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.
.There will never be a “WoW Killer” simply because WoW itself was unable to kill any of the big MMOs in existence when it launched. If big bad WoW couldn’t kill when it launched, why would we think something new would be able to kill WoW? And why do we want to kill WoW anyway? I like to have options.
– Ethic
I mean, that’s a big turtle, probably 4-5 feet tall at the top of its shell, but why can it send me flying >10 meters? I think it did that with a headbutt. Even for a game where you can resurrect the dead by smoking, that’s a little odd.
It did, however, lead to one of my most awesome little moments in-game. The turtle bashed me into a rock, I richoceted off, and cut him down with my axe before landing. That’ll teach you to toss a dwarf!
: Zubon
I’m not interested in writing a bunch of stuff that will likely be covered by several other sites so instead I’m just going to write a little about the impressions I got from playing in the Warhammer Online beta.
First off, the game was not nearly as polished as I had hoped. It had plenty of weird bugs and glitches including the “crash to desktop”. It was not unusual to attack something and watch it run around trying to find a path to you. Messages appeared on the screen telling you that you are out of range of something even though it is standing in front of you. Many of the classes really did nothing for me at first glance. I almost felt like I had to choose the class that was the least boring. The level of graphics was restricted to a level that made it hard to enjoy at times. So all in all, it was not the perfect game ready to take the world by storm.
Warhammer Alliance is hosting a copy of the player’s guide (in pdf format) that you get with the beta client. It is not totally up to date but if you hunger for more information, check it out.
– Ethic
Since I committed to at least trying Warhammer, I thought I should look stuff up. I was briefly planning to go in completely blind and just pick what looked fun at the character select screen, but I can read the same info before I get there.
These guys look fun. Somewhat silly violent green things? I was all about the Tau when I played a bit of the Warhammer 40K game (computer, not tabletop), but the Greenskins just look fun. It will be the same sort of light-RP we get in The Shire, at least if they attract the sort I think they will.
I suppose the Squig Herder is like WoW’s Hunter: archer/pet class. I like pets, and my current The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ archer does not have one. But maybe I could use a bit of a change. I usually don’t tank, but I have always liked the “metal jaw” look of Warhammer orcs. But wait, what’s this? A hybrid healer-DPS who gets bonuses to damage from healing and to healing from dealing damage? Waaaagh!
: Zubon
I suppose this means I will also be trying a Runekeeper in The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Mines of Moriaâ„¢. That is my City of Heroes Defender nature talking: I love hybrid support-ranged DPS characters.
Some screen shots have recently appeared regarding Funcom’s next MMO, The Secret World. Zombies, Demons or Mutants?
– Ethic
The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ takes an unusual path with its epic storyline. You start out as the epic side-quest, running parallel to Bilbo and the gang around the time of the Prancing Pony. Villains appear there, and you chase them down for several books, like one of The Nine or the Witch-King’s servants who lead the attackers in that side-quest. That takes you about one-third of the way through, when the real story picks up. Now you are defending the homelands against the armies of Angmar (hence the name of Volume 1).
Through it all, you are reminded frequently that your PC is not the point of this story. This is not just the prologue for Volume 2, where you are sent to buy supplies for the company, or the frequent other errand and courier quests. More than that, the big end scene for many of the epic books involves stopping the action and having NPCs take over. A few times, you really do get to defeat the big enemy. Good for you! Often, not. Either there is no big end fight, or the NPC gets to finish it. Books I, II, VIII, XIII, and XIV all do this, and there may be more that I do not remember. The enemy gets to 5-10% hp, the fight stops, and the NPCs do their little play.
In one sense, the ending to Book XIV was fantastic. It gives a piece of lore that has been speculated upon, it theoretically changes the dynamic of the game world (despite the game world being utterly static), and it has a really great scene with the mount you all want. In another sense, it even takes camera control away from you. You are not just standing there watching a brief machinima, reading text, or seeing a cut scene. You lose camera control for several minutes as you stand there and watch the NPCs carry out their business.
Without you. Because you’re not important.
: Zubon
Why are our options “broken or not at all”? I’m thinking of various specific examples, but you don’t need them, because you have seen it in almost every game. I have seen explicit developer statements that if the new stuff has no game-crashing bugs, it will go live, even though there are large known bugs. Because you can just eat the parts of your dinner that have no cockroaches.
We can fix balance once it’s live and we see how the players are using it. There are some exploits, but we’ll just suspend accounts if people use them (also, don’t tell people what not to do, because then everyone will know about the exploits). Let’s release the content even though it is literally impossible to complete it, because we can probably fix that before too many people get to the completely broken parts. Nah, don’t bother to update “Known Issues” on the website, I’m sure we’ll get to it quickly.
Fast, cheap, good: I wish we could get two. I read Scott’s comment as saying we demand all three and sometimes get zero. Quite often, we are getting one, and it is usually cheap. Hey, for $15/month, you would have trouble finding any better outside a public library. But updates come late and are still buggy after the patch to fix the bugs caused by the patch to the update. You’re paying for crap and you’re getting it. You’re paying $50 for crap when a new box of it comes out, and you knew from the beta that it was still buggy crap.
I suppose we can compare the industry to baseball. There, you are a great hitter if you only fail two-thirds of the time.
: Zubon
Wednesday’s post reminded me that I have not poked my head into Kingdom of Loathing for months. I took a break before NS13, and I never really got back into it afterwards. I just found the level 11 and 12 quests to be a drag, a grindishly long haul. Your character even comments on that during the level 11 quest. After NS13, there was a pause in the Tuesday updates, well deserved, but I wandered off.
We can look at the updates, but is there anything you’d really like to say to sell the game? Something with awesomeness that needs expounding? Is doing a set of Bad Moon runs super-fun? How about those new zones? If you are a current player, consider this an open thread to hype, brag, and recruit. If you are a former player, consider this an open thread for reminiscing about what fun you had. Or rant about how it has all gone down the tubes since they introduced the Astral Badger, whatever.
: Zubon
You didn’t feel like working today, did you? Wouldn’t it be more fun to talk with your friends about this summer’s comic book movies? It has been a good year for them. Let’s have a lively comment thread for Friday, and let’s just put everything below the fold. Continue reading Summer Comic Book Movies