Holy moly has ArenaNet been hard at work on Guild Wars 2. I simply find it amazing that whole systems are changing and evolving between beta weekends. Sure, this coming weekend there is another zone opened up at the top end of content, but I feel that the zone was in the hopper so to speak. When core systems advance post open beta, I think it definitely adds points to ye ol’ beta score scale. Let’s take a look…
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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.
.Great Moments on the Forums
Thread title: “What is the best SOLO FIGHTING CLASS(PLEASE DON’T GIVE YOUR OPINION!)” While no additional comment seems necessary, he goes on to elaborate in the body of the post:
What is the best solo Fighting class (PLEAS DON’T GIVE YOUR OPINION!!!!!)
: Zubon
Shootmania Storm
Since we’re on the subject of other gaming genres, I wanted to point out Shootmania Storm with a killer announcement trailer. It’s a first-person shooter (FPS) which is built in the vein of pure arena FPS like Quake 3 Arena or Unreal Tournament. The palette is pretty pure with hit counts instead of health, recharge instead of ammo, and a sprint. Yet, when the gameplay is so focused it still retains very tight variants.
The recent E3 tournament focused around a variant called Elite. It’s 3v3 attack/defend except each round is actually 1 elite vs. 3 defenders. The elite gets 3 armors and an insta-kill rail gun, and the defenders get no extra armor and a slower moving rocket launcher with small splash damage. Defenders can fire off 4 rockets at once, while the elite’s rail gun has a couple second recharge between each shot. The elite has about 45 seconds to scout the flagpole capture point and then about 15 seconds to capture the flag. If the elite gets eliminated (3 rocket hits) or the defenders all die (one rail gun hit each) the round can also be over. It’s a really nice twist on arena gameplay, which requires very high skill.
My favorite announced variant is Joust, which is a 1v1 map with two opposing capture points. Each player has limited ammo (5 shots or so) that can only be refilled at the capture points along with a rail gun with one shot. Points are gained per hit. I’ve heard in other previews that if a player doesn’t touch a capture point within 30 seconds the match is lost. The announcement trailer showcases another variant which seems more akin to team deathmatch with capture points.
Just like Nadeo’s Trackmania series, Shootmania Storm will have easy map-making tools, scripting tools for servers, and ‘casting/machinimas capabilities. It’s slated for release later this year, but you can sign up for beta now. It’s got me pretty excited.
–Ravious
Crit and Botch
Regular readers know that I love little differences with big effects. Elegance in design is a thing of beauty, and tracing the secondary effects of a small change can yield big results.
Our friend Tesh has a good example with critical hits in Zomblobs! (under development):
Criticals in Zomblobs! happen when all of the dice you roll show the same number. … Most curiously, these criticals are easier to score the fewer dice you roll. Weaker attacks have greater potential to hit a little bigger. This particular “crit†design is therefore more of an “underdog†mechanism, rather than a “win more†mechanism. Instead of harder hits probably hitting even harder, it’s the weak hits that are most likely to slip in a little extra punch.
Simple, elegant, effective. On the other side, it reminds me of the old World of Darkness botch mechanic. Under the previous generation of their system, 1s cancelled out successes, and having negative successes led to a critical failure. Higher skill gave you more dice to roll, and higher difficulty meant needing a higher number to succeed. The net effect was that, for very difficult tasks, having more dice meant a greater botch chance. In some sense, this made sense. If you are an utter novice, it is hard to get far enough in to really mess things up; it is the middling-low range of competence that is really dangerous. On the other hand, you can see the statistical perversity of a system where getting better can hurt you. The designers there did not have the numeracy and/or interest to trace through the effects of their system.
: Zubon
LIMBO
I finally booted up LIMBO yesterday, inspired by the Humble Bundle. I would not recommend it. If I may refer back to a recent post, if the first things people praise about a game are its mood and atmosphere, you should immediately note that “gameplay” is not at the top of the list.
The mood and atmosphere are good, though broken at the mid-point. Continue reading LIMBO
[GW2] Poor Feedback
With the next beta weekend event upcoming, I must confess that I bollixed some feedback last time. ArenaNet is using a system you probably know from other betas: when you finish a heart or event, you get a pop-up asking you to rate it on a few scales (with a comment box). Get that feedback now before the players forget, move on, etc. For me, the problem arose with stacked content. Early on in charr lands, and surely elsewhere, there is an event taking place on a heart, so participating in the event also fills the heart (at the junkyard, in this case). I completed both at once. I did not realize I had two stacked pop-ups until I cleared the first one and realized I was not sure what I just gave feedback on. It was two completions, and I think an achievement or two, plus some enemies still running around, plus whatever normally happens in that heart, plus all that loot to grab before “how long do I have to loot?” and do I need to salvage to make pack space, plus people to rez, and I may have leveled. I need a couple of minutes to decompress after that many things happen at once in a new game, and I have multiple feedback windows in the sky and glittering things on the ground. Aaagh!
: Zubon
Humble Indie Bundle V
Amnesia, Limbo, Psychonauts, and Superbrothers, plus Bastion as a bonus game, plus all their soundtracks. Heck, I own four of those, and I’m considering picking it up.
: Zubon
[GW2] Guild Wars 2 Beta Key Contest
Congrats to all the winners! My favorite was  “to go back to their roots” as simple, and oft-repeated as it was. The winners, all randomly chosen, are:
Nicc0 – Oggy – Zazuki – alp – Peter Mackie – Bevis212 – TheSanto – Wok – Brimstar – Ancrath – Talzin – Moxxi – Stcha – Pirateking – Max Okazaki – Genzi – Andre Simmonds – Dark Link – Scott – Smi
Emails containing the key have been sent out. Please check  your spam folders as “winning” + links is usually spam anyways.
EDIT: Talk about a response! We are unfortunately ending this contest a bit early as we’re approaching technical issues. Thank you all for entering. I will determine the winners by the end of Friday. –Rav
ArenaNet was awesome enough to throw a couple Guild Wars 2 beta keys for the upcoming beta weekend our way. Did I say a couple? How about twenty! These keys are good just for the Guild Wars 2 weekend event occurring June 8-10.
How to enter? Simply answer this question via comments below: Why did the sylvari cross the road? with a clever, bookah answer by the end of this Friday, June 1st. (Hint: “to get to the other side” is not a clever, bookah answer.) Please leave a valid email with the comment, and only one entry per person please. I will then randomly choose 20 participants on Saturday, June 2nd and notify the winners here and privately via email.
Good luck, and thanks to ArenaNet!
–Ravious
[Eve] What Next?
Evenings in New Eden have seen a lot of activity from the pilots of INQ-E recently.  Ten-man fleets are becoming commonplace and the diversity of our activities has been very enjoyable and very rewarding.  We spent some time in Null, we have had a steady string of Grav sites and have hauled in so much ore we have not only filled the Corp POS holds to overflowing, but it has started spilling over into Weezi’s POS hanger as well, and that is in danger of capping out… We have been running combat sites non-stop and even have had a bit of time to pew pew in LoSec or the other wormhole connections that have spawned. We now run Ore Refinery, Gas Reactions, Invention, BPC Research, Ammo Production, and are producing T2 Modules inside the hole….
Busy, profitable, and fun, and the conversation every night turns to ‘whats next?’
[GW2] Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Zwei!
One nice bit of news is that the second Guild Wars 2 pre-purchase access beta weekend was announced in the midnight hours by Chris “Snowcrash” Whiteside on the ArenaNet blog. The most important bit of information of course is that the beta weekend runs from June 8th to June 10th, which gives gamers a good week or so to stock up on foodstuffs and earn points with the significant others. The next bit hints at further blog posts coming down the line:
We have listened intently to all of your feedback from our first Beta Weekend Event, and we’ve made great strides toward resolving many of the issues you’ve helped us identify. These include party movement into overflow servers, chat functionality, key bindings, server stability, performance, and many more that we will detail in the near future.
Since we already know that the asura and sylvari will not be playable, it is likely that the same content will be available to play. This is compounded by the blog’s mention that with no character wipe players will be able to access the explorable parts of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon (level 35). This is a bold position because instead of limelighting new content to shift community focus, ArenaNet is believably going to keep the same content in a more focused light.   The “great strides” are made all the more critical. That’s bold, ArenaNet.
I have a plan to play the lackey. I plan on playing a “support” elementalist that is big on daggers and the water and earth attunements who will basically run towards players instead of events. Elementalist is one of my last choices for live, and I want to kind of go crazy next beta weekend. What do you plan on doing this time around?
–Ravious