Month: May 2013

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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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Thoughts Throughout a Rainy Week

These are a simple man’s thoughts that didn’t make it to full posts:

Warframe is a really nice third-person shooter with some ninja-magic effects. The Canadian team seems to have a very good grasp of everything from updates to the cash shop to their technology. Things can get a little grindy, but it pretty much equates to playing anyway. I dislike grinding/buying classes, but for players unwilling to pay the cash shop for classes, the grind seems very reasonable.

I’ve slowed down a lot with Minecraft Feed-the-Beast. I feel like the tech game is mostly over, and now I’m thinking of shedding everything and heading in to the Twilight Forest. The highly anticipated Aether 2 mod seems like it might get released this weekend too. It is an amazing dimension mod in its own right, but the mod team added dungeon instances to the mod. Continue reading Thoughts Throughout a Rainy Week

[LoL] Tribunal

I have started reviewing cases for the League of Legends tribunal. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. One case was decided in literally the first two words of the chat log. On other games, I want a replay or to see the text before or after the game itself.

Is there just something about Master Yi? A disproportionate number of people I see reported play Yi. It is like he is a lightning rod for foul-mouthed jerks and trolls.

: Zubon

[GW2] Last Stand and Delivery

The Living Story sun is setting on Southsun. Canach has been apprehended. Next week contracts will be saved and karka queens will be killed. Then off to the revelry of Dragon Bash to forget all the issues remaining settlers will have to face. This portion of the Living Story was actually pretty good. There are a lot of things going on with the story throughout the island. It’s telling was hit or miss.

The story speaks of Canach, returned from the Molten Alliance “war” where he fought with the Pact against the enemy. He has a standing vendetta against the Consortium, and he feels the best thing to do is free the bonded refugees on Southsun Cove from their contracts of servitude. The best way to do this, of course, is to rile up the local, dangerous wildlife to attack everybody, settler refugees included. Tempers rise and settlers and the Consortium’s goons start to skirmish themselves. Continue reading [GW2] Last Stand and Delivery

[TSW] Narrative Silence

The year of story MMOs: 2012. The three big MMOs that year all had story as a big bulletpoint. Star Wars The Old Republic had a fully voiced monstrosity.  Guild Wars 2 parsed theirs out with the Personal Story. And The Secret World, kind of mentioned it as part of missions and things. Surprisingly, I think The Secret World won as far as narrative delivery of story and lore.

I enjoy the way all three games deliver story content. There are flaws in all three. I don’t like how heavy The Old Republic can feel. I don’t like how disjointed all the arcs and “personal” narration fees in Guild Wars 2. And, I don’t like how the cut scene for a mission in The Secret World can have the barest relation to the forthcoming content at hand. Continue reading [TSW] Narrative Silence

[LoL] A Twist of Fate

I’m not much one for cinematics, but this is a nice close-up view of some League of Legends champions. On the gripping hand, it does not really show off what League of Legends is about. It is mostly one-on-one fights, which shows off the champions well, but it involves neither laning nor team fights. If you really want to show a League of Legends cinematic you need to put together a five-on-five fight around a tower with both minion waves hitting it.

I imagine that one good minute of that takes more time than this entire video.

: Zubon

[LoL] Level-Setting or Randomization?

I have been playing a lot of ARAM. My win rate recently is in the 50% range, but it’s streaky: 2-4 in a row either way, rarely win-lose-win-lose. I’m not sure if I have reached my appropriate level with hidden ELO or whether ARAM is just so random that each game is more or less a coin flip of who gets good team composition, who gets utter rubbish players, whose team is randomly the perfect counter to the other…

On the other hand, I seem to have gotten above the point where half the matches are 4 vs 5 because someone AFKs/disconnects. And I am starting to appreciate queue dodges because of that: I would rather have someone reset the whole game than make it an uneven waste of time.

: Zubon

[WS] A Risky Path

An Epic Drop™ of information has just been launched in to space by Carbine Studios. They cover Paths for WildStar with a humorous “in-game” video, a DevSpeak, and a comprehensive web page on the subject.

Paths, simply put, are a sub-class to the character. The class, such as Warrior or Spellslinger, defines internal playstyle. A Warrior uses greatswords and is very melee based. A Spellslinger uses pistols and warps around the battlefield. Paths define external playstyle by offering specific content to a player with a defined Path. In another sense, WildStar is codifying achievements in to splats. Bartlett Explorers can now enter a niche to ensure that they’ll be doing explorer-type things. Continue reading [WS] A Risky Path

[GW] Goodnight, Sweet Prince

Guild Wars is going on automated life support. Any thoughts on advancing the story on the Nameless Lich, Evennia’s disappearance, or Beyond Elona are now officially quashed. It would be nice if any of these are answered, but given ArenaNet’s penchant for keeping things unanswered most of it will likely go in their internal wiki version of Warehouse 13 (which is ironically being taken off life support).

My fondest memory is still in the early day when my old international guild beat the Hall of Monuments. This was the first and only time I ever went there and won. It was amazing enough that we beat it given the tough competition and our middling synergy, but I received a Celestial Sigil. The other thing I really remember was the War in Kryta. It might have been a dead cat bounce in community activity, but it was a lot of fun. The community was really alive with that content.

In some ways its hard to believe that Guild Wars is being eternally paused. What is the life of an MMO? It’s hard to say within the hopeful view of World of Warcraft and EVE Online reigning. Lord of the Rings Online seems to feel more and more like the elves of the Third Age looking to the West, but it is still alive and kicking out content. Are we almost through a significant portion of the life of Guild Wars 2? Bits of news like Guild Wars 1 seem to bring out a time for reflection.

I’d love to hear some more stories people remember about their time in Guild Wars.

–Ravious

[LoL] ARAM

I have been enjoying the new mode in League of Legends. “All random all middle” is even more frantic fun than Dominion, although almost all strategy is gone in favor of tactics.

  • You can reroll your champion every few games, so it is not fully random. This is especially a good thing for people who bought packs like the one when League of Legends launched. Have seven champions you’ve never played because they were not really your style? Rerolls minimize that punishment.
  • But then you get the chance to try new things. Ryze? More fun than I remembered from the time or two I played him, although see below for why his spells aren’t the best for ARAM.
  • The most important thing about ARAM is that team fights start NOW, often before minions spawn. When the whole game is team fights, the values of various abilities and champions change.
  • AE is obviously far more valuable.
  • Skill shots are also far more valuable. You do not need much skill to toss a skillshot into a crowd and hope for the best. Even given that, skill shots are even more valuable than you think because the enemies are boxed in one lane. You don’t need to spray and pray to appreciate having a shooting alley.
  • Juking is less valuable, with far fewer options, although the people who can pull it off are impressive.
  • Support wins games, above and beyond what you are used to. Healers are fabulous with no healing fountain. Soraka and Sona are great support combined with offensive powerhouses in ARAM.
  • Alistar is similarly amazing, enough to merit his own bullet point. Tank with AE heal and CC, plus the R of “soak all the damage”? I have only seen a team with Alistar lose once.
  • Team composition is very important. Four melees? You’re probably dead already. Opposing team is the MMO contingent of tank, healer, and three DPS? Yep, that’s bad. Because team composition is mostly random, the game can be randomly unwinnable before you even start. This is an intrinsic hazard of randomness, but still generally unfun.
  • It is still hard to find 10 people who can stay connected and play a video game for 10-20 minutes. While I have had a good streak today, I have had days where half my games were 4 vs. 5. This is not a satisfying way to win or to lose, and if there is any punishment for quitting once you see the previous bullet point, it is not visible to the people who must suffer through it.
  • Remember, the most important thing in the game is to make sure everyone knows it is not your fault that your team lost. Everyone else was bad, you had lag, the opposing champs are OP, and team comp sucked gg lol noobs

: Zubon