Month: August 2012

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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[GW2] Echoes of the Past, Part 2

Fanfic Warning: This is one of three vignettes I wrote about my main character in the original Guild Wars. Part one can be found here. Part three will drop later this week.

Ravious Pretagata sat on the steps leading to the scrying pool centered in the great Hall of Monuments. It was the only warm place left in the massive Eye of the North. He was alone except for the rainbow phoenix that had chosen to reside in the Hall. Ravious had forgot when the great bird had entered, but he had chosen to leave it alone in any case. The lively plumage of the bird subtly contrasted the Hall’s testament to the dead. Continue reading [GW2] Echoes of the Past, Part 2

[GW2] Echoes of the Past, Part 1

Fanfic Warning: This is one of three vignettes I wrote about my main character in the original Guild Wars. Part two and part three will drop later this week.

The family stood on the edge of the misty Krytan swamp. The eldest son pushed the small wooden boat further in to the murky waters. The boat would carry the body of his father deep into the swamp. The widow held her young daughter at her side a few steps away. They watched as the man they called husband and father was slowly carried away to the darkness. The white of the shroud that wrapped the dead man’s body was the last thing they could see as their torch light strained to remain in contact with the boat. The frogs and crickets seemed to give the man a moment of silence as the swamp’s black swallowed the boat.

Once the funeral ceremony was complete, the son turned towards his mother now as the man of the family. A silent glance upward marked the torch-bearing Priestess of Dwayna awaiting at the top of the hill. The Priest of Grenth had not waited to see the end of the funeral rite. His duties of caring for the dead man had finished when the shroud covered the last of pale flesh and the body was placed on the boat. The Priestess of Dwayna’s duties were far from over as she would have to make sure the family could survive with the gaping hole of a lost father. A lost husband. Continue reading [GW2] Echoes of the Past, Part 1

Quasi-Review/Bleg: Quantum Conundrum

Does this thing get better?

I played through the first segment of Quantum Conundrum, another one of those FPS puzzle games. The game this time involves changing the physics as they apply to objects. In the first segment, you get low gravity and high density. Slow and reverse gravity are coming. So far, it is mostly about moving boxes around rooms.

So far, the puzzles and writing are mostly uninspired, and the internet tells me it will turn into platformer Hell involving jumping with dodgy physics, precise timing, and invisible feet. And heck, I had heard that before giving it a shot, but I’m a MMO player and therefore willing to drag myself through broken glass in search of a bit of good sport. I am not even to the broken glass yet, and I’m overwhelmed with “meh.”

Checking Steam’s global achievements, I don’t feel alone: 92.7% of owners have at least tried it, 59.4% finished the first segment, 30.2% finished the second, and 25.1% finished the third. About two-thirds of players met the game half-way, and half of them bailed. Most folks who finished 2/3 were pleased or determined enough to finish the game.

So I ask you, the reader: anyone played further and care to comment on Quantum Conundrum?
: Zubon

Orcs Must Die! 2

After having played through Orcs Must Die! 2, I echo my first impressions: more of the same with some improvements. If you enjoyed the original Orcs Must Die!, you will like Orcs Must Die! 2 more. It is good action defense.

Difficulty is moderate. Returning players will beat most maps on the first try but not with a five-skull score. You are not playing for the story, so you unlock the next level to have access to the new map, not to see what happens next. You can always dial the difficulty down; once you have beat all the maps, you can dial it up.

As I said, there is a grind for “character advancement”: upgrading traps, weapons, and trinkets. The grind is short, past which you are just adding options. You can respec costlessly at any time, so you only need enough skulls to top off 10 things, and you only need 10 fully advanced if you are competing for high scores. I am in the 250-skull range, and I capped my favorite traps while getting a small array of options without needing to respec between them. (Easy grind: a “perfect” Nightmare level nets at least 9 skulls for every repetition, and there are a few quick and easy Nightmare levels.)

I like the Sorceress. Her base weapon comes with a charm spell, and nothing quite slows the multi-ogre rush like making them hit each other. It is perhaps too easy to clear the game with the tricks you learned in the first game rather than using the new toys. I like the trinkets: convert that trap slot you don’t need into a passive bonus and occasional active ability like “make more money” or “reset all traps” (or hit both at once). The addition of endless mode gives you a way to stay on your favorite map longer and keep building more traps.

Co-op is the great new feature I have yet to try. My friends list is not full of OMD2 players. You definitely can beat the game solo, even when a map has eight entrances to watch, but several of the maps would be much more reasonable with a second wand or shotgun. Then again, several of the classic maps would be much more reasonable with a second wand or shotgun.

: Zubon

[GW2] Gathering Gold

There’s a huge laundry list of tips over at Hunter’s Insight. I think it’s too much for a new player to digest, but it is a great list for players that have spent a good deal of time in beta already. There might be a few tricks that have been overlooked. I know for me auto-looting is going on as soon as possible at launch.

There’s one tip that is rightly at the beginning of the crafting section that I believe is critical to an MMO-efficient new player, such as the well-regarded readers of Kill Ten Rats. It reads to pick up tools as soon as possible, and here’s the critical part, because even if you’re not a crafter this is a good way to make money by putting them on the trading post. Continue reading [GW2] Gathering Gold

[GW2] Memories of Guild Wars 2 Development

It’s a weird thing to love a game because of ownership. I love the ideas and rules man has placed with regard to property, especially intellectual property. Property of the mind. Guild Wars was the first MMO that made me feel like I owned the game. Amidst subscription services and embryonic free-to-play games, Guild Wars made me feel like a customer empowered. Memories of Guild Wars 2’s development have amplified that feeling of ownership to an unexpected level for the upcoming game. Continue reading [GW2] Memories of Guild Wars 2 Development

DLC of sorts

Orcs Must Die! 2 has the often-condemned “DLC in the box” … of sorts. 10 levels from the original game have been re-done for the new game, which means you can play them co-op, use your OMD2 character with all its upgrades, etc. How do you get this? Own the original game. This makes it a bonus for returning players and an incentive for new players to try the first game (which can be under $5 with all DLC when on sale).

If you’re going to put DLC in the box, the polite option is to give it away to most of your target audience.

: Zubon

[Eve] Mauling a Moros, Saving a System

As per usual, the clients of Surely You’re Joking, were under assault from a star fleet looking to evict them from their Wormhole.   In quite unusual fashion, they hired us three hours before their tower was set to exit Reinforce…   Now under normal circumstances we would ignore their cries of desperation because the logistics of moving our fleet out of our home system, traveling through known space and finding a way into their sieged system, gathering sufficient intel to ensure victory and then taking the field, requires significantly more than three hours notice to accomplish…   but despite our attempts to convince him otherwise, the Glorious Leader was insistant that we were going to make this happen.

We started rolling our static connection to find a way out.  Initially with so little time to travel, and with the clients having no way for us to get into their hole, our plan was to roll our static C6 until we found a C6 static 5, and then roll that 5 in hopes of K162’ing into the Target Wormhole.   In case you are wondering, the statistical probability of success is rather close to zero, but we had no choice.   After about thirty minutes the clients located a High Security exit, through their static C3 and delivered us our entrance point… 49 jumps from our current K-Space exit… and only one hour remaining on their tower clock.

With time ticking away, our very shiny fleet burned through a dozen Low Security systems to get into High Sec and make our way across the galaxy in hopes of entering before the enemies destroy the tower, decimate the capital fleet floating in the shields and force our clients from their home….

We entered the C3 that leads to the Target Hole just as the tower is destroyed and the shields drop.  Has Surely You’re Joking finally failed to complete a merc contract?

I jumped into the wormhole first in my trusty bait drake, Nymeria, and started shooting their Warp Disruption bubble in hopes that they would warp to kill me, get trapped in their own bubble and then get shredded by our fleet lurking just on the other side.  They recognized my Alliance tag however, and wisely chose instead to flee to their small tower, knowing that even though they outnumbered us 2 to 1, and had 3 Dreadnought Capital Ships in system, they were no match for our deadly efficiency.

Only one problem for them…  one of their Moros pilots was stuck in Siege at the wasteland of the former tower, so we warped the fleet in and engaged, hoping for either a Capital killmail, to lure their fleet to engage us, or well…  both!   The Moros never stood a chance…  and chose cowardice over dying like a man.

Our fleet had a bubble of our own, and caught his pod before the coward could flee the field of battle….    This is what Killmail Whoring looks like:

After dealing with the Moros, we secured the system, while Pell began negotiations with the enemy invaders.  They wanted the system, but realized that while taking it from our clients was one level of difficulty, holding it with [HAHA] in the game, was another level they were neither equipped to handle, nor prepared to engage, so they accepted Pell’s offer to abandon the system with only the loss of their pride and their Moros as the badges of their shame.

Our clients stood amazed as we swooped in at the last-minute and rescued them with elite precision and a casual nonchalance about engaging outnumbered and out-classed with regards to ships, and WINNING!   While they did lose a tower, and a few tower modules, we saved their Capitals, fleet, the tower loot and their system.   We proposed our standard fee for services, and they paid in a blink of an eye, and given the emergency nature of the deal, and their gratitude, they doubled the payment unsolicited to express their gratitude.

Just another day in the life of the top mercenary gang in Wormhole space.

~Cyndre

First Impressions: Orcs Must Die! 2

I was pleasantly surprised last night to realize that Orcs Must Die! 2 (OMD2) had been released. I had not realized it was being made until there was a pre-order sale, and that seems to have been on the cusp of release. I enjoyed the first one and found it contrasted with the competition by having higher quality content but fewer hours of it: better gameplay, no grind. I stayed up too late sampling OMD2.

OMD2 is a much broader experience. It has three modes (story, classic, endless), three difficulty levels, cooperative play, and a chance to play as the villain of the first game. Levels are recycled within those options.

Character progression has been added. In the first game, you could upgrade a trap once, ever, done. There was also a within-map tech tree for enhancing traps and abilities. In the sequel, you earn skulls and spend them to unlock and upgrade things, in addition to what you unlock for completing levels. A trap might have five possible upgrades, and the total cost to cap everything must be in the thousands of skulls. I do not know how grindy this will feel in the long run; I did not use all the traps in the first game, so I don’t feel a need to unlock and upgrade everything. There will be the question of how many upgrades the game is balanced around.

I remain a fan of scaling difficulty by number and type of monster, not having monsters scale. Don’t give me a 80,000hp orc. Give me some ogres or 80,000hp worth of orcs. OMD2 continues saying that an orc you can one-shot on the first map is an orc you can one-shot on the last map. To give some options between orcs and ogres, orcs come in light, medium, and heavy, and they can again have shields or crossbows.

OMD2 starts faster than OMD1, presumably assuming you played the first one. The backstory is only briefly explained, and our Bruce Campbell protagonist continues his impudent dialogue. The first level of OMD2 is much more complex than the first of 1, and it ramps up more quickly. So far, the maps have been fair challenges: you can beat them on the first try, but getting a five-skull score will probably require a replay. I had a blast spending an evening mostly in story mode, and I will be back after having played more.

: Zubon