Apparently over the past few days our IT Department switched us over to a new Proxy server because the old one was having problems, and IT are too short-staffed to troubleshoot it so they just set us up with a new Proxy server.
Except the new Proxy server is also having problems, from running slow to not working at all, and because our office uses Google's GMail, when the proxy server is down we cannot access our email. This has been causing headaches for my office's System Techs because administering the Proxy server is IT's responsibility, and they're in another office, in another building, a dozen blocks away. So when the Proxy goes down and we can't access our email, Systems can't actually do anything to get us back up. And who do we run to when our computer don't work? Systems of course, because they're right here.
Certain websites are also blocked by the new Proxy server, websites which were not blocked before. Now it makes sense to block certain websites, except they're not the sites you might think. Or maybe they are, but I'm not checking those sites.
For example, I can still get on Facebook, and...yep, MySpace is still good, too.
I can access my Yahoo email but the click-thru links in my MyPoints emails do not work because MyPoints.com has been blocked.
I can also access my blog here at Blogspot (as long as the Proxy server is up), and yet...I cannot access Tobold's Blog, which is also on Blogspot. It shows up in Google when I search for it, but any attempts to access it are denied. Very strange.
Showing posts with label Computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Computers. Show all posts
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Dead Island
I read a couple of reviews of Dead Island and it sounds interesting. I like the thought of playing it in the First Person. That definitely puts you more into the game versus playing it in the Third Person and guiding a character around. The use of Stamina, a depletable, slowly regenerating resource used for pretty much every action in the game from punching a zombie to swinging a bat to running for your life is a great way to generate suspense. Sure you can fight, but not indefinitely. Yes you can run, but you can't run forever. You need to seek refuge. You need to rest and recover your strength. Because you are only human.
I even like the character being able to gather resources and use them at various Work Benches scattered around the island to improve, enhance, and upgrade their weapons. What I don't like, is that the resource you use to upgrade your weapons is money.
Seriously? You're on a zombie-infested island with just a handful of survivors and you're "buying" weapon upgrades? Come on! There's no merchants, there's no commerce. How can you possibly spend money to upgrade your weapons? I know, I know. It's a game about zombies. It's not meant to be realistic.
I respectfully disagree with you. I say of course it's supposed to be realistic. We're supposed to become emotionally invested in this game, particularly in this specific game given the level of emotion invoked by the Trailer.
The Devs expect us to believe in this world, but for us to believe in it it needs to be realistic. Okay, somewhat realistic, given it's a world/island overrun by zombies. But even in a fantasy world where the dead can rise, walk, run, and try to eat your brains, you still could not use money to upgrade weapons unless you were paying someone to upgrade them for you. But there's nobody else involved in the upgrading process, so you cannot be paying anyone, thus money as a resource to upgrade your weapons is?
Highly illogical, Capt'n.
Thank you, Mr. Spock.
Had you been finding & accruing not Money, but Spare Parts, or Bits & Pieces, and at a Work Bench you used X number of Bits & Pieces to upgrade your weapon from Level N to Level N+1 I would have totally accepted that. It's a quite plausible, valid premise, even though nothing has changed but the name of the resource. You were using Money, now you're using Bits. That simple name change changes everything.
A wise man once (allegedly) said, "What's in a name?"
Another wise man responded (although perhaps not immediately, nor to the first man), "Names have power."
I even like the character being able to gather resources and use them at various Work Benches scattered around the island to improve, enhance, and upgrade their weapons. What I don't like, is that the resource you use to upgrade your weapons is money.
Seriously? You're on a zombie-infested island with just a handful of survivors and you're "buying" weapon upgrades? Come on! There's no merchants, there's no commerce. How can you possibly spend money to upgrade your weapons? I know, I know. It's a game about zombies. It's not meant to be realistic.
I respectfully disagree with you. I say of course it's supposed to be realistic. We're supposed to become emotionally invested in this game, particularly in this specific game given the level of emotion invoked by the Trailer.
The Devs expect us to believe in this world, but for us to believe in it it needs to be realistic. Okay, somewhat realistic, given it's a world/island overrun by zombies. But even in a fantasy world where the dead can rise, walk, run, and try to eat your brains, you still could not use money to upgrade weapons unless you were paying someone to upgrade them for you. But there's nobody else involved in the upgrading process, so you cannot be paying anyone, thus money as a resource to upgrade your weapons is?
Highly illogical, Capt'n.
Thank you, Mr. Spock.
Had you been finding & accruing not Money, but Spare Parts, or Bits & Pieces, and at a Work Bench you used X number of Bits & Pieces to upgrade your weapon from Level N to Level N+1 I would have totally accepted that. It's a quite plausible, valid premise, even though nothing has changed but the name of the resource. You were using Money, now you're using Bits. That simple name change changes everything.
A wise man once (allegedly) said, "What's in a name?"
Another wise man responded (although perhaps not immediately, nor to the first man), "Names have power."
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Blu-Ray, HDMI, and LOTRO @ 50"
As much fun as it is to stream Netflix videos via the Wii and it's Wii-Fii (???) the novelty quickly wears off when the LAN bogs down and the movie needs to buffer every 5 minutes. Watching movies at the Wii's 480p was also not what I'd become accustomed to after watching HD Cable for a few months, so the wife and I decided an upgrade was in order. Queue in a Blu-Ray player with its glorious 1080p, hard-wired into the LAN (no Wii-Fii here). In the Wii's defense it could have been hardwired into the LAN as well, but it would have required the purchase of a $30 "dongle" to plug in the Cat-5e cable, whereas the Blu-Ray comes with a more sensible and LAN-friendly RJ45 port.
So the Blu-Ray arrived last week and the first thing I did, even before plugging anything in, was RTFM. Yes, I did. Which is how I read that Blu-Ray players apparently like the faster, Category2 HDMI cables. So off to Target I went, armed with a $25 Gift Card provided by my thoughtful wife, where I found 3' cables for $30, and 6' cables for considerably more. Best Buy were next door, and while their online store said the brick & stone store did not carry the el cheapo $10 HDMI cables readily available online (& for in-store pick-up, if you want to wait a week), I thought I'd check there anyway. I left empty-handed when I saw their cheapest 3' cable was $40, and made my way across the road to that bastion of the working class man, Walmart, where I picked up a 6' cable for $20. Hooray!
Back home I got everything plugged in, tuned the TV to HDMI#2 and...the words "Invalid Format" appeared and began floating around the screen.
Invalid Format? Whaddayamean Invalid Format???
It took a day and a couple of visits to an online forum for my Blu-Ray player to work out that my 50" Plasma HD TV is not 1080p like I thought, but only 720p (which sucks, but I'm old, so my eyes probably can't tell the difference anyway) and solving my "Invalid Format" problem was as simple as telling the Blu-Ray to output a 720p signal.
That was all it took to get high quality Netflix movies streamed to our HD TV without pauses to buffer every few minutes. A bonus is that the Blu-Ray will also do Pandora, Hulu, and other streaming media sites, including Youtube. I now have the ability to watch Youtube videos on my HD TV, which means when BBC-USA wants to edit & cut episodes of Dr. Who so they can get in more commercials, we can watch Dr. Who on the 50" TV via Youtube. Another bonus is BBC-USA sometimes delays airing certain episodes, sometimes for a week or more, but considerate fans will often record those very same episodes & upload them to Youtube literally the second that episode has aired in the UK.
Getting the Blu-Ray hooked up and streaming Youtube also piqued my curiosity about hooking up one of our PCs (albeit temporarily) to the 50" TV, which I initially thought I could do via DVI. Except even though the HDMI#1 port (for the HD Cable) is labeled HDMI/DVI, the 50" TV doesn't actually have a DVI-in. Curiouser & curiouser. What it does have, however, is an RGB port, being the current industry standard PC video plug. Awesome. Unlike the Blu-Ray, hooking up the PC was as simple as plugging it in and switching to the appropriate Input. Okay, so there was also the issue with turning off & unplugging my son's PC, then dragging it downstairs, then getting it all hooked back up again, including unplugging the Cat5e from the Blu-Ray so I could have wired Internet access on the PC. After that, it was simple :)
And that was how my wife found me, kicking back on the sofa, playing Lord of the Rings Online on our 50" HD TV. Additionally, rather than rest the keyboard on my lap, I'd dragged over our two small side tables and had the keyboard on one and the mouse on the other and had my legs stretched out between them. If you currently have a mental picture of someone piloting a starship a la "Flight of the Navigator" you probably have a good idea of what I looked like.
I was only able to get in a few hours playing like this before the boy was due back home and I wanted his PC back in his room before the in-laws dropped him off (I didn't want him to get any funny ideas...maybe as a special treat, maybe ;) but those few hours of playing LOTRO @ 50" was awesome, and very, very comfortable :)
As for streaming Netflix, I'm in two minds over that. While it's great having a ton of movies-on-demand for a very low price (we have the cheapest 1 physical DVD at-a-time package), the selection of movies that can be streamed is somewhat limited. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of movies you can watch, including some relatively new releases (the bunny was watching Astroboy last night), but many of the movies I'm interested in are only available on DVD, like Clint Eastwood's two classic "Clint & Clyde" movies, Peter Seller's "The Party", and Terrence Hill's obscure but hilarious "Trinity" movies. I'm happy to have streaming Netflix at 720p, but not happy that many of the movies I want to watch are not immediately available.
So the Blu-Ray arrived last week and the first thing I did, even before plugging anything in, was RTFM. Yes, I did. Which is how I read that Blu-Ray players apparently like the faster, Category2 HDMI cables. So off to Target I went, armed with a $25 Gift Card provided by my thoughtful wife, where I found 3' cables for $30, and 6' cables for considerably more. Best Buy were next door, and while their online store said the brick & stone store did not carry the el cheapo $10 HDMI cables readily available online (& for in-store pick-up, if you want to wait a week), I thought I'd check there anyway. I left empty-handed when I saw their cheapest 3' cable was $40, and made my way across the road to that bastion of the working class man, Walmart, where I picked up a 6' cable for $20. Hooray!
Back home I got everything plugged in, tuned the TV to HDMI#2 and...the words "Invalid Format" appeared and began floating around the screen.
Invalid Format? Whaddayamean Invalid Format???
It took a day and a couple of visits to an online forum for my Blu-Ray player to work out that my 50" Plasma HD TV is not 1080p like I thought, but only 720p (which sucks, but I'm old, so my eyes probably can't tell the difference anyway) and solving my "Invalid Format" problem was as simple as telling the Blu-Ray to output a 720p signal.
That was all it took to get high quality Netflix movies streamed to our HD TV without pauses to buffer every few minutes. A bonus is that the Blu-Ray will also do Pandora, Hulu, and other streaming media sites, including Youtube. I now have the ability to watch Youtube videos on my HD TV, which means when BBC-USA wants to edit & cut episodes of Dr. Who so they can get in more commercials, we can watch Dr. Who on the 50" TV via Youtube. Another bonus is BBC-USA sometimes delays airing certain episodes, sometimes for a week or more, but considerate fans will often record those very same episodes & upload them to Youtube literally the second that episode has aired in the UK.
Getting the Blu-Ray hooked up and streaming Youtube also piqued my curiosity about hooking up one of our PCs (albeit temporarily) to the 50" TV, which I initially thought I could do via DVI. Except even though the HDMI#1 port (for the HD Cable) is labeled HDMI/DVI, the 50" TV doesn't actually have a DVI-in. Curiouser & curiouser. What it does have, however, is an RGB port, being the current industry standard PC video plug. Awesome. Unlike the Blu-Ray, hooking up the PC was as simple as plugging it in and switching to the appropriate Input. Okay, so there was also the issue with turning off & unplugging my son's PC, then dragging it downstairs, then getting it all hooked back up again, including unplugging the Cat5e from the Blu-Ray so I could have wired Internet access on the PC. After that, it was simple :)
And that was how my wife found me, kicking back on the sofa, playing Lord of the Rings Online on our 50" HD TV. Additionally, rather than rest the keyboard on my lap, I'd dragged over our two small side tables and had the keyboard on one and the mouse on the other and had my legs stretched out between them. If you currently have a mental picture of someone piloting a starship a la "Flight of the Navigator" you probably have a good idea of what I looked like.
I was only able to get in a few hours playing like this before the boy was due back home and I wanted his PC back in his room before the in-laws dropped him off (I didn't want him to get any funny ideas...maybe as a special treat, maybe ;) but those few hours of playing LOTRO @ 50" was awesome, and very, very comfortable :)
As for streaming Netflix, I'm in two minds over that. While it's great having a ton of movies-on-demand for a very low price (we have the cheapest 1 physical DVD at-a-time package), the selection of movies that can be streamed is somewhat limited. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of movies you can watch, including some relatively new releases (the bunny was watching Astroboy last night), but many of the movies I'm interested in are only available on DVD, like Clint Eastwood's two classic "Clint & Clyde" movies, Peter Seller's "The Party", and Terrence Hill's obscure but hilarious "Trinity" movies. I'm happy to have streaming Netflix at 720p, but not happy that many of the movies I want to watch are not immediately available.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Computer down! Computer down!
The wife's PC finally died on her. Her LCD said it wasn't getting a signal so my first (hopeful) thought was the video card. Alas a quick switch from the video card to the onboard GPU did not work. So I crack the case, pull the card, reboot and...nothing.
Bugger.
That didn't narrow the problem down, it just eliminated one possibility. With Liz's PC being quite a few years old, the cost of trouble-shooting and getting it up & running would probably be more than the cost of a new PC. So I went the cheap route: I pulled her hard drive and dropped it into my PC.
Unfortunately they're making cases smaller & smaller these days (or so it seems) and with my BFG of a video card (an 8800GT or something cutting edge a few years ago) tucked in I had a hell of a job sliding her HDD into my drive bay. After unplugging a few cables I finally got it in, hooked everything back up, then hit the power button.
Nothing.
Oh, shit.
I/O Power switch on the PSU? Flipped it. Nothing. Flipped it back.Still nothing.
Oh yeah. One of the cables I unplugged was the power to Mother Board, and yes, after getting the IDE ribbon cable plugged in I forgot to plug in the MoBo's power cable. With that plugged back in my computer booted up, then rebooted itself. That's odd.
Windows failed to start properly on the last attempt.
Safe mode?
Safe mode with Networking?
Normal?
Huh? Oh, okay. Let's push our luck and shoot for Normal.
No dice. Reboot, and...Windows failed to start properly on the last attempt.
Ok, ok. Safe Mode?
Reboot.
I hit F1 went into BIOS and reconfigured the Boot order. Save & Exit.
Reboot, but this time I meant to do that.
And the familiar XP loading screen came up. Cool.
Windows loaded. Opened My Computer, and there was a bunch of drives (I have a built-in flash drive reader that will accept pretty much any standard flash card), followed by a new drive. A J: drive. Opening it up revealed it was the wife's hard drive, so I had access to her files. Cool. (Fezzes are cool, too.)
I shut my PC down then switched her non-working case with mine, because the printer/fax/scanner is on her desk and it refuses to network with the LAN. Stubborn piece of tech.
When I booted up my PC, or Liz's new PC rather, it detected the Printer and after a minute or two it had installed the drivers. Then it detected the Printer again. And wanted to install the drivers, again. Wha??? Oh, I see. It's a Printer/Fax/Scanner so it needs to install it three times. Fine. And so it did.
Today Liz called me up in tears because she'd opened up Firefox and it was my Firefox. With my bookmarks, logins & passwords. Then she opened up Thunderbird and it was empty. No emails. No addresses. Nothing. Nada. Zip. She was a little distraught that everything was gone and it took a while to calm her down. It's not gone, it's on the J drive, I told her. But I might as well have been speaking Kobold, or COBOL (which sound the same), for all the good it did.
Fortunately a few minutes searching found a website where, hopefully, I'll be able to restore her profile, including emails & email addresses, from the Thunderbird folder on her old hard drive.
So now I currently have no computer, but oddly enough, I don't really care. After quitting WoW, again, and playing LOTRO for a bit, I've discovered I've lost a lot of my desire to play games on my PC. Or maybe it's that Dragon Quest IX has sucked me in ;)
*edit* Mozilla Profiles restored, and now Liz has her Firefox and Thunderbird back. Hooray!
Bugger.
That didn't narrow the problem down, it just eliminated one possibility. With Liz's PC being quite a few years old, the cost of trouble-shooting and getting it up & running would probably be more than the cost of a new PC. So I went the cheap route: I pulled her hard drive and dropped it into my PC.
Unfortunately they're making cases smaller & smaller these days (or so it seems) and with my BFG of a video card (an 8800GT or something cutting edge a few years ago) tucked in I had a hell of a job sliding her HDD into my drive bay. After unplugging a few cables I finally got it in, hooked everything back up, then hit the power button.
Nothing.
Oh, shit.
I/O Power switch on the PSU? Flipped it. Nothing. Flipped it back.Still nothing.
Oh yeah. One of the cables I unplugged was the power to Mother Board, and yes, after getting the IDE ribbon cable plugged in I forgot to plug in the MoBo's power cable. With that plugged back in my computer booted up, then rebooted itself. That's odd.
Windows failed to start properly on the last attempt.
Safe mode?
Safe mode with Networking?
Normal?
Huh? Oh, okay. Let's push our luck and shoot for Normal.
No dice. Reboot, and...Windows failed to start properly on the last attempt.
Ok, ok. Safe Mode?
Reboot.
I hit F1 went into BIOS and reconfigured the Boot order. Save & Exit.
Reboot, but this time I meant to do that.
And the familiar XP loading screen came up. Cool.
Windows loaded. Opened My Computer, and there was a bunch of drives (I have a built-in flash drive reader that will accept pretty much any standard flash card), followed by a new drive. A J: drive. Opening it up revealed it was the wife's hard drive, so I had access to her files. Cool. (Fezzes are cool, too.)
I shut my PC down then switched her non-working case with mine, because the printer/fax/scanner is on her desk and it refuses to network with the LAN. Stubborn piece of tech.
When I booted up my PC, or Liz's new PC rather, it detected the Printer and after a minute or two it had installed the drivers. Then it detected the Printer again. And wanted to install the drivers, again. Wha??? Oh, I see. It's a Printer/Fax/Scanner so it needs to install it three times. Fine. And so it did.
Today Liz called me up in tears because she'd opened up Firefox and it was my Firefox. With my bookmarks, logins & passwords. Then she opened up Thunderbird and it was empty. No emails. No addresses. Nothing. Nada. Zip. She was a little distraught that everything was gone and it took a while to calm her down. It's not gone, it's on the J drive, I told her. But I might as well have been speaking Kobold, or COBOL (which sound the same), for all the good it did.
Fortunately a few minutes searching found a website where, hopefully, I'll be able to restore her profile, including emails & email addresses, from the Thunderbird folder on her old hard drive.
So now I currently have no computer, but oddly enough, I don't really care. After quitting WoW, again, and playing LOTRO for a bit, I've discovered I've lost a lot of my desire to play games on my PC. Or maybe it's that Dragon Quest IX has sucked me in ;)
*edit* Mozilla Profiles restored, and now Liz has her Firefox and Thunderbird back. Hooray!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Review: Warstorm on FB
Warstorm is neither your typical Facebook game nor your typical card-based war game. (It also has a browser-based version but I'm not sure how well that works.)
Unlike Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc., you don't need 500+ friends to get maximum value from Warstorm, so it doesn't require you to create a second Facebook "Game" account, spam a load of strangers with Friend requests, or fill message boards with ADD ME!!! LOL!!!. And yet in spite of this the typical comments on the official Warstorm Facebook groups are still "Add me!!!" Go figure.
With that said, it does help to have a couple of Friends who play because every now & then the game gives you a bonus 'Rare' Card. But it's not for you, it's for your friends, and in the typical FB Game spammy fashion you can't just Send it to them, you have to post a message on your wall so your Friends can Click the link and collect the Card themselves. Likewise your Friends can post Rare Card messages on their own Wall that you can click and collect. But there's a catch. You can only collect one Rare card every 24 hours. Not one Rare Card per Friend per day; one Rare Card per day, period. So having hundreds of friends spamming your Wall with Rare Card posts every day is no more useful than having just a couple, as long as they're regular players of course. (Which makes me wonder how the browser-based version works, unless you can somehow add people as your Friends...perhaps via email?)
As you play the game and win battles/duels you earn Silver which you can use to buy more Card Packs, and when you do buy and 'open' a pack you will sometimes get a Bonus card. Unlike the Rare Cards these can be Sent directly to a Friend but only to one Friend, and you can only send one Card to each Friend every 24 hours. The game does ask you to post a message on your Friend's Wall so they know they got the Card, but in this case I don't think posting is actually necessary. I believe your Friend still receives the Card whether you post a "Hey! I sent you a card!" message or not. Now while you can only collect one Rare Card every 24 hours, and you can only send one Bonus Card to each Friend every 24 hours, if you have 100 Friends they can obviously each send you one Bonus Card if they get them, but! Do you really think someone is going to send a Bonus Card to you, a complete stranger, when they have Real Life Friends who also play? Of course not. You only get Bonus Cards from opening Packs, or from buying Hero Cards via RMT, so unless you spend real cash you just won't get that many Bonus Cards to give away. Are you going to send some stranger a Bonus Hero card you only got because you spent real money? Or will you send it to your Brother/Cousin/Best Friend4Life? Yeah, I thought so.
That's a big plus to Warstorm over the other FB Games: you simply do not need to add a bunch of strangers as Friends in order to play the game. Of course your Real Life Friends still need to actually play.
I said earlier that it's not your typical card-based war game, and it's not. In MTG and other games of its ilk you build your deck then duel other players by, usually, dealing yourself a hand, then playing out the game and using your cards to the best of their ability (and your own) to defeat the other player and their cards, in a process requiring a combination of both luck and strategy. In Warstorm, the only strategy comes from the deck building itself, because once a game starts you're even more of an observer than someone playing a low level Paladin. Yes, once a duel begins you'll do nothing more than sit back & watch, and maybe hit the Fast Forward button if you want to speed up the pace a little, which I did.
This may sound boring and/or frustrating in not having any control over how your cards are played ("No! Don't give the Sword of Power to the Mage! He's going to be killed on the next turn! No! Don't Zap the Troll Hero! Target the Flying Imp!") but it's a lot easier to accept that style of play once you realize it's actually a very fair way to resolve combat. You're dueling a random player's deck, not an actual player, meaning they're not actually present to manage their own cards, so letting you control your own cards and Zap their low HP Imp instead of the high HP, regenerating Troll Hero would be giving you an unfair advantage over your opponent.
Here's an example of a Hero Card:
There's already descriptions for the bottom numbers and they're self-explanatory for the most part, although just for clarification purposes your Turn and your opponent's Turn makes two Turns, so a card which readies in 10 Turns will be ready within 5 of your own Turns after being drawn. The three numbers in the top right corner of this Hero's card mean his Squad will be comprised of 6 Units, but no artifacts or spells. A Squad is always a Hero plus 6 Cards so you may also get a Hero who commands 4 Units but takes 2 Artifacts into battle, or 2 spells, or 1 Artifact and 1 Spell. I've not yet seen any Heroes who have more than 2 Artifact and/or Spell cards.
As soon as a Card is Ready it can be used immediately to attack, heal, etc. There is no Tapping or Exhausting of cards. Your cards attack and use their special abilities (if they have any), then your opponent's cards do the same, then your cards, and so on, with the goal being to reduce your opponents Morale from 30 to 0, or destroy all of his units/cards. Morale is reduced by cards attacking unopposed, through Spells or Artifacts such as the Drums of Despair, or via special abilities like Demoralize.
When you start you'll play through a Tutorial which both introduces many of the special abilities in the game, and rewards you with cards with the same. So after beating a Squad of Mages with the Blast Ability you'll receive a Mage or two with Blast, and so on. This makes it very easy to learn how combat and the cards work, and what cards are effective counters to other cards. Unfortunately it also makes the game appear rather easy, so the first time you play a real opponent you might be in for a very rude shock.
After completing the Tutorial you can continue to play the Single Player campaign, which gradually rewards you with more powerful cards, or you can try your luck against other players. But as those players tend to already have the more powerful cards, or even RMT cards, it's advisable to build up your Squads before engaging in the Warstorm equivalent of PvP. I say Squads because if you have sufficient Heroes and Squads you can do up to 4v4 Duels, being 4 of your Squads versus 4 of those from another player. Personally I thought 4 Squads took too long (and usually resulted in my Defeat) so for the most part I'll do 2v2 where my chances of success are much greater and the battles are usually over a lot faster.
Now even though, once you hit Start and the cards start coming out, you become no more than a participant, there's still a lot of excitement from watching a battle unfold as you cheer desperately for certain cards to come out, knowing there's nothing you can do but watch the battle unfold. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get creamed and wonder just why the hell your opponent seems to have so many cards, and other times the cards go all your way and you're the one with a seemingly invincible army carving up everything your opponent's deck throws at you.
If there's anything negative to say about Warstorm it's that (for me) there was a wall around level 10-12 that I needed to crash through where I just couldn't defeat the next stages in the Single Player campaign, and where I likewise went from seeming to win most of my PvP Duels to just getting crushed in almost every single game. It almost seemed intended, as if to convince me to engage in RMT to advance, instead it made me want to throw in the towel. But I stuck it out, and even losing duels got me silver, and eventually I was able to buy some more card packs, tweak my squads a little more, and I started to win a few more duels. That was also when I accepted that "You can't win 'em all", which made the game more enjoyable as well.
All up I'd say check it out, at least to level 10 or so, to see whether it's your cup of tea. It's free to play so you really have nothing to lose but an evening of messing around. And even if you don't have a Facebook account you can always give the Browser version a try.
Unlike Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc., you don't need 500+ friends to get maximum value from Warstorm, so it doesn't require you to create a second Facebook "Game" account, spam a load of strangers with Friend requests, or fill message boards with ADD ME!!! LOL!!!. And yet in spite of this the typical comments on the official Warstorm Facebook groups are still "Add me!!!" Go figure.
With that said, it does help to have a couple of Friends who play because every now & then the game gives you a bonus 'Rare' Card. But it's not for you, it's for your friends, and in the typical FB Game spammy fashion you can't just Send it to them, you have to post a message on your wall so your Friends can Click the link and collect the Card themselves. Likewise your Friends can post Rare Card messages on their own Wall that you can click and collect. But there's a catch. You can only collect one Rare card every 24 hours. Not one Rare Card per Friend per day; one Rare Card per day, period. So having hundreds of friends spamming your Wall with Rare Card posts every day is no more useful than having just a couple, as long as they're regular players of course. (Which makes me wonder how the browser-based version works, unless you can somehow add people as your Friends...perhaps via email?)
As you play the game and win battles/duels you earn Silver which you can use to buy more Card Packs, and when you do buy and 'open' a pack you will sometimes get a Bonus card. Unlike the Rare Cards these can be Sent directly to a Friend but only to one Friend, and you can only send one Card to each Friend every 24 hours. The game does ask you to post a message on your Friend's Wall so they know they got the Card, but in this case I don't think posting is actually necessary. I believe your Friend still receives the Card whether you post a "Hey! I sent you a card!" message or not. Now while you can only collect one Rare Card every 24 hours, and you can only send one Bonus Card to each Friend every 24 hours, if you have 100 Friends they can obviously each send you one Bonus Card if they get them, but! Do you really think someone is going to send a Bonus Card to you, a complete stranger, when they have Real Life Friends who also play? Of course not. You only get Bonus Cards from opening Packs, or from buying Hero Cards via RMT, so unless you spend real cash you just won't get that many Bonus Cards to give away. Are you going to send some stranger a Bonus Hero card you only got because you spent real money? Or will you send it to your Brother/Cousin/Best Friend4Life? Yeah, I thought so.
That's a big plus to Warstorm over the other FB Games: you simply do not need to add a bunch of strangers as Friends in order to play the game. Of course your Real Life Friends still need to actually play.
I said earlier that it's not your typical card-based war game, and it's not. In MTG and other games of its ilk you build your deck then duel other players by, usually, dealing yourself a hand, then playing out the game and using your cards to the best of their ability (and your own) to defeat the other player and their cards, in a process requiring a combination of both luck and strategy. In Warstorm, the only strategy comes from the deck building itself, because once a game starts you're even more of an observer than someone playing a low level Paladin. Yes, once a duel begins you'll do nothing more than sit back & watch, and maybe hit the Fast Forward button if you want to speed up the pace a little, which I did.
This may sound boring and/or frustrating in not having any control over how your cards are played ("No! Don't give the Sword of Power to the Mage! He's going to be killed on the next turn! No! Don't Zap the Troll Hero! Target the Flying Imp!") but it's a lot easier to accept that style of play once you realize it's actually a very fair way to resolve combat. You're dueling a random player's deck, not an actual player, meaning they're not actually present to manage their own cards, so letting you control your own cards and Zap their low HP Imp instead of the high HP, regenerating Troll Hero would be giving you an unfair advantage over your opponent.
Here's an example of a Hero Card:
There's already descriptions for the bottom numbers and they're self-explanatory for the most part, although just for clarification purposes your Turn and your opponent's Turn makes two Turns, so a card which readies in 10 Turns will be ready within 5 of your own Turns after being drawn. The three numbers in the top right corner of this Hero's card mean his Squad will be comprised of 6 Units, but no artifacts or spells. A Squad is always a Hero plus 6 Cards so you may also get a Hero who commands 4 Units but takes 2 Artifacts into battle, or 2 spells, or 1 Artifact and 1 Spell. I've not yet seen any Heroes who have more than 2 Artifact and/or Spell cards.
As soon as a Card is Ready it can be used immediately to attack, heal, etc. There is no Tapping or Exhausting of cards. Your cards attack and use their special abilities (if they have any), then your opponent's cards do the same, then your cards, and so on, with the goal being to reduce your opponents Morale from 30 to 0, or destroy all of his units/cards. Morale is reduced by cards attacking unopposed, through Spells or Artifacts such as the Drums of Despair, or via special abilities like Demoralize.
When you start you'll play through a Tutorial which both introduces many of the special abilities in the game, and rewards you with cards with the same. So after beating a Squad of Mages with the Blast Ability you'll receive a Mage or two with Blast, and so on. This makes it very easy to learn how combat and the cards work, and what cards are effective counters to other cards. Unfortunately it also makes the game appear rather easy, so the first time you play a real opponent you might be in for a very rude shock.
After completing the Tutorial you can continue to play the Single Player campaign, which gradually rewards you with more powerful cards, or you can try your luck against other players. But as those players tend to already have the more powerful cards, or even RMT cards, it's advisable to build up your Squads before engaging in the Warstorm equivalent of PvP. I say Squads because if you have sufficient Heroes and Squads you can do up to 4v4 Duels, being 4 of your Squads versus 4 of those from another player. Personally I thought 4 Squads took too long (and usually resulted in my Defeat) so for the most part I'll do 2v2 where my chances of success are much greater and the battles are usually over a lot faster.
Now even though, once you hit Start and the cards start coming out, you become no more than a participant, there's still a lot of excitement from watching a battle unfold as you cheer desperately for certain cards to come out, knowing there's nothing you can do but watch the battle unfold. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get creamed and wonder just why the hell your opponent seems to have so many cards, and other times the cards go all your way and you're the one with a seemingly invincible army carving up everything your opponent's deck throws at you.
If there's anything negative to say about Warstorm it's that (for me) there was a wall around level 10-12 that I needed to crash through where I just couldn't defeat the next stages in the Single Player campaign, and where I likewise went from seeming to win most of my PvP Duels to just getting crushed in almost every single game. It almost seemed intended, as if to convince me to engage in RMT to advance, instead it made me want to throw in the towel. But I stuck it out, and even losing duels got me silver, and eventually I was able to buy some more card packs, tweak my squads a little more, and I started to win a few more duels. That was also when I accepted that "You can't win 'em all", which made the game more enjoyable as well.
All up I'd say check it out, at least to level 10 or so, to see whether it's your cup of tea. It's free to play so you really have nothing to lose but an evening of messing around. And even if you don't have a Facebook account you can always give the Browser version a try.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Why we do what we do
I read someone's Blog last week (and if they read this, please comment so I can link it) which discussed, primarily, achievements in gaming. The crux of the argument (if I understood it correctly) was whether or not you enjoyed certain activities within a game which netted you an in-game reward, and whether or not you'd continue performing those activities if you could just press a button and get the reward.
If you would continue to perform those activities after receiving your reward then it's obvious that you enjoy them, so continue playing away. But if you would stop performing these activities upon receiving the reward, and if the reward is little more than a pointless piece of fluff that does not serve to better your character, then why bother with it in the first place?
Nowadays in WoW if you're keen enough to visit practically every square inch of every zone in every land, you can get yourself an Explorer title. I'm sure there's something to be said for a low level player acquiring such a title, especially as setting foot in many zones would result in their almost immediate death, that is assuming they could even access some of the higher level zones. But why would you bother mapping all of the zones in the first place? Especially when you're speed leveling to Cap where SOP is hit the Zone's "Quest Hub", grab all available quests, then rush around and complete everything as fast as you can. And so what if you don't go to that south-eastern corner and the map remains blank at that point. If you needed to uncover it then a quest would have sent you there, but none did so you don't need to go there, right? Besides, you can come back later, at 80, with a fast Epic Mount, and fill the Map in then.
But a long, long time ago, a young Hunter (most likely in his high 20s to low 30s) ventured north from the Wetlands into the Arathi Highlands. After participating in a Raid on Hammerfall he moved beyond Arathi to Southshore, but he didn't stop there. He continued to venture forth up into the Alterac Mountains, on to the Plaguelands (yes, he was a Newb), and into Tirisfal Glades. With absolutely no reward to show for his effort, with no Title awaiting him, and no way of proving to anyone what he'd done (outside of screenshots and a blog, and screenies can be faked anyway), the Hunter was determined to uncover the entire map for every Zone he found, even if he died in the attempt. And he did. Repeatedly, and often. Mobs killed him. NPCs killed him. Other players killed him when, in his noobness, he fought back against city guards and Flagged himself.
Yet he stubbornly persisted in his quest (did we mention he was a Dwarf? Yeah, kind of goes without saying, right?) and eventually he did reveal every section of every Zone's Map, including those zones in which he had no right being, not at his level, and certainly not without a Mount. (He also found some Zones that didn't exist yet, which was both cool and eerie, traveling across smooth landscapes with nothing but terrain texture as far as the eye could see.)
He didn't go exploring for a Vanity Pet or a Title, and when he was done he had no way of proving what he'd done to anyone, nor did he need to or want to. It was enough that he knew he'd done it, because in the end he'd done it for nobody but himself, and for no reason other than "it was there".
A long time ago I played The Sims, and I was enjoying it up to a certain point, being when your Sim needs to have 10 Friends in order to receive their next promotion.. Yes, their Friends could just be Friends with the spouse/partner, but there needed to be at least 10. Because I'd continued playing the Newbie family (the couple you play in the Tutorial) there just weren't that many people in my neighborhood. I needed a new family. One with a lot of members. So I created a "family" with the maximum number of people, built them a box to call their own, moved them in, then called my Newbie couple over to visit. Before too long it was late (in the game) and not everyone was friends with my Newbies, but that was okay, there's always tomorrow.
Tomorrow arrived, and my Sim picked up the phone and called her new friends...and most of them blew her off. Even the ones she was actually friends with were reluctant to come visit.
"Well I did just paint the living room, and I was going to sit here and watch the paint dry, but I guess your place could be more exciting."
Geez! Don't break a leg rushing over here!
Hitting the "10-Friend Wall" meant no promotion, and no promotion meant no more money, which meant no newer, cooler, better stuff for my Sims.
So I found a cheat code to give me all the money I needed to build the biggest, best, baddest house on the block, filled with the coolest stuff. And I did. Then I looked at my huge house filled with crap that I hadn't "earned", and which my Sims hadn't earned, and I quit. I shut the game down.
A day or two later I booted the game back up, played for a minute or two, then shut it down again.
My Sims had all the money they needed. They owned the best of everything. There was...no reason to play the game.
Up until that moment I had enjoyed playing The Sims. Then I pressed that button and gave myself the Reward and that was it. The game was no longer fun for me. I know other people would have continued to play and found a new reason and way to have fun, but I didn't.
In one game there was no reward or recognition for what I was doing. Self-gratification was the only reward, and there was no way to short cut to the end. I did what I did for me, and I enjoyed doing it, and now I find myself doing it again, and still enjoying it.
In the other game there was a reward waiting at the end. And when I found a way to give myself that reward...I stopped playing. The game was fun right up until the moment I cheated. And the sad thing is I cheated nobody but myself out of the fun I was having. A more cynical person might say I wasn't really having fun, and that I just needed the cheat code to realize that. Maybe they'd be right.
If you would continue to perform those activities after receiving your reward then it's obvious that you enjoy them, so continue playing away. But if you would stop performing these activities upon receiving the reward, and if the reward is little more than a pointless piece of fluff that does not serve to better your character, then why bother with it in the first place?
Nowadays in WoW if you're keen enough to visit practically every square inch of every zone in every land, you can get yourself an Explorer title. I'm sure there's something to be said for a low level player acquiring such a title, especially as setting foot in many zones would result in their almost immediate death, that is assuming they could even access some of the higher level zones. But why would you bother mapping all of the zones in the first place? Especially when you're speed leveling to Cap where SOP is hit the Zone's "Quest Hub", grab all available quests, then rush around and complete everything as fast as you can. And so what if you don't go to that south-eastern corner and the map remains blank at that point. If you needed to uncover it then a quest would have sent you there, but none did so you don't need to go there, right? Besides, you can come back later, at 80, with a fast Epic Mount, and fill the Map in then.
But a long, long time ago, a young Hunter (most likely in his high 20s to low 30s) ventured north from the Wetlands into the Arathi Highlands. After participating in a Raid on Hammerfall he moved beyond Arathi to Southshore, but he didn't stop there. He continued to venture forth up into the Alterac Mountains, on to the Plaguelands (yes, he was a Newb), and into Tirisfal Glades. With absolutely no reward to show for his effort, with no Title awaiting him, and no way of proving to anyone what he'd done (outside of screenshots and a blog, and screenies can be faked anyway), the Hunter was determined to uncover the entire map for every Zone he found, even if he died in the attempt. And he did. Repeatedly, and often. Mobs killed him. NPCs killed him. Other players killed him when, in his noobness, he fought back against city guards and Flagged himself.
Yet he stubbornly persisted in his quest (did we mention he was a Dwarf? Yeah, kind of goes without saying, right?) and eventually he did reveal every section of every Zone's Map, including those zones in which he had no right being, not at his level, and certainly not without a Mount. (He also found some Zones that didn't exist yet, which was both cool and eerie, traveling across smooth landscapes with nothing but terrain texture as far as the eye could see.)
He didn't go exploring for a Vanity Pet or a Title, and when he was done he had no way of proving what he'd done to anyone, nor did he need to or want to. It was enough that he knew he'd done it, because in the end he'd done it for nobody but himself, and for no reason other than "it was there".
A long time ago I played The Sims, and I was enjoying it up to a certain point, being when your Sim needs to have 10 Friends in order to receive their next promotion.. Yes, their Friends could just be Friends with the spouse/partner, but there needed to be at least 10. Because I'd continued playing the Newbie family (the couple you play in the Tutorial) there just weren't that many people in my neighborhood. I needed a new family. One with a lot of members. So I created a "family" with the maximum number of people, built them a box to call their own, moved them in, then called my Newbie couple over to visit. Before too long it was late (in the game) and not everyone was friends with my Newbies, but that was okay, there's always tomorrow.
Tomorrow arrived, and my Sim picked up the phone and called her new friends...and most of them blew her off. Even the ones she was actually friends with were reluctant to come visit.
"Well I did just paint the living room, and I was going to sit here and watch the paint dry, but I guess your place could be more exciting."
Geez! Don't break a leg rushing over here!
Hitting the "10-Friend Wall" meant no promotion, and no promotion meant no more money, which meant no newer, cooler, better stuff for my Sims.
So I found a cheat code to give me all the money I needed to build the biggest, best, baddest house on the block, filled with the coolest stuff. And I did. Then I looked at my huge house filled with crap that I hadn't "earned", and which my Sims hadn't earned, and I quit. I shut the game down.
A day or two later I booted the game back up, played for a minute or two, then shut it down again.
My Sims had all the money they needed. They owned the best of everything. There was...no reason to play the game.
Up until that moment I had enjoyed playing The Sims. Then I pressed that button and gave myself the Reward and that was it. The game was no longer fun for me. I know other people would have continued to play and found a new reason and way to have fun, but I didn't.
In one game there was no reward or recognition for what I was doing. Self-gratification was the only reward, and there was no way to short cut to the end. I did what I did for me, and I enjoyed doing it, and now I find myself doing it again, and still enjoying it.
In the other game there was a reward waiting at the end. And when I found a way to give myself that reward...I stopped playing. The game was fun right up until the moment I cheated. And the sad thing is I cheated nobody but myself out of the fun I was having. A more cynical person might say I wasn't really having fun, and that I just needed the cheat code to realize that. Maybe they'd be right.
Monday, November 23, 2009
A Bug? Or simply a lack of an expected feature?
Something really bugging me about Allods Online is being unable to Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis.
I've been playing video games for 30 years. I played Wolfenstein 3D when it came out (which isn't really a 3D game), and Doom (which was 3D) and I always, and I mean always Invert my Mouse's Y-Axis to play any game using either a First Person-view or a 3rd Person over-the-shoulder view (except Wolf which didn't feature Mouselook because it wasn't a 3D game).
Allods Online has an option allowing the Player to Invert the Mouse's buttons. I guess it's catering to left-handed players, which is really bizarre now that I think about it because there's probably a greater number of players who prefer Pilot Controls in their FPV-type game than there are left-handed players who would want to flip the Mouse's Left & Right button functions.
My question is this: Is the absence of a means to Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis a Bug? Or simply a lack of an expected feature?
My argument is it's a Bug. Why? Well what makes a bug? It's being able to do something you shouldn't be able to do, or not being able to do something you should, right?
Well, I should be able to Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis...but I can't. And IMO that makes it a Bug.
Not only is it a Bug, but it's a game-breaking bug for folks like me who are very, very, very accustomed to using Pilot Controls with Mouselook. It's game-breaking because being unable to Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis means I cannot play Allods Online. Well I can, but I cannot enjoy it.
Imagine asking a left-hander to play a sport right-handed. He can do it. He won't enjoy it, he won't be very good at it, but he can do it. That's what playing with "Standard" controls is like for someone accustomed to Inverted controls. We can do it, but we don't enjoy it as we're constantly second-guessing ourselves.
So, what's your opinion? Is the absence of a feature that you'll find in pretty much any game which features either a First Person or 3rd Person over-the-shoulder view simply a lack of an expected feature? Or when it's practically an industry standard to include a certain feature, could the lack of said feature actually be considered a Bug?
I've been playing video games for 30 years. I played Wolfenstein 3D when it came out (which isn't really a 3D game), and Doom (which was 3D) and I always, and I mean always Invert my Mouse's Y-Axis to play any game using either a First Person-view or a 3rd Person over-the-shoulder view (except Wolf which didn't feature Mouselook because it wasn't a 3D game).
Allods Online has an option allowing the Player to Invert the Mouse's buttons. I guess it's catering to left-handed players, which is really bizarre now that I think about it because there's probably a greater number of players who prefer Pilot Controls in their FPV-type game than there are left-handed players who would want to flip the Mouse's Left & Right button functions.
My question is this: Is the absence of a means to Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis a Bug? Or simply a lack of an expected feature?
My argument is it's a Bug. Why? Well what makes a bug? It's being able to do something you shouldn't be able to do, or not being able to do something you should, right?
Well, I should be able to Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis...but I can't. And IMO that makes it a Bug.
Not only is it a Bug, but it's a game-breaking bug for folks like me who are very, very, very accustomed to using Pilot Controls with Mouselook. It's game-breaking because being unable to Invert the Mouse's Y-Axis means I cannot play Allods Online. Well I can, but I cannot enjoy it.
Imagine asking a left-hander to play a sport right-handed. He can do it. He won't enjoy it, he won't be very good at it, but he can do it. That's what playing with "Standard" controls is like for someone accustomed to Inverted controls. We can do it, but we don't enjoy it as we're constantly second-guessing ourselves.
So, what's your opinion? Is the absence of a feature that you'll find in pretty much any game which features either a First Person or 3rd Person over-the-shoulder view simply a lack of an expected feature? Or when it's practically an industry standard to include a certain feature, could the lack of said feature actually be considered a Bug?
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
R.I.P. Kev
This episode of Kev & Alice brought back some painful memories, although 4 1/2 years later they don't hurt quite so much. Life goes on.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
DDO - first impressions (count)
I downloaded the Trial and had a play with DDO this weekend.
*EDIT - I rolled another Ranger last night and played through the first couple of Instances again, so there will be a couple of Edits to this post*
The character creator was pretty good. I liked how the classes were broken up into Melee, Ranged, & Specialist first, then you chose your individual class, and each step showed you how well that class could be expected to perform on its own or whether it had more of a group role. Naturally I decided to go with a ranged class and decided upon the Ranger, a Human Ranger to be precise (no, not a Dwarf ;) because I felt it fit the lore of the Ranger better (and I didn't want to be an Elf). Interesting was that the Ranger class was available to every Race in DDO. Even Gnomes and an odd-looking Race of Ben Grimm-type creatures called the Warforged could be Rangers.
The Tutorial section is a single-player mini-dungeon that gets you used to controlling your character, opening doors, throwing switches, etc, including climbing ladders. I really liked that ladder graphics lined up with my climbing animation so my avatar actually appeared to grip and use the rungs, as opposed to just climbing a texture on a wall.
Combat can be initiated by enabling Auto-attack (via a Hotkey) then moving into range, or right-clicking the Mouse to manually swing/fire your weapon. But while my Ranger had a couple of different special attacks I found myself relying on Right-Clicking rather than using my Hotkeys and specials. As right-clicking actually initiated a swing (or fired an arrow) it just felt more like I was actually doing something than when you simply press buttons, and as most Mobs died after just one or two hits I didn't use or even miss my "Trip" and "Sunder" skills.
*EDIT - I tried using my Trip & Sunder skills and didn't notice any additional animation. Trip seemed to work occasionally when Mobs would fall flat on their back, but that was the only way I knew I'd actually performed the Trip attack *
I remember reading another review of DDO where the writer mentioned feeling like they were being "rushed" through the Instance, and I definitely got this feeling in the tutorial dungeon because I had the support of three NPCs who would frequently run ahead. Not because they were faster than my character, but because running just seemed faster than in WoW, so when they ran off down the corridor they quickly left me behind. Then again, it's likely that an inexperienced player in WoW would have a similar feeling being run through a low level Instance by an 80.
At the end of the tutorial dungeon I was offered a choice of various quest rewards, and it was nice to see a good variety of items from which to choose. I'm sure every class had something they could use. And instant "shiny" gratification was achieved when the Rapier I selected came with a Fiery enchant as did, I think, all of the weapons. This enchant didn't just make my blade glow red but actually wreathed the blade with flame. It was pretty cool, and a great way to give a new player an awesome looking weapon almost right from the start.
Somewhere along the way I'd also picked up a Bow, and being a Ranger I decided to put it to the test. In the tutorial dungeon I didn't have much chance to do that as my NPC party made short work of most of the Mobs. *EDIT - Actually it appears I got the Bow at the end of the Tutorial, along with my Fiery Rapier* It was when I entered the next instance that I got the opportunity to test fire my new Bow, and archery worked quite well. Like swinging a sword you can either Tab-target or left click to select a Mob, then Right-Click to fire your bow. Being in the depths of a Dungeon if there was a maximum range to my bow I wasn't aware of it. If I could see a Skeleton in the distance I could shoot it, and here Ranged Combat seemed a little overpowered. Almost all of these starting level Mobs went down after just one shot. Some needed two but most went down in one.
Entering this first Instance I'd been presented with a choice of Difficulty, from Solo, through Normal, Hard, etc. I did it on Solo and had no problem completing the Instance, especially once I worked out how to Hotkey my Rapier and Bow to allow for quick weapon changes - there's probably something allowing you to do this without hotkeying the individual weapons, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me. Even when I re-entered the Instance on Normal difficulty (which I assumed was meant for a group, as opposed to Solo) I still had no problems with any of the Mobs. If they didn't fall to my arrows it was a simple matter of switching to my Rapier to finish them off in melee.
I guess it comes down to which you prefer. Shooting a Mob 2 to 3 times as it closes to Melee, then taking 3 to 4 whacks with your axe to finish it off? Or shooting it once (or twice) then finishing it with a blow from your sword?
So combat was realistic and satisfying (if over a little too quickly), the game itself looked good, and the couple of times I took a dip my character swam "freestyle" in a very realistic fashion. *EDIT - I remember liking the way my Hobbit in LOTRO swam, also "freestyle" but his running animation was off. DDO's animations a lot better *
What was not so satisfying was leveling, or XP per se. In traditional D&D fashion you do NOT get XP from killing Mobs. There is no grinding here. Instead you get XP from completing Instances and the quests associated with them. After completing the first Instance (not the tutorial, but the first Solo-Instance) I noticed I was a couple hundred XP short of level 2. Completing this Instance directed me (in true MMO fashion) to another NPC who directed me to talk to yet one more NPC, who had a quest for me, which sent me into someone's cellar (another Mini-Instance). Completing this second Instance and quest gave me the XP I needed to level, but I didn't level right away (or didn't appear to), which again is true to D&D leveling. You don't level in the dungeon, you only level when you return to town to "train".
Back in town I found my Ranger Trainer but when I spoke to her about leveling I got the equivalent of assigning two Talent Points to level two Skills (ok, so maybe by the time I found her I'd "leveled" twice ;), and that was it. No flash of light. No "Ding!" Nothing. Just "click to assign a Skill Point". Ok, cool. Thanks for coming. See you next time.
That was it? I just leveled...didn't I?
So yes, I had a Flaming Rapier and a nice leather vest (among other pieces of armor), but there was no real sense of accomplishment with leveling, in fact it was almost rather anti-climactic. Perhaps having access to the manual may have explained the leveling process a little more. Yes, I do RTFM, TYVM, but as the client was 100% downloadable I would expect the manual not be required reading for something as basic as leveling.
*EDIT - You can download the Manual here. In PDF format, it's just 50 pages long. Not as bad as I thought. And...I just discovered I did not Level, per se. From page 49 of the Manual comes this: "Each Level has 5 Ranks, from 0 through 4." So I gained enough XP to go up a couple of Ranks, but I was still Level 1. *
I still have 5 days left in my 10-day trial, and there's a good chance that when it expires, I'll probably create another trial to check the game out further. And maybe if I can find a copy of DDO in Walmart or Target somewhere for cheap, just maybe, I might buy it. Especially if it's going F2P in August.
*EDIT - I rolled another Ranger last night and played through the first couple of Instances again, so there will be a couple of Edits to this post*
The character creator was pretty good. I liked how the classes were broken up into Melee, Ranged, & Specialist first, then you chose your individual class, and each step showed you how well that class could be expected to perform on its own or whether it had more of a group role. Naturally I decided to go with a ranged class and decided upon the Ranger, a Human Ranger to be precise (no, not a Dwarf ;) because I felt it fit the lore of the Ranger better (and I didn't want to be an Elf). Interesting was that the Ranger class was available to every Race in DDO. Even Gnomes and an odd-looking Race of Ben Grimm-type creatures called the Warforged could be Rangers.
The Tutorial section is a single-player mini-dungeon that gets you used to controlling your character, opening doors, throwing switches, etc, including climbing ladders. I really liked that ladder graphics lined up with my climbing animation so my avatar actually appeared to grip and use the rungs, as opposed to just climbing a texture on a wall.
Combat can be initiated by enabling Auto-attack (via a Hotkey) then moving into range, or right-clicking the Mouse to manually swing/fire your weapon. But while my Ranger had a couple of different special attacks I found myself relying on Right-Clicking rather than using my Hotkeys and specials. As right-clicking actually initiated a swing (or fired an arrow) it just felt more like I was actually doing something than when you simply press buttons, and as most Mobs died after just one or two hits I didn't use or even miss my "Trip" and "Sunder" skills.
*EDIT - I tried using my Trip & Sunder skills and didn't notice any additional animation. Trip seemed to work occasionally when Mobs would fall flat on their back, but that was the only way I knew I'd actually performed the Trip attack *
I remember reading another review of DDO where the writer mentioned feeling like they were being "rushed" through the Instance, and I definitely got this feeling in the tutorial dungeon because I had the support of three NPCs who would frequently run ahead. Not because they were faster than my character, but because running just seemed faster than in WoW, so when they ran off down the corridor they quickly left me behind. Then again, it's likely that an inexperienced player in WoW would have a similar feeling being run through a low level Instance by an 80.
At the end of the tutorial dungeon I was offered a choice of various quest rewards, and it was nice to see a good variety of items from which to choose. I'm sure every class had something they could use. And instant "shiny" gratification was achieved when the Rapier I selected came with a Fiery enchant as did, I think, all of the weapons. This enchant didn't just make my blade glow red but actually wreathed the blade with flame. It was pretty cool, and a great way to give a new player an awesome looking weapon almost right from the start.
Somewhere along the way I'd also picked up a Bow, and being a Ranger I decided to put it to the test. In the tutorial dungeon I didn't have much chance to do that as my NPC party made short work of most of the Mobs. *EDIT - Actually it appears I got the Bow at the end of the Tutorial, along with my Fiery Rapier* It was when I entered the next instance that I got the opportunity to test fire my new Bow, and archery worked quite well. Like swinging a sword you can either Tab-target or left click to select a Mob, then Right-Click to fire your bow. Being in the depths of a Dungeon if there was a maximum range to my bow I wasn't aware of it. If I could see a Skeleton in the distance I could shoot it, and here Ranged Combat seemed a little overpowered. Almost all of these starting level Mobs went down after just one shot. Some needed two but most went down in one.
Entering this first Instance I'd been presented with a choice of Difficulty, from Solo, through Normal, Hard, etc. I did it on Solo and had no problem completing the Instance, especially once I worked out how to Hotkey my Rapier and Bow to allow for quick weapon changes - there's probably something allowing you to do this without hotkeying the individual weapons, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me. Even when I re-entered the Instance on Normal difficulty (which I assumed was meant for a group, as opposed to Solo) I still had no problems with any of the Mobs. If they didn't fall to my arrows it was a simple matter of switching to my Rapier to finish them off in melee.
I guess it comes down to which you prefer. Shooting a Mob 2 to 3 times as it closes to Melee, then taking 3 to 4 whacks with your axe to finish it off? Or shooting it once (or twice) then finishing it with a blow from your sword?
So combat was realistic and satisfying (if over a little too quickly), the game itself looked good, and the couple of times I took a dip my character swam "freestyle" in a very realistic fashion. *EDIT - I remember liking the way my Hobbit in LOTRO swam, also "freestyle" but his running animation was off. DDO's animations a lot better *
What was not so satisfying was leveling, or XP per se. In traditional D&D fashion you do NOT get XP from killing Mobs. There is no grinding here. Instead you get XP from completing Instances and the quests associated with them. After completing the first Instance (not the tutorial, but the first Solo-Instance) I noticed I was a couple hundred XP short of level 2. Completing this Instance directed me (in true MMO fashion) to another NPC who directed me to talk to yet one more NPC, who had a quest for me, which sent me into someone's cellar (another Mini-Instance). Completing this second Instance and quest gave me the XP I needed to level, but I didn't level right away (or didn't appear to), which again is true to D&D leveling. You don't level in the dungeon, you only level when you return to town to "train".
Back in town I found my Ranger Trainer but when I spoke to her about leveling I got the equivalent of assigning two Talent Points to level two Skills (ok, so maybe by the time I found her I'd "leveled" twice ;), and that was it. No flash of light. No "Ding!" Nothing. Just "click to assign a Skill Point". Ok, cool. Thanks for coming. See you next time.
That was it? I just leveled...didn't I?
So yes, I had a Flaming Rapier and a nice leather vest (among other pieces of armor), but there was no real sense of accomplishment with leveling, in fact it was almost rather anti-climactic. Perhaps having access to the manual may have explained the leveling process a little more. Yes, I do RTFM, TYVM, but as the client was 100% downloadable I would expect the manual not be required reading for something as basic as leveling.
*EDIT - You can download the Manual here. In PDF format, it's just 50 pages long. Not as bad as I thought. And...I just discovered I did not Level, per se. From page 49 of the Manual comes this: "Each Level has 5 Ranks, from 0 through 4." So I gained enough XP to go up a couple of Ranks, but I was still Level 1. *
I still have 5 days left in my 10-day trial, and there's a good chance that when it expires, I'll probably create another trial to check the game out further. And maybe if I can find a copy of DDO in Walmart or Target somewhere for cheap, just maybe, I might buy it. Especially if it's going F2P in August.
Friday, July 10, 2009
DDO: Eberron Unlimited to go F2P
Press Release (July 8, 2009): Turbine, Inc. announced today Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Eberron Unlimited™, a free digital upgrade for Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Stormreach™, will launch on August 4, 2009 in North America. DDO Unlimited will raise the level cap, introduce a new player class and add major new content, as well as make the game free to play for everyone.
Considering you can download the DDO: Stormreach™ client for free (with a 10-day Trial), would this imply that you could upgrade your Trial account to an Eberron™ account, for free? Or is it more likely that you'll still need to purchase a retail copy of Stormreach™ to get the free upgrade?
Enquiring minds want to know (although I know which is most likely).
Considering you can download the DDO: Stormreach™ client for free (with a 10-day Trial), would this imply that you could upgrade your Trial account to an Eberron™ account, for free? Or is it more likely that you'll still need to purchase a retail copy of Stormreach™ to get the free upgrade?
Enquiring minds want to know (although I know which is most likely).
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
More PC problems
This week my computer has really been pissing me off with its failure to wake up from Power Save mode. Actually it wakes up, I know it does, because I can shut it down using the Keyboard (in XP, it's Window key - Up - Enter - Right - Enter) and it shuts down, so it must have been awake to Shut Down, right? The problem is nothing appears on my Monitor when it's awake. In fact what is odd is that while in Power Save mode the LCD's power light will be orange, but as soon as I jiggle my mouse to wake the computer up the LCD's power light either flashes green, or turns off completely, and the screen goes black as if the PC is off, when it's not.
At first I thought it was the LCD dying on me but now I'm not so sure. Now I think it's one of two things. Either my Power Supply is failing and not providing my 8800GT with enough juice, or the 8800GT itself is dying.
Now I could buy a new video card, but if my power supply is dying that's obviously not going to fix my problem. And if I did buy a new video card it would probably need more juice than what my current PSU can deliver anyway, so either way, I think my first step should be to replace the PSU. As PSU's are cheaper than decent video cards (like a 9800GT), if it is the problem, that's the more cost effective solution. And if it's not the PSU, well, I probably need a heftier one anyway.
So why don't I think my 19" LCD is the problem any more?
Because my 8800GT has dual video-out and this week I hooked up my daughter's CRT to my PC, while keeping the LCD hooked up as well. And the same problem I was having with the LCD was reflected on the CRT. Of course when I finally got my computer up & running there was nothing on the CRT, until I enabled dual output mode on my video card, and a blank desktop with nothing but my wallpaper appeared on the CRT.
Is that how dual screens are supposed to work? I thought to myself. How is that useful. Where are my icons? Where's my Start Bar? Why doesn't that second screen have a duplicate Mouse Cursor?
And then I had an epiphany.
What if...I move the mouse cursor...to the edge of the LCD...and keep moving the mouse.
And the cursor disappeared from my LCD and appeared on the CRT.
I stared in wonder for several seconds while moving the mouse cursor around on the second screen, then back & forth between the two.
Ok, that's neat, but still not useful...unless.
I right-click/dragged my Firefox icon to the edge of the LCD and...on to the CRT's scren! And created a Shortcut there! Ok, now this is more useful. Until I double-clicked the new shortcut and a Firefox window opened...on my LCD's screen o_O
What's the point of that? Why would it open on my primary screen?
A second epiphany (or maybe it was my third? Or fourth? I've lost count by now).
I clicked the Title bar of the Firefox window and dragged it to the right and...ONTO THE CRT's SCREEN!!!
Now I had two Firefox windows open on two separate screens!
Forget Tabbing between them. It's just a jump to the left. And now a step to the ri-ii-ii-iight.
Yes, sometimes it's the simplest things that amuse us the most.
I left my computer with its dual screens running for a while until it entered Power Save on its own, and when I returned & jiggled the mouse I had nothing. Neither screen came up. Which was good.
That meant it's the Video Card or the Power Supply, but not the monitor. That's good because a PSU is cheaper than a Video Card, and a Video Card is cheaper than a new Monitor.
I know the latest, super-duper video cards run for $300-$500, but I could also buy that curved screen from Alienware for $10,000 if I really wanted to. Moot point. I don't like paying much more than $100 for a video card, so I'm usually a generation or two behind cutting edge but a decent monitor will set me back around $150. Of course if I end up buying both a new PSU & a video card I'll spend about that (or more), but at least then my problem should (hopefully) have been resolved.
At first I thought it was the LCD dying on me but now I'm not so sure. Now I think it's one of two things. Either my Power Supply is failing and not providing my 8800GT with enough juice, or the 8800GT itself is dying.
Now I could buy a new video card, but if my power supply is dying that's obviously not going to fix my problem. And if I did buy a new video card it would probably need more juice than what my current PSU can deliver anyway, so either way, I think my first step should be to replace the PSU. As PSU's are cheaper than decent video cards (like a 9800GT), if it is the problem, that's the more cost effective solution. And if it's not the PSU, well, I probably need a heftier one anyway.
So why don't I think my 19" LCD is the problem any more?
Because my 8800GT has dual video-out and this week I hooked up my daughter's CRT to my PC, while keeping the LCD hooked up as well. And the same problem I was having with the LCD was reflected on the CRT. Of course when I finally got my computer up & running there was nothing on the CRT, until I enabled dual output mode on my video card, and a blank desktop with nothing but my wallpaper appeared on the CRT.
Is that how dual screens are supposed to work? I thought to myself. How is that useful. Where are my icons? Where's my Start Bar? Why doesn't that second screen have a duplicate Mouse Cursor?
And then I had an epiphany.
What if...I move the mouse cursor...to the edge of the LCD...and keep moving the mouse.
And the cursor disappeared from my LCD and appeared on the CRT.
I stared in wonder for several seconds while moving the mouse cursor around on the second screen, then back & forth between the two.
Ok, that's neat, but still not useful...unless.
I right-click/dragged my Firefox icon to the edge of the LCD and...on to the CRT's scren! And created a Shortcut there! Ok, now this is more useful. Until I double-clicked the new shortcut and a Firefox window opened...on my LCD's screen o_O
What's the point of that? Why would it open on my primary screen?
A second epiphany (or maybe it was my third? Or fourth? I've lost count by now).
I clicked the Title bar of the Firefox window and dragged it to the right and...ONTO THE CRT's SCREEN!!!
Now I had two Firefox windows open on two separate screens!
Forget Tabbing between them. It's just a jump to the left. And now a step to the ri-ii-ii-iight.
Yes, sometimes it's the simplest things that amuse us the most.
I left my computer with its dual screens running for a while until it entered Power Save on its own, and when I returned & jiggled the mouse I had nothing. Neither screen came up. Which was good.
That meant it's the Video Card or the Power Supply, but not the monitor. That's good because a PSU is cheaper than a Video Card, and a Video Card is cheaper than a new Monitor.
I know the latest, super-duper video cards run for $300-$500, but I could also buy that curved screen from Alienware for $10,000 if I really wanted to. Moot point. I don't like paying much more than $100 for a video card, so I'm usually a generation or two behind cutting edge but a decent monitor will set me back around $150. Of course if I end up buying both a new PSU & a video card I'll spend about that (or more), but at least then my problem should (hopefully) have been resolved.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Not a bad PC
Dual Pentium 2.0GHz CPU
288GB HDD
4GB of RAM
GeForce 9600GT w/ 512MB GDDR3
Not too shabby. It's a pity that's my 8 (going on 9) year old son's PC, and with tonight's addition of the 9600GT (poor kid had been using the onboard GPU) his PC now kicks my PC's arse up the block and back.
I've got a dual-core Athlon 4200+ which clocks in at 2.2GHz. Yeah, 10% faster than my son's; huge difference there. But I've only got a 160GB HDD and half that RAM, and I suspect his RAM smokes mine for breakfast. I'm also scared to benchmark his PC in case my 8800GT dies of embarrassment...then again, that would give me an excuse to get a 9800GT ;)
Except my monitor is dying by degrees so my upgrade fund will have to go towards a new monitor rather than hardware. Speaking of monitors, my son has a 19" Widescreen LCD. I have a 19", too, but it's standard, not Widescreen. Yep, chalk up another victory to the (almost) 9-year old with the kick-arse PC :(
At least Bloodbowl and Diablo 3 are coming out later this year, so it's a good thing the boy has a beast of a PC to play them on. Maybe by then I'll have a 22" LCD TV instead of my 3/4 dead 19" monitor. My 40th birthday isn't too far away ;)
288GB HDD
4GB of RAM
GeForce 9600GT w/ 512MB GDDR3
Not too shabby. It's a pity that's my 8 (going on 9) year old son's PC, and with tonight's addition of the 9600GT (poor kid had been using the onboard GPU) his PC now kicks my PC's arse up the block and back.
I've got a dual-core Athlon 4200+ which clocks in at 2.2GHz. Yeah, 10% faster than my son's; huge difference there. But I've only got a 160GB HDD and half that RAM, and I suspect his RAM smokes mine for breakfast. I'm also scared to benchmark his PC in case my 8800GT dies of embarrassment...then again, that would give me an excuse to get a 9800GT ;)
Except my monitor is dying by degrees so my upgrade fund will have to go towards a new monitor rather than hardware. Speaking of monitors, my son has a 19" Widescreen LCD. I have a 19", too, but it's standard, not Widescreen. Yep, chalk up another victory to the (almost) 9-year old with the kick-arse PC :(
At least Bloodbowl and Diablo 3 are coming out later this year, so it's a good thing the boy has a beast of a PC to play them on. Maybe by then I'll have a 22" LCD TV instead of my 3/4 dead 19" monitor. My 40th birthday isn't too far away ;)
Sunday, March 15, 2009
PC vs TV
I haven't completed Fable:TLC yet, but I did escape from prison (in the game!!!), and rescue my mother at the same time. That was a fun little scenario that had me replaying it when I tried to get creative. Eventually I followed the linear path the game wanted me to follow and I completed that scenario.
My W101 Necromancer is stuck in his mid-40s after doing the first couple of Dragonspyre quests.
I also restarted the GCN's Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles. It looks real pretty played via the Wii in progressive scan mode on a 50" plasma TV.
I haven't played Harvest Moon since getting the Wii, but it's been known to make my evening hours disappear, too.
What I have been doing is catching up on NCIS episodes, and the number of episodes on our DVR is down from maybe 15-20 (from two weeks ago) to just three. I still have (I think) 37 episodes to go, in order to be fully caught up.
There aren't many TV shows for which I'd consider buying the boxed sets but NCIS is one of those for which I'd be willing to do just that. I love the interaction between the characters, and it seems the actors are having a lot of fun with their roles. Either the writers are fething brilliant (actually, I think they are) or Bellasario gives his team a lot of creative license, because there have been quite a few times where I'd swear the actors improvised and added their own personal touch to the scene. Michael Weatherly seems to do this a lot, or perhaps he's just really captured the essence of DiNozzo.
I love the way the characters have evolved over time, too. McGee, while still the butt of many of DiNozzo's jokes, now stands up to his senior partner a lot more. In Stakeout (which I watched last night) DiNozzo sends McGee out for breakfast and he returns with DiNozzo's eggs, sunny side up.
"I wanted scrambled," whines DiNozzo. "This is the fourth time this week you've messed my order up."
"You want scrambled?" asks an indignant McGee. (Indignant? Where's apologetic McGee?) He walks over, grabs DiNozzo's tray of eggs, shakes it rapidly then slams it down. "Now they're scrambled!" He returns to the window to continue surveillance.
DiNozzo holds up McGee's foil-wrapped burrito. "I bet your burrito is exactly the way you want it," he says, then he throws the burrito and hits McGee in the back of the head with it.
McGee turns and glares at DiNozzo (a glaring McGee? o_O) who returns his stare. An unspoken "Let's do this!" passes between the two men and it's on, baby! MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
There is no way McGee would have stood up to DiNozzo like that in the first couple of seasons, and that character growth is part of what (IMO) makes NCIS such a great show. Maybe that's why I find myself sitting at my PC, unsure what to play, before finally turning on the TV.
My W101 Necromancer is stuck in his mid-40s after doing the first couple of Dragonspyre quests.
I also restarted the GCN's Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles. It looks real pretty played via the Wii in progressive scan mode on a 50" plasma TV.
I haven't played Harvest Moon since getting the Wii, but it's been known to make my evening hours disappear, too.
What I have been doing is catching up on NCIS episodes, and the number of episodes on our DVR is down from maybe 15-20 (from two weeks ago) to just three. I still have (I think) 37 episodes to go, in order to be fully caught up.
There aren't many TV shows for which I'd consider buying the boxed sets but NCIS is one of those for which I'd be willing to do just that. I love the interaction between the characters, and it seems the actors are having a lot of fun with their roles. Either the writers are fething brilliant (actually, I think they are) or Bellasario gives his team a lot of creative license, because there have been quite a few times where I'd swear the actors improvised and added their own personal touch to the scene. Michael Weatherly seems to do this a lot, or perhaps he's just really captured the essence of DiNozzo.
I love the way the characters have evolved over time, too. McGee, while still the butt of many of DiNozzo's jokes, now stands up to his senior partner a lot more. In Stakeout (which I watched last night) DiNozzo sends McGee out for breakfast and he returns with DiNozzo's eggs, sunny side up.
"I wanted scrambled," whines DiNozzo. "This is the fourth time this week you've messed my order up."
"You want scrambled?" asks an indignant McGee. (Indignant? Where's apologetic McGee?) He walks over, grabs DiNozzo's tray of eggs, shakes it rapidly then slams it down. "Now they're scrambled!" He returns to the window to continue surveillance.
DiNozzo holds up McGee's foil-wrapped burrito. "I bet your burrito is exactly the way you want it," he says, then he throws the burrito and hits McGee in the back of the head with it.
McGee turns and glares at DiNozzo (a glaring McGee? o_O) who returns his stare. An unspoken "Let's do this!" passes between the two men and it's on, baby! MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
There is no way McGee would have stood up to DiNozzo like that in the first couple of seasons, and that character growth is part of what (IMO) makes NCIS such a great show. Maybe that's why I find myself sitting at my PC, unsure what to play, before finally turning on the TV.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Update on Fable:The Lost Chapters
Tonight my "Assassin" looked at the Quest Table in the Heroes Guild and there was just one Quest available. Last night I'd seen that quest and taken it to be the opposite of the one I actually took, which was to free some Trader hostages from the Bandits' camp. That would be the same camp which I'd just infiltrated in order to talk to the mysterious Seeress, who was rumored to have information on my long ago abducted sister.
*LONG SPOILER*
Once I got inside the Bandit camp it turned out that the Seeress didn't just have information on my sister, she was my sister. Apparently our mother was a powerful Hero and both Sis and I inherited our powers from her. In Sis's case, because she dared to defy the Bandits and silently stared at them, refusing to answer their questions, they cut her eyes out and left her for dead. She was found by another group of bandits and taken in by them, and when her injuries had healed it was discovered that with the distraction of visual sight gone, Sis's ability to see the future had emerged. Because I was a Hero the Bandit Chief challenged me to a duel, and I soundly defeated him, but as he stood there gasping, he pitifully begged for his life. I listened to his appeal, "Please, spare me. The bandits will never follow me now. Isn't that punishment enough?"
I looked around at the circle of bandits whose flashing blades I'd seen behind me, more than once, as I'd dodged their Chief's own blades during our earlier duel. "Please, spare me." I heard the Chief say again. I backed up into the entrance of his tent, drew my crossbow, took aim, and dispatched the nearest bandit. Perhaps fearing he'd be next (and he was right) his neighbor charged me, and fell to my blades. It took several seconds for all of the bandits to realize what was happening, and like a bad Kung Fu movie they charged towards me in ones and twos, and I quickly dispatched them, and then it was just me and Twinblade, the Bandit Chief, who still pathetically begged for his life. Although he'd saved my sister's life so long ago when she'd been left for dead, I did not show him the same kindness.
After apparently destroying the Bandit's camp I returned to the Guild where I saw the two quests. One to rescue three Traders from the Bandits, the other (what I figured the evil, flip side of the rescue quest) was to kill the Guards and Traders in another village. Hmm, I'm supposed to be getting in with the Bandits in order to find my sister...but...it looks like she's doing just fine on her own now, so...let's rescue those Traders. Believing I'd just wiped out their camp I figured this mission would be a cakewalk, but when I returned to the camp I found it still occupied. So more bandits died and the Traders were freed.
That was when I noticed the quest to kill the guards and traders in the other village was still on the table. Hmm, so it wasn't the "evil" choice of the two after all. Feeling particularly evil I accepted the quest, and went and slew some Guards and helpless Traders. This would not be my only "evil" act of the night, because returning to the Quest Table I found it empty, but then remembered I still had a Quest in my Log.
The Arena.
The place where Heroes become Legends.
I entered the Arena and with a combination of Sword and Spell (& quaffing numerous potions) I defeated round after round of beasties, and then Whisper appeared, my childhood rival from the Heroes Guild. Only now she was fighting beside me as we slew numerous beasts, skeletons, trolls, and finally, a giant scorpion creature, and then it was just Whisper and me.
Whisper.
Whose claims that she was the superior Hero, despite the results of our training day duels, seemed more than just sour grapes.
Whisper.
Whose big brother, Thunder, was seen badmouthing me in town, was heard putting down my heroic feats. "Come to play with the other children, have you?" he said to me derisively.
Whisper.
Who foolishly said to me, as we stood there facing each other, "I won't kill you. I refuse to kill you."
Whisper, I don't share your compassion.
Fable actually makes it very easy for a normally altruistic person to cross the line. And cross it I did.
When Whisper finally stood before me, head bowed, pleading for me to just walk away, that I didn't have to do this...I did it anyway, and the crowd roared my name as I stood over her broken body. And it was GLORIOUS!!!
This could explain why I loved playing a Rogue in WoW's PvP ;)
When I exited the Arena the only thing between Thunder and I was Lady Grey, the Mayor of Bowerstone.
For some reason Thunder seemed to feel that my killing his sister, in the Arena, in a fight to the death, somehow amounted to Murder.
Lady Grey disagreed, and saved Thunder's life by not letting the big brute make a mistake he'd regret, but I just know I'll be helping him reunite with his sister before this game is done. I can feel it. Oh yes, I can!
I took my Arena Champion's purse containing over 30,000 gold (enough to buy a house in Bowerstone, if I'm not mistaken) and left the Arena where I was greeted by my adoring fans.
Murderer? Moi? Thunder, you are gravely mistaken, and if you persist in spreading such rumors I'm afraid we'll have to settle this in the Arena.
To paraphrase Ash, "Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the sword."
*LONG SPOILER*
Once I got inside the Bandit camp it turned out that the Seeress didn't just have information on my sister, she was my sister. Apparently our mother was a powerful Hero and both Sis and I inherited our powers from her. In Sis's case, because she dared to defy the Bandits and silently stared at them, refusing to answer their questions, they cut her eyes out and left her for dead. She was found by another group of bandits and taken in by them, and when her injuries had healed it was discovered that with the distraction of visual sight gone, Sis's ability to see the future had emerged. Because I was a Hero the Bandit Chief challenged me to a duel, and I soundly defeated him, but as he stood there gasping, he pitifully begged for his life. I listened to his appeal, "Please, spare me. The bandits will never follow me now. Isn't that punishment enough?"
I looked around at the circle of bandits whose flashing blades I'd seen behind me, more than once, as I'd dodged their Chief's own blades during our earlier duel. "Please, spare me." I heard the Chief say again. I backed up into the entrance of his tent, drew my crossbow, took aim, and dispatched the nearest bandit. Perhaps fearing he'd be next (and he was right) his neighbor charged me, and fell to my blades. It took several seconds for all of the bandits to realize what was happening, and like a bad Kung Fu movie they charged towards me in ones and twos, and I quickly dispatched them, and then it was just me and Twinblade, the Bandit Chief, who still pathetically begged for his life. Although he'd saved my sister's life so long ago when she'd been left for dead, I did not show him the same kindness.
After apparently destroying the Bandit's camp I returned to the Guild where I saw the two quests. One to rescue three Traders from the Bandits, the other (what I figured the evil, flip side of the rescue quest) was to kill the Guards and Traders in another village. Hmm, I'm supposed to be getting in with the Bandits in order to find my sister...but...it looks like she's doing just fine on her own now, so...let's rescue those Traders. Believing I'd just wiped out their camp I figured this mission would be a cakewalk, but when I returned to the camp I found it still occupied. So more bandits died and the Traders were freed.
That was when I noticed the quest to kill the guards and traders in the other village was still on the table. Hmm, so it wasn't the "evil" choice of the two after all. Feeling particularly evil I accepted the quest, and went and slew some Guards and helpless Traders. This would not be my only "evil" act of the night, because returning to the Quest Table I found it empty, but then remembered I still had a Quest in my Log.
The Arena.
The place where Heroes become Legends.
I entered the Arena and with a combination of Sword and Spell (& quaffing numerous potions) I defeated round after round of beasties, and then Whisper appeared, my childhood rival from the Heroes Guild. Only now she was fighting beside me as we slew numerous beasts, skeletons, trolls, and finally, a giant scorpion creature, and then it was just Whisper and me.
Whisper.
Whose claims that she was the superior Hero, despite the results of our training day duels, seemed more than just sour grapes.
Whisper.
Whose big brother, Thunder, was seen badmouthing me in town, was heard putting down my heroic feats. "Come to play with the other children, have you?" he said to me derisively.
Whisper.
Who foolishly said to me, as we stood there facing each other, "I won't kill you. I refuse to kill you."
Whisper, I don't share your compassion.
Fable actually makes it very easy for a normally altruistic person to cross the line. And cross it I did.
When Whisper finally stood before me, head bowed, pleading for me to just walk away, that I didn't have to do this...I did it anyway, and the crowd roared my name as I stood over her broken body. And it was GLORIOUS!!!
This could explain why I loved playing a Rogue in WoW's PvP ;)
When I exited the Arena the only thing between Thunder and I was Lady Grey, the Mayor of Bowerstone.
For some reason Thunder seemed to feel that my killing his sister, in the Arena, in a fight to the death, somehow amounted to Murder.
Lady Grey disagreed, and saved Thunder's life by not letting the big brute make a mistake he'd regret, but I just know I'll be helping him reunite with his sister before this game is done. I can feel it. Oh yes, I can!
I took my Arena Champion's purse containing over 30,000 gold (enough to buy a house in Bowerstone, if I'm not mistaken) and left the Arena where I was greeted by my adoring fans.
Murderer? Moi? Thunder, you are gravely mistaken, and if you persist in spreading such rumors I'm afraid we'll have to settle this in the Arena.
To paraphrase Ash, "Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the sword."
Monday, February 23, 2009
Fable, and moral choices in PC games
I got Fable:The Lost Chapters on the weekend. Like Fallout 3, F:TLC (and Fable II) offers the player a moral choice. "How do you want to play the game?" But unlike F3, F:TLC appears to offer a more realistic choice.
In F3 when you entered Megaton and encountered the Sheriff your conversation responses ranged from polite and respectful to arrogant ass. IMO a non-response doesn't really qualify as an "evil" response, it could also mean you're the strong, silent type.
But with F:TLC you have a real choice.
I wish I could remember the post I read on someone's Blog (or I'd link it here) about how people with strong, moral compasses may have trouble playing F3 with an evil character, choosing "evil" responses. Games like Grand Theft Auto are easier to play because they give you little to no choice. You're Tommy Vercetti, a mafioso who just got out of prison and is being asked to run the Vice City syndicate. If you want to progress through the game, you don't really have a choice as to how you play it. You follow linear quests and the story unfolds.
F:TLC, however, offers you a choice, starting with your very first quests.
A young girl asks you to find her bear, and when you do, you're given a choice of siding with the bully who's already mentioned he planned to pull the bear's head off, or siding with a younger child who has the bear, and beating up the bully.
When a villager asks you to guard his wares another child wanders up and encourages you to smash the unguarded barrels to see what's in them.
When you find a philandering husband you're given a choice of accepting a gold piece to keep quiet, or telling the cheater's wife what you saw.
All very real choices, and almost opposite sides of the coin. Not goody two shoes versus ass, but good guy versus bad guy.
Then when you find yourself in the Guild of Heroes, choosing your first quest for them, you're again presented with a very real choice. You actually have a choice of two quests but you can only accept one because the goal of each is contrary to the other.
A local Farmer has some valuable stones in his possession and is being attacked by Bandits intent on stealing them. You have a choice of defending the farm and fighting off the bandits, or protecting the bandits while they steal the stones. Interestingly (IMO) the person behind the quest to steal the stones is none other than a local Mayor.
I chose to defend the farm, and as I've leveled up I've been putting points into martial combat and physical strength. But having played Fallout3 through as a "good guy" and been unable to restart it playing through as an ass, I've decided to restart F:TLC and play the "evil" side first, focusing on becoming more of an Assassin-style character.
Why?
Because F:TLC has a key plot device which makes it easy for someone with a strong moral compass to play the bad side.
*SPOILER* Very early in the game your village is attacked by Bandits, your father is slain, and your mother and sister are taken prisoner. You are rescued by Maze who takes you to the Guild of Heroes, which is where the meat & potatoes of the game starts. How does this help a "good" person play an evil character in F:TLC? Quite simply, you're going to do whatever it takes to rescue your sister. As Bandits are the ones who took her away, it could be argued that the best way to rescue your sister is to become a Bandit yourself, infiltrate their network, and eventually destroy them from within. And if you happen to become corrupted by the dark side along the way, that's only to be expected.
It's like the post I made about the Torture Quest in WoW. You could have been presented with two Quests, one to torture the prisoner to extract the desired information, and one to help him escape, gain his trust, and get the information that way. That's a real choice, and F:TLC offers you choices like that.
While F:TLC may not have the polish of WoW, it's still a very good looking game, and combat is fun (at least in the early stages) without being a nightmare. But as far as offering the player choices on how to proceed through the game and develop their character, F:TLC wins hands down. All this, for a shade more than the price of one month of WoW. Bargain!
In F3 when you entered Megaton and encountered the Sheriff your conversation responses ranged from polite and respectful to arrogant ass. IMO a non-response doesn't really qualify as an "evil" response, it could also mean you're the strong, silent type.
But with F:TLC you have a real choice.
I wish I could remember the post I read on someone's Blog (or I'd link it here) about how people with strong, moral compasses may have trouble playing F3 with an evil character, choosing "evil" responses. Games like Grand Theft Auto are easier to play because they give you little to no choice. You're Tommy Vercetti, a mafioso who just got out of prison and is being asked to run the Vice City syndicate. If you want to progress through the game, you don't really have a choice as to how you play it. You follow linear quests and the story unfolds.
F:TLC, however, offers you a choice, starting with your very first quests.
A young girl asks you to find her bear, and when you do, you're given a choice of siding with the bully who's already mentioned he planned to pull the bear's head off, or siding with a younger child who has the bear, and beating up the bully.
When a villager asks you to guard his wares another child wanders up and encourages you to smash the unguarded barrels to see what's in them.
When you find a philandering husband you're given a choice of accepting a gold piece to keep quiet, or telling the cheater's wife what you saw.
All very real choices, and almost opposite sides of the coin. Not goody two shoes versus ass, but good guy versus bad guy.
Then when you find yourself in the Guild of Heroes, choosing your first quest for them, you're again presented with a very real choice. You actually have a choice of two quests but you can only accept one because the goal of each is contrary to the other.
A local Farmer has some valuable stones in his possession and is being attacked by Bandits intent on stealing them. You have a choice of defending the farm and fighting off the bandits, or protecting the bandits while they steal the stones. Interestingly (IMO) the person behind the quest to steal the stones is none other than a local Mayor.
I chose to defend the farm, and as I've leveled up I've been putting points into martial combat and physical strength. But having played Fallout3 through as a "good guy" and been unable to restart it playing through as an ass, I've decided to restart F:TLC and play the "evil" side first, focusing on becoming more of an Assassin-style character.
Why?
Because F:TLC has a key plot device which makes it easy for someone with a strong moral compass to play the bad side.
*SPOILER* Very early in the game your village is attacked by Bandits, your father is slain, and your mother and sister are taken prisoner. You are rescued by Maze who takes you to the Guild of Heroes, which is where the meat & potatoes of the game starts. How does this help a "good" person play an evil character in F:TLC? Quite simply, you're going to do whatever it takes to rescue your sister. As Bandits are the ones who took her away, it could be argued that the best way to rescue your sister is to become a Bandit yourself, infiltrate their network, and eventually destroy them from within. And if you happen to become corrupted by the dark side along the way, that's only to be expected.
It's like the post I made about the Torture Quest in WoW. You could have been presented with two Quests, one to torture the prisoner to extract the desired information, and one to help him escape, gain his trust, and get the information that way. That's a real choice, and F:TLC offers you choices like that.
While F:TLC may not have the polish of WoW, it's still a very good looking game, and combat is fun (at least in the early stages) without being a nightmare. But as far as offering the player choices on how to proceed through the game and develop their character, F:TLC wins hands down. All this, for a shade more than the price of one month of WoW. Bargain!
Monday, February 02, 2009
Fun (& grouping) in W101
Other than in the handful of Instances in each zone, W101 doesn't really let you group up, which is why it's amusing (to me) that this weekend I did more grouping in W101 than I have during the entire game. Don't get me wrong, I've ran a couple of Instances with other players, I even PUGd The Sunken City, but this weekend was something different.
For once I saw quite a few folks running around Moo Shu & Hametsu Village, I even befriended a couple of them, and because they were able to hold a decent conversation during combat (thus proving their maturity level), I even let them stay on my Friends List. I make it a habit to prune out people on my (& JE's) Friends' List who look like slackers. They'd be the ones who are very low level and so probably want a free ride to Marleybone or Moo Shu, or whose extra information cannot be access from the Friends List (highlight a Friend in your List, then click that little left-pointing arrow in the bottom left corner of their Friend Frame), which I assume implies they're on a Trial Account. I don't know if that's true or not, but they get deleted anyway.
Late last week I'd quested briefly with one player, Joseph, then offered to beat a minor Boss with him but he'd had to log off; him I let stay on my Friends List. On Saturday I ran into another new Friend, Jacob, and by coincidence, we were up to the same Questing stage in that area. We chatted and discovered we needed to kill the same Mobs, farm the same Quest Drops, beat the same minor Boss, etc. So Jacob and I ran around together for a couple of hours double-teaming all our quests, which not only made things a little more pleasant than solo killing, but also sped up the process, too. If you need to kill 12 Mobs for a Quest, on your own you'll be fighting 2 Mobs, but with a partner you face 3 Mobs. That's 4 fights with a partner compared to 6 on your own, and with a partner the Odds are tipped a little more in your favor, too. 3 vs 2 is still not a fair fight, but it's more fair than 2 on 1.
So Jacob and I ran around questing together and during the course of conversation it came out that he's married like me, and also has a son who plays W101. Like most MMOs, W101 is a lot more fun when you have a mature (not necessarily older, just mature) player to hang out with.
Later Jacob logged out to go to a Superbowl Party, but I stayed on, quested a bit more, and got a bit ahead of him. Liz and I had the game on ourselves but I wasn't too attached to either the Steelers or the Cardinals, so, meh. Interesting commercial? Sure, I'll watch for a few seconds. Interception? 100-yard TD Return? Show me the replay! But the entire game? Meh.
The kids came home and JE jumped into the game but he's discovered the new PvP Arena, so I indulged him and joined him for a Duel. For some reason we signed up for 3v3, even though it was just the two of us, meaning we needed a PUG for a 3rd...and we got your stereotypical MMO PUG player.
While a player on the other team apologized to her team mates for bringing her PvE Deck, our PUG guy was talking Trash. Another one of their players was decked out similar to Saylah in her new Kitty Cat Cap, so I complimented her on her outfit. Our PUG guy thought that was hilarious.
With our opponents being in Oni gear they all had well over 2,000HP, and two of them were even close to 3,000. By contrast I was the only Wizard on our team with over 2,000HP, and I wasn't over by a lot. I didn't like our chances of winning, but I figured we were here to have fun (well I was) so let's give it our best!
After several rounds of buffing & debuffing, and various attacks, both JE and our opponents' lowest HP Wizard were knocked out and reeling. (Players reduced to zero HP can still be revived if they don't Flee and another Player can Heal them.) Our PUG guy threw a HOT onto JE bringing him back into the game, for about 2 seconds until one of their Wizards hit us with Meteor, an AOE, which took JE straight back out again.
"We're going to lose," our PUG guy whined.
Then he Fled.
Leaving me to face two Wizards, both with close to 3,000HP. And then they brought their third player back.
Meanwhile our PUG guy ran around the Arena as a spectator, jeering at us, and cheering for our (& his former) opponents. I took the high ground and made the observation that Fleeing disrespects both your team mates and your opponents. That won me brownie points with my opponents, although it didn't stop them trying to defeat me :P
And of course with it now being a Three on One I didn't last long, but I did last a while, and they were attacking too; they weren't sitting back trying to Buff up and one-shot me with a 2K+ attack. In fact I survived long enough to make me wonder if we might have had a chance of winning, if our PUG guy hadn't Fled on us.
When the inevitable happened and I got hit with a DOT that was going to knock me out before I could take my turn, I congratulated our opponents.
Then I left JE in the Arena and resumed Questing. The little guy kept me appraised of his progress, and damned if he didn't go and win several matches on his own :)
I'd been questing for a bit when a third one of my new Friends messaged me, asking what I was doing. I didn't know if she wanted to Teleport to my location, or needed help with something. It was the latter so I ported to her and found her fighting the War Oni at the end of the Crimson Fields Instance. I called out to John and he teleported to me and between the three of us we took the War Oni down.
Later that night I'd find myself fighting the War Oni again, when Jacob returned from his Superbowl Game and we tackled the Crimson Fields together. The big surprise of Crimson Fields was raising 4 Banners, which seemed to do nothing until later in the Instance, when a 5,000HP Fire Boss spawned from out of nowhere. JE was in bed by this time so I quickly logged on his account and 'ported his Wizard to us, and it still wasn't a cakewalk. That Boss was tough, a lot tougher than the War Oni.
And speaking of the War Oni, as we approached his lair Joseph messaged me asking for help. I told him I was about to fight the War Oni, so if he wanted to port to me and help Jacob and I then I'd help with his Boss when we were done. Between the three of us we made short work of the War Oni, then I helped Joseph with his Boss, which moved him in to the area that Jacob and I were just finishing up. Previously I'd had a very long chat with Joseph, and apparently W101 is his first MMO. Which is odd but I can only assume means he has a young child who plays as well (or he's a very mature, younger player himself). He even claimed not to know what AFK meant, which blew my mind.
All in all, it was a fun afternoon/evening. I just wish W101 had something like WoW's Guilds, so players like Jacob and Joseph could more easily meet up with Saylah, Ronan, and the other mature W101 players I know.
For once I saw quite a few folks running around Moo Shu & Hametsu Village, I even befriended a couple of them, and because they were able to hold a decent conversation during combat (thus proving their maturity level), I even let them stay on my Friends List. I make it a habit to prune out people on my (& JE's) Friends' List who look like slackers. They'd be the ones who are very low level and so probably want a free ride to Marleybone or Moo Shu, or whose extra information cannot be access from the Friends List (highlight a Friend in your List, then click that little left-pointing arrow in the bottom left corner of their Friend Frame), which I assume implies they're on a Trial Account. I don't know if that's true or not, but they get deleted anyway.
Late last week I'd quested briefly with one player, Joseph, then offered to beat a minor Boss with him but he'd had to log off; him I let stay on my Friends List. On Saturday I ran into another new Friend, Jacob, and by coincidence, we were up to the same Questing stage in that area. We chatted and discovered we needed to kill the same Mobs, farm the same Quest Drops, beat the same minor Boss, etc. So Jacob and I ran around together for a couple of hours double-teaming all our quests, which not only made things a little more pleasant than solo killing, but also sped up the process, too. If you need to kill 12 Mobs for a Quest, on your own you'll be fighting 2 Mobs, but with a partner you face 3 Mobs. That's 4 fights with a partner compared to 6 on your own, and with a partner the Odds are tipped a little more in your favor, too. 3 vs 2 is still not a fair fight, but it's more fair than 2 on 1.
So Jacob and I ran around questing together and during the course of conversation it came out that he's married like me, and also has a son who plays W101. Like most MMOs, W101 is a lot more fun when you have a mature (not necessarily older, just mature) player to hang out with.
Later Jacob logged out to go to a Superbowl Party, but I stayed on, quested a bit more, and got a bit ahead of him. Liz and I had the game on ourselves but I wasn't too attached to either the Steelers or the Cardinals, so, meh. Interesting commercial? Sure, I'll watch for a few seconds. Interception? 100-yard TD Return? Show me the replay! But the entire game? Meh.
The kids came home and JE jumped into the game but he's discovered the new PvP Arena, so I indulged him and joined him for a Duel. For some reason we signed up for 3v3, even though it was just the two of us, meaning we needed a PUG for a 3rd...and we got your stereotypical MMO PUG player.
While a player on the other team apologized to her team mates for bringing her PvE Deck, our PUG guy was talking Trash. Another one of their players was decked out similar to Saylah in her new Kitty Cat Cap, so I complimented her on her outfit. Our PUG guy thought that was hilarious.
With our opponents being in Oni gear they all had well over 2,000HP, and two of them were even close to 3,000. By contrast I was the only Wizard on our team with over 2,000HP, and I wasn't over by a lot. I didn't like our chances of winning, but I figured we were here to have fun (well I was) so let's give it our best!
After several rounds of buffing & debuffing, and various attacks, both JE and our opponents' lowest HP Wizard were knocked out and reeling. (Players reduced to zero HP can still be revived if they don't Flee and another Player can Heal them.) Our PUG guy threw a HOT onto JE bringing him back into the game, for about 2 seconds until one of their Wizards hit us with Meteor, an AOE, which took JE straight back out again.
"We're going to lose," our PUG guy whined.
Then he Fled.
Leaving me to face two Wizards, both with close to 3,000HP. And then they brought their third player back.
Meanwhile our PUG guy ran around the Arena as a spectator, jeering at us, and cheering for our (& his former) opponents. I took the high ground and made the observation that Fleeing disrespects both your team mates and your opponents. That won me brownie points with my opponents, although it didn't stop them trying to defeat me :P
And of course with it now being a Three on One I didn't last long, but I did last a while, and they were attacking too; they weren't sitting back trying to Buff up and one-shot me with a 2K+ attack. In fact I survived long enough to make me wonder if we might have had a chance of winning, if our PUG guy hadn't Fled on us.
When the inevitable happened and I got hit with a DOT that was going to knock me out before I could take my turn, I congratulated our opponents.
Then I left JE in the Arena and resumed Questing. The little guy kept me appraised of his progress, and damned if he didn't go and win several matches on his own :)
I'd been questing for a bit when a third one of my new Friends messaged me, asking what I was doing. I didn't know if she wanted to Teleport to my location, or needed help with something. It was the latter so I ported to her and found her fighting the War Oni at the end of the Crimson Fields Instance. I called out to John and he teleported to me and between the three of us we took the War Oni down.
Later that night I'd find myself fighting the War Oni again, when Jacob returned from his Superbowl Game and we tackled the Crimson Fields together. The big surprise of Crimson Fields was raising 4 Banners, which seemed to do nothing until later in the Instance, when a 5,000HP Fire Boss spawned from out of nowhere. JE was in bed by this time so I quickly logged on his account and 'ported his Wizard to us, and it still wasn't a cakewalk. That Boss was tough, a lot tougher than the War Oni.
And speaking of the War Oni, as we approached his lair Joseph messaged me asking for help. I told him I was about to fight the War Oni, so if he wanted to port to me and help Jacob and I then I'd help with his Boss when we were done. Between the three of us we made short work of the War Oni, then I helped Joseph with his Boss, which moved him in to the area that Jacob and I were just finishing up. Previously I'd had a very long chat with Joseph, and apparently W101 is his first MMO. Which is odd but I can only assume means he has a young child who plays as well (or he's a very mature, younger player himself). He even claimed not to know what AFK meant, which blew my mind.
All in all, it was a fun afternoon/evening. I just wish W101 had something like WoW's Guilds, so players like Jacob and Joseph could more easily meet up with Saylah, Ronan, and the other mature W101 players I know.
Friday, January 30, 2009
PSA
I'd just like to take this opportunity to say...
OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!
Are you still here? Whadda ya think yer doing?
Get over to their website, NOW!
This is insane. They're releasing this on not just the PC & XBox, but the PSP and the DS! I can't imagine trying to play it on the DS...actually I can, but Damn! When you've got a game like this, you want it on at least a 19" screen.
Damn. Guess I'll be buying two copies of Diablo 3 and two copies of Bloodbowl this year...or next year :P
OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!
Are you still here? Whadda ya think yer doing?
Get over to their website, NOW!
This is insane. They're releasing this on not just the PC & XBox, but the PSP and the DS! I can't imagine trying to play it on the DS...actually I can, but Damn! When you've got a game like this, you want it on at least a 19" screen.
Damn. Guess I'll be buying two copies of Diablo 3 and two copies of Bloodbowl this year...or next year :P
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Shaking up WoW
A couple of WoW's Wrath quests have got people in a bit of a tiz lately, such as one which asks you to torture an NPC to extract information from them. Somehow some people find this quest morally repugnant.
Never mind that to get this far their toon has probably already committed numerous acts that are equally disturbing, and which together far outweigh one simple act of torture.
At least on the Alliance side, most players will:
Kill numerous sentient humanoids to collect their eyes to make a stew.
Kill numerous sentient humanoids for kelp, just so two youngsters can defy their parents and hang out together.
Slaughter wildlife by the thousands, in some cases for nothing but their paws, legs, or liver. "Go! Kill some pigs, and bring back their livers so I can make a few pies."
In some cases wildlife are slaughtered, literally by the hundreds, for no reason at all, other than to impress a couple of people. Yes, Nesingwary, I'm looking at you!
Almost all Alliance will be offered a quest to kill a man who helped rebuild Stormwind and who was then cheated and wronged by the Stormwind Nobles. Most Alliance will accept a contract to kill this honorable man, who refused the Nobles' bribes and who turned down a cushy government job because he was loyal to his men, men who were not brigands but common laborers and stonemasons. Most Alliance will take this quest and do everything they can to kill this man, one Edwin VanCleef, and they won't think twice about what they're doing.
How is it acceptable to kill a man whose crime was to speak out against injustice, but torturing someone for information is really, really not okay?
Seriously, it's not like the choices you make affect anything.
Kill a named Quest Mob, in 5 minutes he'll pop right back up. Mine that Node, half an hour later, another Node will spring up in its place.
In most cases, WoW is a very static world.
The in-game choices you make don't make a shred of difference, or at least any effects from the choice you make disappears after 5-10 minutes.
The only choices that really affect anything are the very first two you make: Do you choose Alliance or Horde, and what class? Pretty much any other choice you make is irrelevant.
In Shattrath you'll be able to choose between Scryer and Aldor, but if you make the wrong choice (for your craft) then it just takes a little bit of work to undo that choice. It's not a huge, game breaking decision. It might take an investment of time & gold on your behalf to undo your choice, but it can be reversed.
But, what if there was a choice to be made in-game which couldn't be reversed.
Take the Torture quest that's getting everyone up in arms. What if you strolled up to a camp with two Quest Givers and when you talk to the first one he says, "Psst. We've got a guy tied up in bushes. Go back there, smack him around a bit, and see if you can't get some information out of him."
I'm sorry, you want me to do what? Beat up a helpless guy? I don't think so.
So you click Decline then talk to the second Quest Giver. He says, "Psst. They've got a guy tied up in the bushes back there. Go get some food & wine from the Innkeeper, untie the guy and lead him up into the hills, then give him the food & wine and see if he'll open up to you."
Interesting. You've got two quests which seem to have the same goal in mind; Interrogate a prisoner for information. But in the first quest you'll use violence to extract the information, whereas the second quest has you be a little more subtle.
If you'd accepted the first guy's quest, the quest marker would have disappeared from second guy, and instead of offering you the subterfuge quest he now might say, "A man who thinks he's about to die will say anything to save his life. How can you trust information gained through torture?"
A smart cookie might make the connection between the two quest givers, then abandon the Torture quest to see what the second Quest Giver had to say.
And now you're presented with a moral choice, a very real choice. You no longer have a choice between doing or not doing a quest; now you have a choice between torturing someone for information, or befriending them to gain the same.
Imagine if this was how you chose between Aldor and Scryer, with your choice affecting who will talk to you in the future, what quests you can get, and even what City you will eventually call home at 80. Imagine if making a choice one way or the other gives you some sort of communication device which allows you to communicate in a channel specifically reserved for just the Torturers, or just the Spies...regardless of faction. Yes, suddenly Alliance and Horde could communicate with each other, but only those who'd chosen to torture the prisoner could communicate with each other, while only those who'd chosen to free and befriend the prisoner could communicate with each other.
Imagine Horde and Alliance being able to group up, together, to do lvl 80 Instances? And why not? With BC's introduction of Dranei Shamans and Bloodelf Paladins, the factions are practically the same now anyway.
Imagine if there were decisions to make in the World of Warcraft that really mattered, decisions with irreversible consequences.
If you think people are upset over the Torture quest now, just imagine the screaming, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth if players/toons were held accountable for their in-game decisions ;)
Never mind that to get this far their toon has probably already committed numerous acts that are equally disturbing, and which together far outweigh one simple act of torture.
At least on the Alliance side, most players will:
Kill numerous sentient humanoids to collect their eyes to make a stew.
Kill numerous sentient humanoids for kelp, just so two youngsters can defy their parents and hang out together.
Slaughter wildlife by the thousands, in some cases for nothing but their paws, legs, or liver. "Go! Kill some pigs, and bring back their livers so I can make a few pies."
In some cases wildlife are slaughtered, literally by the hundreds, for no reason at all, other than to impress a couple of people. Yes, Nesingwary, I'm looking at you!
Almost all Alliance will be offered a quest to kill a man who helped rebuild Stormwind and who was then cheated and wronged by the Stormwind Nobles. Most Alliance will accept a contract to kill this honorable man, who refused the Nobles' bribes and who turned down a cushy government job because he was loyal to his men, men who were not brigands but common laborers and stonemasons. Most Alliance will take this quest and do everything they can to kill this man, one Edwin VanCleef, and they won't think twice about what they're doing.
How is it acceptable to kill a man whose crime was to speak out against injustice, but torturing someone for information is really, really not okay?
Seriously, it's not like the choices you make affect anything.
Kill a named Quest Mob, in 5 minutes he'll pop right back up. Mine that Node, half an hour later, another Node will spring up in its place.
In most cases, WoW is a very static world.
The in-game choices you make don't make a shred of difference, or at least any effects from the choice you make disappears after 5-10 minutes.
The only choices that really affect anything are the very first two you make: Do you choose Alliance or Horde, and what class? Pretty much any other choice you make is irrelevant.
In Shattrath you'll be able to choose between Scryer and Aldor, but if you make the wrong choice (for your craft) then it just takes a little bit of work to undo that choice. It's not a huge, game breaking decision. It might take an investment of time & gold on your behalf to undo your choice, but it can be reversed.
But, what if there was a choice to be made in-game which couldn't be reversed.
Take the Torture quest that's getting everyone up in arms. What if you strolled up to a camp with two Quest Givers and when you talk to the first one he says, "Psst. We've got a guy tied up in bushes. Go back there, smack him around a bit, and see if you can't get some information out of him."
I'm sorry, you want me to do what? Beat up a helpless guy? I don't think so.
So you click Decline then talk to the second Quest Giver. He says, "Psst. They've got a guy tied up in the bushes back there. Go get some food & wine from the Innkeeper, untie the guy and lead him up into the hills, then give him the food & wine and see if he'll open up to you."
Interesting. You've got two quests which seem to have the same goal in mind; Interrogate a prisoner for information. But in the first quest you'll use violence to extract the information, whereas the second quest has you be a little more subtle.
If you'd accepted the first guy's quest, the quest marker would have disappeared from second guy, and instead of offering you the subterfuge quest he now might say, "A man who thinks he's about to die will say anything to save his life. How can you trust information gained through torture?"
A smart cookie might make the connection between the two quest givers, then abandon the Torture quest to see what the second Quest Giver had to say.
And now you're presented with a moral choice, a very real choice. You no longer have a choice between doing or not doing a quest; now you have a choice between torturing someone for information, or befriending them to gain the same.
Imagine if this was how you chose between Aldor and Scryer, with your choice affecting who will talk to you in the future, what quests you can get, and even what City you will eventually call home at 80. Imagine if making a choice one way or the other gives you some sort of communication device which allows you to communicate in a channel specifically reserved for just the Torturers, or just the Spies...regardless of faction. Yes, suddenly Alliance and Horde could communicate with each other, but only those who'd chosen to torture the prisoner could communicate with each other, while only those who'd chosen to free and befriend the prisoner could communicate with each other.
Imagine Horde and Alliance being able to group up, together, to do lvl 80 Instances? And why not? With BC's introduction of Dranei Shamans and Bloodelf Paladins, the factions are practically the same now anyway.
Imagine if there were decisions to make in the World of Warcraft that really mattered, decisions with irreversible consequences.
If you think people are upset over the Torture quest now, just imagine the screaming, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth if players/toons were held accountable for their in-game decisions ;)
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Fallout 3
I'm really enjoying this game, in fact I haven't played Wizard 101 since I got it...of course that wasn't that long ago :P
I've restarted my game a couple of times, the first time after I discovered V.A.T.S. and realized it could save me ammunition versus shooting in FPS mode and missing. Then I reloaded again when I wanted to kill a certain quest giver. He's a bad guy (well, that's relative, really ;) who disappears after you help him, or defy him, but you can also kill him if you squeal on him, but if you do turn him in you need a quick trigger finger or good people will die. Thank heavens for Quick-saves and reloads because I wasn't fast enough the first time...or the next few times, either :P
That's the big difference between an MMO-RPG and an offline SP-RPG (or story-driven SP-FPS, what ever you want to call it). In an MMO any choices you make are, for the most part, permanent for your character...unless you want to reroll. My Main in WoW got screwed out of a lot of things, which was shame, because I loved playing him so he was often the first Toon to do things. And because of that he was also the Guinea Pig, meaning he was the guy from which I learned what not to do.
The Timbermaw Furbolg in the tunnel between Felwood and Winterspring? Grind Rep with them to at least Unfriendly before setting foot inside. It doesn't take long, maybe half an hour doing two grinding quests and you're there. Do NOT fight your way through because it just makes it so much harder later when you've either got to fight your way back, or spend money to fly back, and forth, and back, and forth. Yeah, I fought my way through...a couple of times. Took me freaking forever to get back in the Timbermaw's good books.
Now if WoW were offline SP-RGP you'd just reload. You might lose an hour of progress but it's soooo much better than the alternative.
Of course if it were an offline SP-RPG you'd probably never have the thousands of hours invested into your Toon that most of us ended up with. By the way, a thousand hours isn't long, it's just 40 days /played.
So I restarted/rerolled my FO3 "Toon" a couple of times and after the second or third time, I saved my Toon at the exit to Vault 101 which, oddly enough, is where you get a final chance to change everything about your character. You've already assigned points to your Stats, and chosen your Skills/Perks, you've done the Intro/Tutorial but now, before you set foot into the Big, Bad Wasteworld...do you want to change anything about your Toon...and they do mean anything. You get one last chance to change not just your Stats but your physical appearance, including your gender! So I saved a game there meaning now when I "reroll" I don't need to do the Tutorial again, not unless I really, really want to.
The controls are standard WASD FPS controls so if you've played any FPS in the last 10 years you should have very little trouble getting around. Hitting TAB opens your PIPBoy which also Pauses the game. That's something which makes Liz very happy and she's probably not the only spouse...not that I have more than one spouse...other people's spouses, they're probably happy their SO is finally playing a game with a Pause button.
The PIPBoy is where you change weapons, armor, medicate/heal yourself, etc. You can keep track of your current quests in it, track the objective/destination for a quest, view your Map, etc. Because it completely fills your screen it's by necessity that the game also Pauses when you access your PIPBoy, otherwise Mobs would be chewing on your head while you're looking at your Map.
Back in the game combat occurs, for the most part, in Real Time, although Bullet Time is used for some of the flashier kills. You can choose to play FO3 as an FPS, or you can take advantage of V.A.T.S., the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. This means Combat gets paused while you choose your targets. You start combat with a certain number of Action Points (depending on a few factors, your Stats, length of time since last Combat, etc) and you basically choose which opponent (if more than one) to shoot at, and which body part to target. Certain Mobs are more heavily armored in certain areas, so while you might have an excellent chance of shooting a RadScorption's Carapace, you won't do as much damage to it as if you targeted its legs, which are naturally harder to hit.
V.A.T.S. has its good points, and its bad points. It allows you to stop/pause combat while you think things through, which is good you're a more mature gamer (like me) where your reactions might be a little slower than when you were half your age (even if you won't admit it to yourself, or anyone else ;) It's also very good if a Mob ambushes you. Spin to face it, hit V (to engage V.A.T.S. of course), pick your target, maybe select it a couple of times if you have sufficient Action Points, then hit A (or is it E) to Accept your choice, leave V.A.T.S. and resume combat. Now you don't need to do anything until your Toon has completed doing what you told it to...which is where the bad part of V.A.T.S. kicks in.
You just told your Toon to shoot the Mob four times in the head. As he begins firing the camera view changes, and here are two Mobs behind your target, with Assault Rifles, that they've got aimed right at you. Your first shot to your target's head is a good one, it does a lot of damage and he's stunned, so your second shot finishes him off. Queue the almost obligatory slow-mo death sequence as your target's head flies off (yes, body parts are easily separated from their owners during combat) and his body cartwheels through the air and down the adjacent stairwell.
Meanwhile...his two buddies are shooting the hell out of you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it, not until the game gives you back control of your Toon. Before that happens, let's just watch that body slide down the last couple of stairs, shall we? Ok, now, where were we? Oh, you're getting shot. And you're low on health. Oh dear.
Good part of FO3? Hit TAB to bring up your PIPBoy and shoot yourself up with a couple of Stimpacks. Get that Health Bar back up to a more...healthier level. Much better. Your 10mm Pistol is good for taking out a single bad guy, but you've got two guys shooting at you now. Break out the Combat Shotgun. TAB out of your PIPBoy and resume combat, in real time. You're almost back at full health again so you can take a second to line up your shot and KA-BLAM! The second bad guy loses his head after taking a load of double-ought to the face. Unlike the first guy's death which occurred in V.A.T.S., this second guy doesn't get the honor of a slow-mo bullet time death. Now it's just one guy left so...you hit V again. Hellooooo V.A.T.S. and refreshingly slow combat where you have all the time in the world to plan your moves. Close range, guy in front of you in an open corridor. Got to be a shotgun blast to the face...again >:)
It's a Critical Hit, and because it happened in V.A.T.S., there's that slow-mo death sequence that sometimes produces the most hilarious of death scenes. Seriously. Sometimes they're so over the top they're beyond belief. Last night I shot a Raider on a bridge above me. The best shot I had, according to the percentages shown by V.A.T.S., was targeting his left leg, so I did. All three rounds from my Hunting Rifle hit the Raider in the leg, the last one tore his leg off. No, he didn't hop around on his good leg before collapsing in a heap. The game engine decided to toss him into the air, and he practically cartwheeled across a gap in the bridge which, if the guy was 6-feet tall, was a 10' wide gap. He almost made it all the way across, too :D
Speaking of the physics engine FO3's has really impressed me, on more than one occasion.
I had a stupid Raider charge me. I know he was stupid because he was bringing a Pool Cue to a Gun Fight. I dropped him with a couple of rounds from my Hunting Rifle, and he dropped the Pool Cue. We were on the side of a hill and his Pool Cue hit the ground and began rolling down hill. It rolled all the way down to the bottom of the hill then continued on for a bit before finally losing all momentum.
Another Raider lost his head after losing a gun fight with me (it's amazing how poorly heads and limbs are attached in this game) and I watched bemused as his head rolled away from its body before coming to a stop in a ditch.
Then there was a Centaur (not your typical mythical half-man/half-horse critter, something a lot uglier) spitting at me, or tossing body parts, or doing god knows what, but it was engaging me at extreme range by spitting/throwing "something" at me. I pulled out my Sniper Rifle and fired off the last few .308 rounds I had. I hit it a couple of times but not enough to kill it, so I switched to my Hunting Rifle (chambered for .32, not .308) and...the Centaur disintegrated. WTF? I stared in surprise, wondering just what the hell had happened, and that's when the truck behind the Centaur exploded. I ducked, literally (me, not my toon) as the hood of the truck flew across the river and bounced past my toon. I still don't know what happened to the Centaur, whether there'd been an initial, smaller explosion from the truck that I hadn't seen, which finished it off, or if it somehow self-destructed, setting fire to the truck, which caused the explosion. It doesn't matter, the Centaur was dead and I was alive.
Now, is the game worth $50? Which is what I paid for it (that's what you get buying newly released games). I'd say so. Sure, it may not keep my interest as much as WoW or Wrath would, but for them, I'd still be paying to play every month (or every 6 months in my case). Even when I'm done with it, there'll probably be a time in the future when I'll pull it back out and play it some more. Good value for money, in my books.
There's also a large Modding community, who are constantly coming up with changes to the game. Different graphics, different specs for the weapons, etc. So there's a lot of after-market support. If you've an aversion to paying full price for games, then wait for the price to drop. It will come down sooner or later. If you don't mind paying $50 for a game, and you like quasi-Role Playing games with guns, bombs, explosions, and detachable body parts, you'll probably enjoy Fallout 3.
It's very easy to get into, can be played for 5 to 10 minutes, or an hour or two, and paused at will when the wife calls. It may not be Fallout 1 & 2 done as an FPS, but it's still (IMO) a fun game. No, I'm not offering you a money back guarantee if you don't like it. By now you should already know if you'd like it ;)
I've restarted my game a couple of times, the first time after I discovered V.A.T.S. and realized it could save me ammunition versus shooting in FPS mode and missing. Then I reloaded again when I wanted to kill a certain quest giver. He's a bad guy (well, that's relative, really ;) who disappears after you help him, or defy him, but you can also kill him if you squeal on him, but if you do turn him in you need a quick trigger finger or good people will die. Thank heavens for Quick-saves and reloads because I wasn't fast enough the first time...or the next few times, either :P
That's the big difference between an MMO-RPG and an offline SP-RPG (or story-driven SP-FPS, what ever you want to call it). In an MMO any choices you make are, for the most part, permanent for your character...unless you want to reroll. My Main in WoW got screwed out of a lot of things, which was shame, because I loved playing him so he was often the first Toon to do things. And because of that he was also the Guinea Pig, meaning he was the guy from which I learned what not to do.
The Timbermaw Furbolg in the tunnel between Felwood and Winterspring? Grind Rep with them to at least Unfriendly before setting foot inside. It doesn't take long, maybe half an hour doing two grinding quests and you're there. Do NOT fight your way through because it just makes it so much harder later when you've either got to fight your way back, or spend money to fly back, and forth, and back, and forth. Yeah, I fought my way through...a couple of times. Took me freaking forever to get back in the Timbermaw's good books.
Now if WoW were offline SP-RGP you'd just reload. You might lose an hour of progress but it's soooo much better than the alternative.
Of course if it were an offline SP-RPG you'd probably never have the thousands of hours invested into your Toon that most of us ended up with. By the way, a thousand hours isn't long, it's just 40 days /played.
So I restarted/rerolled my FO3 "Toon" a couple of times and after the second or third time, I saved my Toon at the exit to Vault 101 which, oddly enough, is where you get a final chance to change everything about your character. You've already assigned points to your Stats, and chosen your Skills/Perks, you've done the Intro/Tutorial but now, before you set foot into the Big, Bad Wasteworld...do you want to change anything about your Toon...and they do mean anything. You get one last chance to change not just your Stats but your physical appearance, including your gender! So I saved a game there meaning now when I "reroll" I don't need to do the Tutorial again, not unless I really, really want to.
The controls are standard WASD FPS controls so if you've played any FPS in the last 10 years you should have very little trouble getting around. Hitting TAB opens your PIPBoy which also Pauses the game. That's something which makes Liz very happy and she's probably not the only spouse...not that I have more than one spouse...other people's spouses, they're probably happy their SO is finally playing a game with a Pause button.
The PIPBoy is where you change weapons, armor, medicate/heal yourself, etc. You can keep track of your current quests in it, track the objective/destination for a quest, view your Map, etc. Because it completely fills your screen it's by necessity that the game also Pauses when you access your PIPBoy, otherwise Mobs would be chewing on your head while you're looking at your Map.
Back in the game combat occurs, for the most part, in Real Time, although Bullet Time is used for some of the flashier kills. You can choose to play FO3 as an FPS, or you can take advantage of V.A.T.S., the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. This means Combat gets paused while you choose your targets. You start combat with a certain number of Action Points (depending on a few factors, your Stats, length of time since last Combat, etc) and you basically choose which opponent (if more than one) to shoot at, and which body part to target. Certain Mobs are more heavily armored in certain areas, so while you might have an excellent chance of shooting a RadScorption's Carapace, you won't do as much damage to it as if you targeted its legs, which are naturally harder to hit.
V.A.T.S. has its good points, and its bad points. It allows you to stop/pause combat while you think things through, which is good you're a more mature gamer (like me) where your reactions might be a little slower than when you were half your age (even if you won't admit it to yourself, or anyone else ;) It's also very good if a Mob ambushes you. Spin to face it, hit V (to engage V.A.T.S. of course), pick your target, maybe select it a couple of times if you have sufficient Action Points, then hit A (or is it E) to Accept your choice, leave V.A.T.S. and resume combat. Now you don't need to do anything until your Toon has completed doing what you told it to...which is where the bad part of V.A.T.S. kicks in.
You just told your Toon to shoot the Mob four times in the head. As he begins firing the camera view changes, and here are two Mobs behind your target, with Assault Rifles, that they've got aimed right at you. Your first shot to your target's head is a good one, it does a lot of damage and he's stunned, so your second shot finishes him off. Queue the almost obligatory slow-mo death sequence as your target's head flies off (yes, body parts are easily separated from their owners during combat) and his body cartwheels through the air and down the adjacent stairwell.
Meanwhile...his two buddies are shooting the hell out of you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it, not until the game gives you back control of your Toon. Before that happens, let's just watch that body slide down the last couple of stairs, shall we? Ok, now, where were we? Oh, you're getting shot. And you're low on health. Oh dear.
Good part of FO3? Hit TAB to bring up your PIPBoy and shoot yourself up with a couple of Stimpacks. Get that Health Bar back up to a more...healthier level. Much better. Your 10mm Pistol is good for taking out a single bad guy, but you've got two guys shooting at you now. Break out the Combat Shotgun. TAB out of your PIPBoy and resume combat, in real time. You're almost back at full health again so you can take a second to line up your shot and KA-BLAM! The second bad guy loses his head after taking a load of double-ought to the face. Unlike the first guy's death which occurred in V.A.T.S., this second guy doesn't get the honor of a slow-mo bullet time death. Now it's just one guy left so...you hit V again. Hellooooo V.A.T.S. and refreshingly slow combat where you have all the time in the world to plan your moves. Close range, guy in front of you in an open corridor. Got to be a shotgun blast to the face...again >:)
It's a Critical Hit, and because it happened in V.A.T.S., there's that slow-mo death sequence that sometimes produces the most hilarious of death scenes. Seriously. Sometimes they're so over the top they're beyond belief. Last night I shot a Raider on a bridge above me. The best shot I had, according to the percentages shown by V.A.T.S., was targeting his left leg, so I did. All three rounds from my Hunting Rifle hit the Raider in the leg, the last one tore his leg off. No, he didn't hop around on his good leg before collapsing in a heap. The game engine decided to toss him into the air, and he practically cartwheeled across a gap in the bridge which, if the guy was 6-feet tall, was a 10' wide gap. He almost made it all the way across, too :D
Speaking of the physics engine FO3's has really impressed me, on more than one occasion.
I had a stupid Raider charge me. I know he was stupid because he was bringing a Pool Cue to a Gun Fight. I dropped him with a couple of rounds from my Hunting Rifle, and he dropped the Pool Cue. We were on the side of a hill and his Pool Cue hit the ground and began rolling down hill. It rolled all the way down to the bottom of the hill then continued on for a bit before finally losing all momentum.
Another Raider lost his head after losing a gun fight with me (it's amazing how poorly heads and limbs are attached in this game) and I watched bemused as his head rolled away from its body before coming to a stop in a ditch.
Then there was a Centaur (not your typical mythical half-man/half-horse critter, something a lot uglier) spitting at me, or tossing body parts, or doing god knows what, but it was engaging me at extreme range by spitting/throwing "something" at me. I pulled out my Sniper Rifle and fired off the last few .308 rounds I had. I hit it a couple of times but not enough to kill it, so I switched to my Hunting Rifle (chambered for .32, not .308) and...the Centaur disintegrated. WTF? I stared in surprise, wondering just what the hell had happened, and that's when the truck behind the Centaur exploded. I ducked, literally (me, not my toon) as the hood of the truck flew across the river and bounced past my toon. I still don't know what happened to the Centaur, whether there'd been an initial, smaller explosion from the truck that I hadn't seen, which finished it off, or if it somehow self-destructed, setting fire to the truck, which caused the explosion. It doesn't matter, the Centaur was dead and I was alive.
Now, is the game worth $50? Which is what I paid for it (that's what you get buying newly released games). I'd say so. Sure, it may not keep my interest as much as WoW or Wrath would, but for them, I'd still be paying to play every month (or every 6 months in my case). Even when I'm done with it, there'll probably be a time in the future when I'll pull it back out and play it some more. Good value for money, in my books.
There's also a large Modding community, who are constantly coming up with changes to the game. Different graphics, different specs for the weapons, etc. So there's a lot of after-market support. If you've an aversion to paying full price for games, then wait for the price to drop. It will come down sooner or later. If you don't mind paying $50 for a game, and you like quasi-Role Playing games with guns, bombs, explosions, and detachable body parts, you'll probably enjoy Fallout 3.
It's very easy to get into, can be played for 5 to 10 minutes, or an hour or two, and paused at will when the wife calls. It may not be Fallout 1 & 2 done as an FPS, but it's still (IMO) a fun game. No, I'm not offering you a money back guarantee if you don't like it. By now you should already know if you'd like it ;)
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Blizzard and WoW kill PC gaming
Purely hypothetically, of course ;)
Several years ago, before I began playing WoW, I used to buy a new PC game every month or two. There were probably a lot of folks like me who did the same. The PC Gaming Industry survived because of our never ending search for The Perfect Game®.
Then I found it, or at least I came the closest I've ever been to finding The Perfect Game®. I got sucked into WoW and it was glorious! Even with the subscription model I rationalized that at $13/month, it was cheaper than buying a new game every month or two. In fact with a new PC game costing $40 to $50, it was like slowing down my habit of one game every month or two, to just one game every three months. The big difference of course is that now I was buying the same game every month, over, and over, and over again. Instead of my money going to various, different gaming companies, it was all going to Blizzard.
And there were/are probably a lot of gamers like me.
We ceased our search for The Perfect Game®, because we'd actually found it (or a Close Facsimile Thereof®). We stopped buying a new and different game every month or two. We stopped funding innovation. We told the PC Gaming Industry, "We like This Game. If you ever want to see our money again you'll have to make a game just like this one, only better."
But the small gaming companies can't make a game just like WoW only better because that costs a lot of money, money which they didn't have. And they didn't have it because we, the Gamers, were no longer buying their games.
Not too long after I began playing WoW, rather than look at racks & racks of shoes with my wife, I wandered into a Best Buy and made my way to my favorite part of their store.
No, wait. These are PS2 games.
Here? No, X-Box games.
Then...where are??? I found a clerk.
"Excuse me. Where are your PC Games?"
He showed me one shelf.
One shelf of games. Filled with rows of WoW and Everquest, and oddly enough boxes of the very same puzzle games you can download off the 'net for free then pay $10 to $20 to "unlock".
The shelves of innovation were gone. The gaming companies that survived on me, and others like me, buying their games every month or two? They'd fallen by the wayside. They'd been driven off the road and left eating the dust of an 18-wheeler with WoW on the side.
PC Gaming is dead, but the Consoles cannot take the credit; that dubious honor belongs to the World of Warcraft, the PC Game that killed PC Gaming.
Several years ago, before I began playing WoW, I used to buy a new PC game every month or two. There were probably a lot of folks like me who did the same. The PC Gaming Industry survived because of our never ending search for The Perfect Game®.
Then I found it, or at least I came the closest I've ever been to finding The Perfect Game®. I got sucked into WoW and it was glorious! Even with the subscription model I rationalized that at $13/month, it was cheaper than buying a new game every month or two. In fact with a new PC game costing $40 to $50, it was like slowing down my habit of one game every month or two, to just one game every three months. The big difference of course is that now I was buying the same game every month, over, and over, and over again. Instead of my money going to various, different gaming companies, it was all going to Blizzard.
And there were/are probably a lot of gamers like me.
We ceased our search for The Perfect Game®, because we'd actually found it (or a Close Facsimile Thereof®). We stopped buying a new and different game every month or two. We stopped funding innovation. We told the PC Gaming Industry, "We like This Game. If you ever want to see our money again you'll have to make a game just like this one, only better."
But the small gaming companies can't make a game just like WoW only better because that costs a lot of money, money which they didn't have. And they didn't have it because we, the Gamers, were no longer buying their games.
Not too long after I began playing WoW, rather than look at racks & racks of shoes with my wife, I wandered into a Best Buy and made my way to my favorite part of their store.
No, wait. These are PS2 games.
Here? No, X-Box games.
Then...where are??? I found a clerk.
"Excuse me. Where are your PC Games?"
He showed me one shelf.
One shelf of games. Filled with rows of WoW and Everquest, and oddly enough boxes of the very same puzzle games you can download off the 'net for free then pay $10 to $20 to "unlock".
The shelves of innovation were gone. The gaming companies that survived on me, and others like me, buying their games every month or two? They'd fallen by the wayside. They'd been driven off the road and left eating the dust of an 18-wheeler with WoW on the side.
PC Gaming is dead, but the Consoles cannot take the credit; that dubious honor belongs to the World of Warcraft, the PC Game that killed PC Gaming.
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