake is probably Gaspode. Try not to get confused and don't waste precious ammo/time on him.
6) The recipe book "Refine Fasteners" will allow you to craft "Scrap Fasteners" (yay!) however crafting a single fastener takes about 1.5 times the time it takes you to gather/harvest/scavenge/plunder enough kit to sell for the 35 whit chips a fastener costs. It's also doubtfull you'll ever make enough "Scrap Fasteners" to break even on the cost of purchasing the book. Hopefully higher grade fasteners will make up for this.
7) There's no such thing as too much ammo. However, there are such things as carry weight allowances. Carry a melee weapon as backup.
8) Travel distances/time really aren't the problem in this game, it's the way you can't go anywhere without going "Ooooh, I can probably harvest/scabenge that!" and dismounting. It doesn't matter how fast your ride is, it's the (dis)mount time that counts.
9) Watchtower is the most northernly town with an auction house in Zone 1. This makes trying to win a bidding war from Trailer Park rather inconvenient (see map of Zone 1)
10) Dammit! Someone else realized this game needs an Edith ("E") Johnson. Just hope he/she stayed true to character.
the reason for that, beyond general I hate my job and the sun is shining and my couch is comfy excuse is that when I left of Fallen Earth last night I ahd a huge que of new clothing items I was crafting. At 10 mintues a piece (inside the Clothing lab) I would have had to stay up for another 90 mintues which was just too much. I do love this feature about Fallen Earth. i get to look different frequently due to the craft every item in order to level up concept. Of course you ahve to wear everything you make at least for a little while.
So how did I end up with such a floodgate of clothing recipes all of a sudden? Well, because I'm dumb. Last Sudnay i finished my session with a bit of an unsatisfied feeling. I'd just made my very first "real" rifle. As opposed to copper pellet throwing Zip gun. This was an honest to god hunting rifle, firing HEAVY AMMO. Ok, one little cincher, my Science vendor only sells Light Ammo Recipes. So here iw as, at a enw tier of crafting and the opening Ballistics item is an awesome rifle which was heaven to shoot for the first five complementary rounds but with no means to make more rounds.
So Monday I began a journey Northwards to slightly higher level mobs and quests and in the mean while discovered that I could purchase Heavy ammo rounds by the case load (500 rounds) and that these last you about 2 hours if you hoard the ammo. Glancing forelornely through my Recipes i suddnely noticed that in my Zip Gun category was a manual I could write (some tradeskill items required) for advanced Zip Guns. Putting two and two together I quickly checked my Science recipes and lo! There was a research Medium Ammo manual I could write. After purchasing some pen and paper from a local vendor I set to writing first a manual for Medium, then Heavy Armor. Bought the Recipe for making pens and cursed the lack of a paper recipe and went on a writing spree.
The result was I now have additional categories in Ballistics, Armorcrafting, Weaponry, Science and soon Nature tradeskills as well. Life in Fallen Earth is looking up. I gots plenty of mobs to kill and nodes to salvage for my new attire and kit. Phè's alt is due for some hand me downs as well I wager :-D It also happens that i ended my session right next door to a camp of Night Wolf mercenaries, who drop a belt-buckle that counts as a scrap fastener for crafting, the most rare tradeskill resource in the lower tiers as far as I know. The additional vendor trash they drop is actually cost efficient to buying Heavy Ammo by the case load as well.
Just one hour more of this work to go and I can head home. I'll see about adding some outfit pics from Character select as well before publishing.
Edit: So here she is in her resplendant new S.W.A.T. scavenger gear:
After Geekz0r's confession here that my review post on Fallen Earth made him want to hit the resubscribe button on Fallen Earth I thought it best to post a few cautionary pictures as well:
First, these are my settings. Note that every F*-ing slider is at max. Not every videocard will do that. To boot I have an ATI brand card, which the boys and girls at Icarus used to develop Fallen Earth on. Experiences may differ using different (brand) cards. P.s. this screen supposedly has the Gamma slider. I can't spot it though. Also interesting, WIndows' own screenshot taker has a much greater quality loss than FRAPS has as evidenced by the decay on the text in that image.
Epic battle for the Trash Bags just passed.
Ok, this I put in purely because I think the shot is funny. I went for the trashbags and discovered 'Thugs" have an above average aggro range. It was quite the pitched battle for two scrap fasteners.
This is how dark the caves can get. Notice the difference between flash-light area and the surroundings. Note: this is as dark as it gets though.
The dark sometimes hides gruesome scenes...
No matter how much the graphics get amped, it's still post apocalyptic downtown Nevada with all its gruesome brownishness. I hear Zones 2 and 4 have more colour though. Phè can confirm / dispute.
I've been playing Fallen Earth for a week now and so far it's been a solidly fun experience. Which is not to say the game doesn't have its flaws, but at least the clunky controls are slowly growing on me, especially after mapping the camera toggle key to a more convenient location.
This makes switching between melee and ranged combat a lot easier. Ranged really does need FPS mode for those all important head shots and for melee I at least prefer third party view. A view that's also a lot better at keeping track of where your party members are. I kept losing sight of them when in snipermode. The compass/map thingy usually isn't much help with that. Switching between 1st/3rd person perspective is very improtant, as is rapid switching between Aim and Mouse mode. In fact the game is a lot like Syncaine's favourite PvP game in some respects. Inventory management isn't quite as heinous as in that game though, and experience/levelling works a bit less like Morrowwind than that game.
The first time round when I tried the game during Beta, my L40 clone accidentally ended up outside the tutorial dam in the real game and was instantly lost and that was the end of my interest. (I did report the bug and it's no longer possible now)
The second time around I had real trouble with both the gathering and crafting systems. Mostly that it was anything but transparent for a beginner what he/she should do. I think it was trying fruitlessly to find leather skins for an afternoon, not knowing that the pile of reptile skins I had would work as well which sucked the fun out of it for me the last time. I also felt the game was just a little to drab and brown that time round. It's still drab and brown, but with the graphics updates it looks a lot better, and that's from someone just coming of a Mass Effect 2 gloriousness overdose. Like with CoX stills (screenshots) don't quite doe the graphics engine justice. Things need to move.
But back to crafting. This time round I'm loving the crafting system with a vengeance. As reported before it's mostly a matter of finding the right ingredients for your recipes then waiting for the crafting countdown has expired and presto! You're done. The good thing about it is you can walk even run around while crafting, though you take a hit in the time it takes you to craft an item while away from proper facilities. This seems to range between 40 and 60% and may differ based upon the complexity of the item. Net result, I've hidden in dark nooks of mines to smelt some more copper bullets for my modified zip-gun because I'd run out. Yesterday afternoon for example, I was trying to find some Alpha DNA in an old mine where a cloning facility had gone haywire, spewing out ugly zombies rather than useful workforce clones like myself. The Mission required me to do several steps inside a room in order to shut down said facility, while under constant attack from the emerging zombies. Needless to say they can be very distracting and while the mission plots of Fallen Earth shine, their system of using inventory items on in-world mission targets needs work. I was there along with some other clone who'd gone in for the same reason and neither of us could find the fusebox to destroy. Eventually my ammo ran out and his blade hat already eaten his last repair kit so we aborted for the night. Actually, the Zombies overwhelmed us and we woke up in the cloning facility down the road.
Something else I noticed, most noticable with armorcrafting, is that the best way to keep your crafting skills at a useful level for your exploring is to essentially make nearly every item in your recipe list once. You get three times more XP for creating the first version of any given item than all consecutive ones. With armor crafting this means you get to look different about twice a day. Gathering the materials for the next, usually slightly better statted hacket, pants or shoes/boots keeps you busy and gaining experience. More or less the exact opposite of the darkening sackcloth till 70 approach of Age of Conan. Even when sometimes it's just a different colour texture thrown over the same dimensional mesh, it looks different and makes you look different from the orther clones, I mean drones, err players around you.
The same goes for melee weapons, ballistics, (both of which come in one-handed/dual wielding and two-handed varieties) and medicine, mutagenics, cosntruction e.t.c. In fact you can just do nothing but gather kit and craft it. Selling it can sometimes be a pain as the auction system is one area that could use more work. But you can play this game and have fun without ever picking up a quest or mission. Some are useful even for the hard-core self-sufficient crafter as some people will help you gain cheap access to recipes which can be quite expensive at times.
It's also quite possible to take the Questing/combat oriented route though. Each place has a sleuth of quest givers ranging from "kill 10 more of the bastards you had to fight through to get into town" which tend to be repeatable and quick pick me ups for a gatherer like me who'll be amongst said basterds to mine veins and search through trash. Each town or city has its own little main story line which you usually can follow as a quest-line and there's a couple of global organisations like the Franklins (the postmen) and the Bankers (vault managers) for whom you can do chores. These also serve as a good means of getting people to move around as inevitably they end up giving you a warning or some ledgers to bring to another town.
In short it's a good mix of pure snad-box and (old skool) quest driven gameplay. I say old-skool because some of that clunkiness here and there which I mentioned harken back to nostalgic days of EverQuest, Anarchy Online and more recently Vanguard - Saga of Heroes more than the Third Gen games like WOW, WAR, AOC, CHO, STO and other acronymic titles.
Enough talking, there's surviving and dumpsterdiving to do.
Just in case you haven't been following what's been going on with Guild Wars. ArenaNet started by creating a few sparse hints, followed by some cryptic clues and now on to this, a 'blog' by Historian Murro.
On Facebook you can choose your side, being a double agent it was only natural for me to join both.
Some great fan art:
Meanwhile in the game a new Shining Blade camp has appeared and most recently many aggressive White Mantle have been spotted throughout Kryta.
There's a big story unfolding here, it's a 200 year gap from GW to GW2, some of that story we can start to live, most we will have to observe from the sidelines.
The difference between an MMO, an FPS map, and a single player game is really disappearing in this upcoming game. I think this game will be a bit too console-y for my taste, but it is getting very close. I can see the majority of the PvP fans in Fallen Earth will move here. I think I will try it too as my sit-on-the-coach-and-use-my-xbox-for-a-change game. Now thinking that principle a bit further, I doubt I will make friends in the game. So it will mostly be PUGs? Basically 7 human controlled side kicks I never talk to since I will still refuse to use my voice in a game. Or will it just be a single player affair for me because of that?
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.
