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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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So, what am I missing?

I have to conclude I’m either missing things, or doing them terribly wrong. Just to give it a fairer shake (and to keep Psychochild from hitting me below the belt) I went ahead and grabbed a trial key for Fallen Earth. I didn’t think it twice when I saw them available because, one, that was one of my original semi-complaints -the lack of a trial- and two, it wouldn’t be the first time I had to eat crow about a game I originally disliked for whatever reason and ended up winning me over big time. I don’t mind being proven wrong if I end up with a good game.

Problem is, it’s not really clicking. In fact, something funny happened; my original complaints about the visuals, while not entirely invalidated after judging the game “the way it’s meant to be judged”(tm), have been lessened. While the rest of the stuff in the game, which I had no way of experiencing from mere screenshots and which I had assumed to be good because of comments from a lot people whose opinion I value, ended up being quite the disappointment.

Let’s go piece by piece, like Jack the Ripper:

Continue reading So, what am I missing?

Expectation of Balance

What follows is, a nitty gritty nerdy look at certain legacies on legendary items and class balance, so be warned.

Some time ago, I was trying to determine the value of different fire legacies on runekeeper items by determining their exact relation to the dps of runekeeper skills. There were two legacies which were causing me confusion. One of those legacies was called “Wrath of Flame Damage Over Time” and the other was called “Fire Skill Damage”. Because every single runekeeper fire skill does damage-over-time and every single runekeeper fire skill is considered a “Wrath of Flame” skill, I found this to be confusing. I thought that there must be a reason behind their separation. I thought that if one effected “Damage over time” specifically, the other must somehow… not do that.
Continue reading Expectation of Balance

The Tyranny of Habit

Looking at Borderlands, I was immediately drawn to the class that gets a turret. Ooh, and they can heal! I was secondarily drawn to the sniper/pet class. It took me a few minutes to realize that I had just picked exactly the same thing that I play in every game: support, ranged DPS, pets and tower defense.

Freakishly, playing World of Warcraft was something new for me. My Paladin melees. (It is my wife’s approach: “I have a sword. I hit things.”) I am still not one to tank, but I could.

: Zubon

Guild Wars Sealed Deck

Last night, ArenaNet launched a pretty hefty update for Guild Wars.  The update prepared for the annual Halloween bash, my favorite annual MMO event, with Costume Brawl, Mad King Thorn and new Halloween-only quests in the Underworld (where it’s rumored players become actual candy servants of the Mad King).  The weightiest heft in the update was by far the removal of Hero Battles and Team Arenas counterbalanced by the addition of the Codex Arena.

The Codex Arena is a 4-player sealed deck arena with 3-simple rules.  First, each profession will only get to use 20 randomly chosen skills each day, 5 of which will be elite.  These random skills will be the same for all players.  Second, players can only use elite skills from their primary profession (a welcome addition, in my opinion).  Finally, the team of four has to have four different primary professions.  No four Warrior/Monk teams allowed.

The Codex Arena I think will be a great addition to Guild Wars PvP.  My one holdback is the “activation energy” to play.  If the skills change every day how much time is going to be spent creating a team versus actually playing?  My hope is that the elite PvP’ers will create some sort of quick and dirty template (likely they already have) where a team makes one melee, one healer, one harasser, and then something else so jobs can be given out to individual teammates.  I still think that new sealed skills every day might be too high of a turnaround, but I am guessing the Guild Wars Live Team is going to keep a close eye on their new baby.  Things like the amount of skills each day and the skill turnover rate should be easy to adjust.  Either way, it looks like it is going to be a great addition to the Guild Wars PvP gametypes.

–Ravious
imperiled in every single battle

What’s Wrong With Borderlands?

The quick description seems to be “a FPS with Diablo-style loot and questing in the Weird West.” Every comment I have seen has been positive, along the lines of “it is pure, concentrated, liquid awesome, with a side order of flaming orgasm.” The most negative I have heard is “moar!” Heartless has been blogging it since he got his new URL, and I am particularly fond of this video. Steam will give me 10% off if I pre-order and buy-3-get-1-free so I can bring in all my friends for the coop mode.

Having played with Heartless and seen him go through a couple of other games, I expect that I will know what is wrong with Borderlands in about a month. Few people effectively express that anguished rage after initial enthusiasm that comes from a dream not quite fulfilled. It really is an art, and my version is just pissy analytic verbosity. Like that phrase right there. Anyway, maybe this is what we have all been waiting for, or maybe we will find that we did not miss Diablo-style loot after all. I’m thinking of picking it up, maybe getting the 4-pack so I can gift some friends, and I want to know if you know any landmines.

And if you haven’t heard of it, hey, crazy fun.

: Zubon

The 2% MMO

The one thing I hate in DIKU-style MMOs more than grinding, more than the level cap gear-reset, more than content gating is quite simply bonuses.  I hate bonuses because there is such a delicate balance between the growing player stats and mobs stats up the leveling food chain that the bonuses have to appear to be insignificant.

Take one of the best crafted jewelries in Lord of the Rings Online right now, the glowing aureate band.  It has a bunch of strong stat and morale bumps, along with a stepchild bonus to parry rating.  +124 parry rating is about the equivalent of 0.33% more parry chance.  That means that statistically speaking a player will parry 1 out of every 300 attacks made against him or her.  It seems petty.  Was adding the additional parry rating the item dev’s attempt at a joke? Continue reading The 2% MMO

Internet Lesson: Pedobear is a Bad Children’s Theater Icon

The story mirror link does not get more amusing than the initial explanation that it happened, unless you enjoy watching normal humans trying to understand 4chan. In fairness to the theater, if you polled your workplace on who knows what Pedobear is, you would get a lot of blank stares.

Do not poll your workplace on Pedobear.

: Zubon

Dawntide: The Beta Without NDA

Dawntide. How refreshing.

… you may be wondering where the NDA that comes with most beta tests is. There isn’t one, because fundamentally we want people to talk about Dawntide and show things off, and we need to know when something is broken. If people find something wrong with the game, they’re going to tell other people it’s a bad game regardless of any NDA. Feel free to take and post screenshots and discuss the game with your friends.

Thanks to Werit for the invite!

– Ethic

Dyed-in-the-Wool MMO Health

I like alternative ways to rate things, and it is especially needed for Lord of the Rings Online because Turbine (a privately held company, mind you) does not and will not release subscriber information unless they want to.  My new alternative benchmark for peering behind Turbine’s iron curtain of server populations involves black dye.  Continue reading Dyed-in-the-Wool MMO Health