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Oct 17th, 2010 at 03:57:09 - Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (PC) |
Just finished the AoC trial, which is the first 20 levels and is contained on the starter island with a great cohesive story arc. The city is ruled by the oppressive Strom and his Red Hand guards who are brutal to the commoners. There's a prosperous and deadly slave trade. You wash up on the island mysteriously, with no knowledge of who you are. You've got to try and remember. Through completing the 20-level story arc, you get bits and pieces of information about your past and your future.
I used to laugh when I'd read about AoC being, according to the devs, "the most savage, sexy, and brutal MMO ever" because the claims sound ridiculous. They certainly did make an adult game, and you can tell they tried to make it savage and sexy and brutal, and some of it comes across as convincing, and some of it really is laughable. One thing I liked about this is that it's not high fantasy for a change. Like 90+% of MMOs are high fantasy. This one was more about bad people and wild beasts. Sure, there's magic and curses and gods and stuff, but the Conan universe was well done and made the game feel relatively realistic. I am surprised I liked it so much. The realism helped their savage and brutal claims, but the sexy claim is not cool. This is a male's game. The male characters are all idealized versions of masculinity, and the attitude of the game is as well. Everyone's got sharp tongues, there's a lot of cursing and threats tossed around. The females all have huge breasts and it seemed like about half the female NPCs are involved with a brothel or flirt with you anyway. And your character (if male at least, I'd be interested to see how playing a female works here) always has some remark to make to female NPCs about sleeping with them, and they always show interest. In dialogue, males always refer to females they don't like as bitches and whores, and refer to some they do like as whores too. Males call each other bastards and sons of whores, or my favorite, "whoreson." While I understand what they were trying to do with the language, I think it takes away from the game because it's just unnecessary and ends up being quite sexist. It's almost misogynistic.
Speaking of dialogue, all of it is voiced. It's well done too. The dialogue flows like a single-player RPG with several response choices and ability to ask for extra information. The quest are generally very relevant to the story line, which I liked a lot, and the NPCs' presentations are quite good. In fact, the whole game so far (20 levels) feels closer to a single-player RPG than an MMO. Besides the fact that the server was barren of other players, the feel of the action, the personalized story, the quests and NPCs, all made the game feel like it was just for me. I rather enjoyed it. There's a daytime/nighttime mode for actually playing the single-player storyline. Day time is for doing normal quests and is where players coexist in space. You can switch to nighttime for your personalized training, which is the single-player only stuff. You begin helping the Resistance against Strom, and you become more aligned with their goals as events happen and he goes mad and blockades the island so no one can leave. Since your character is on a personal journey, you need to leave, so Strom is a problem. Nighttime is for subversive quests that move the story of finding out about yourself along. Along the way to level 20, you'll infiltrate a volcano fortress to prevent a ritual that leads to the volcano exploding, which is an awesome, awesome action escape sequence with burning rocks raining down as you run for it. You'll help various resistance members do various things that couldn't be done during the day under the watch of guards. It all leads up to the end, another amazing, amazing sequence where the Resistance and you are finally prepared and ready to kill Strom and end his tyranny. You run through the city at night liberating sections of it, with Resistance members helping, and finally confront Strom on his ship and kill him. All these action parts are in the single-player nighttime, so it feels like people are just there to help you grind quests during the daytime. I grouped up once because we were in the same area trying to do the same quests. That was it. Supposedly the game is all about large-scale PvP later on with castle sieges and all kinds of massive battles, but I never saw any PvP nor could I join a battleground of sorts or anything.
Visually, the game is fantastic. There were a lot of little graphical glitches, but it really didn't take away from the total look. On this high-end machine, the water, the trees, the views, the characters, shadows, lighting, was all just gorgeous to look at. One negative are all the load times. Every time you go in a building it has to load. When you begin a session, it has to scan all your files for some reason, so I would have to turn it on, wait 5 or 10 minutes, and then play.
The level, gear, and skill progression is quite nice. There's a sweet spot I like and AoC about hit it. Games bug me when you get really powerful feeling gear very quickly. I personally enjoy beginning in rags and really feeling like I'm working my way up to nicer rewards. I'm only level 20 and should not look like a badass yet. I should feel like one relative to my level 5 or 10 character, but it should be clear that I'm wearing junk. Skills also increased at a good pace. I didn't have 50 spells by level 20. I recently played EQ2 a bit and it seemed like every level I got 2 new skills, which was way more than I needed. With AoC, it was more like 1 every 2 levels, so I used most of what I had and it was all more manageable.
One final note is the death system, which does nothing to prevent one from dying. In most MMOs I've played you're penalized with XP loss or a resurrection sickness of some sort, or at the very least, you go back to get your corpse. In AoC, all that happens is when you die you leave a tombstone and then you're resurrected at the nearest spawn point, which was usually not far away and pretty convenient. The tombstone gives you a debuff that is -1% damage dealt and +1% damage taken. Find your tombstone to remove the debuff. It stacks up to 3 times (3 death and 3 stones), so at worst, you can have -3% damage dealt and +3% damage received. This is nothing. Death does not matter, and I often died on purpose to get closer to where I wanted to go. In contrast, EQ2 gives you an XP deficit to repay that can be annoying and WoW gives you -75% stats for 10 minutes, which makes doing anything but traveling after you resurrect a bad idea. If you go get your corpse, nothing bad happens, but you've still got to run and you're still where you died. AoC does not deter risky play.
All in all, I quite enjoyed the game. It felt more single-player than multi, and I feel pretty much like I just played a short RPG since the whole 20 levels is integrated in a nice story arc and location. I'm not interested in playing it further, maybe because it's supposed to be PvP heavy and I didn't even see any PvP, or maybe because it was good enough, but nothing I'd want to subject myself to for another however many levels. Glad I tried it out and got the experience.
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Oct 12th, 2010 at 07:57:03 - Champions Online (PC) |
Tried out this Champions Online demo that's the beginner section through level 5 or 6. Champions Online is a superhero themed MMO. It's been a long time since I played a superhero game, but I remember watching Daniel play City of Heroes off and on for a summer maybe 5 years ago. It was certainly novel just for that, and I was wondering whether or not it was just MMO as usual with a cel-shaded superhero skin. I'm still unsure, but I saw some unusual things going on that set it apart from the majority.
First of all, character creation is amazing. There are no classes. You completely customize your character, including every facet of their appearance you can think of. Characters appear truly individual. I made the biggest, fattest man with the smallest head and the biggest chin, deer antlers, reptile fins, and blue and yellow lightning patterned tights. I named him Unpossible and he was pretty funny to look at. I saw demon-type characters in-game, some generic looking female and male superheroes, and several modeled and named after popular characters like Preacher. And you also customize your skills. You can choose a set 'archetype' like Lightning or Brawler or Telekinesis, or you can just build your own. I took something like the Engineer archetype, so my two abilities to start were to channel a ray gun, and then use a charge attack for a big ray gun blast.
Abilities were interesting. You can either 'tap' the hotkey, 'maintain' it or one other one...maybe just push. My two abilities were maintained, like charge abilities. Instead of just pushing 1 to shoot my gun, I hold it down to channel it. When you use your channeling type ability, it builds the blue bar, energy of some type, and you use your more powerful ability to blast the enemy with the energy that builds up. Pretty neat, but got a little boring by 5 levels, especially when you don't get any new abilities until after the first mission, which is after level 5. I also had some trouble with buttons responding. Holding the hotkey didn't always channel correctly and there were a lot of hiccups like this. One irritating thing was interacting with NPCs. Instead of just right- or left-clicking like any normal game, Champions's default is Z. It's kind of awkward, but you can't just push Z either. You've got to move close enough and wait for this context box to pop up that tells you to push Z. Then you can push Z. And if you cancel the interaction, the context menu won't just pop up again. You have to run out of range of the NPC first, then run back in and make it pop again.
The art is pretty cool, looks very superhero comic-style, cel-shaded, colorful, nice animations. There are lots of destructible objects and tossable objects, like lampposts, cars, mailboxes, and so on. It was fun uprooting lamps and hurling them at enemies. The objects are a little hard to target. It's the same as with the NPCs. You can see your icon change from far away, but the icon's got to be on a very specific spot on the object, and so you'll see the icon change far away, run closer, the icon disappears because you moved the mouse a little, then try to find it again. Not a huge issue, and I'm sure something anyone would get used to, but just weird selecting objects.
Quests were basic kill this and fetch that, just set in the context of an alien invasion. The tutorial area though was pretty neat. Instead of your typical "Go kill some boars. Great, go kill some level 2 boars now" the first 5 levels Millennium City is under alien invasion! They've cordoned off the city with a forcefield and are destroying everything. It's up to the superheroes to save the citizens, help the police, and stop the mastermind behind the invasion. The game is very action-oriented, almost made me feel like I wasn't playing an MMO because it wasn't so slow and lifeless in the beginning. It reminds me of Warhammer Online in this regard. There are alien ships shooting lasers overhead, the constant sight of the forcefield in the distance, aliens running all over the streets attacking citizens, police holed up in alleys, ambulance sirens wailing, people shouting. The atmosphere was great.
Near the end of the trial, you participate in an open quest, which is like the public quests in Warhammer, where anyone nearby can join in. In this case, you have to defend a giant cannon from an assault so it can remain operational and hold aliens off a critical human area. Then you go into a personal instance to meet an NPC superhero. He reveals the mastermind villain behind the invasion and the two of you take him on together. Afterward, you take a quest called "It's a Celebration!" and when you exit where the super villain was, the police, the mayor, every person you did a quest for, are all lined up cheering for you and standing at attention. The NPC citizens you helped all start telling each other what you did for them, like "He saved my little Timmy!" and "He got my travel documents back so I can catch my flight to Canada!" It was pretty neat. Then you get a choice to go to Canada or the Southwest US desert to fight some more mutants and stuff if you buy the game.
Neat tutorial, neat demo, superhero thing is intriguing. Oh, and I got to look through the abilities at level 5 even though I couldn't buy one. You can spend ability points to fly, get rocket boots, burrow and travel underground, and like 10 other travel powers. I wouldn't buy it because it doesn't seem like too deep of a game and I'm not real into comics or superheros, but it looks like it would be fun.
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Oct 10th, 2010 at 07:05:17 - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC) |
Weekend gaming extravaganza finale: Why Oblivion is going to begin gathering dust.
I sat down for a couple hours of Oblivion this morning. Have been super busy with work and haven't been playing hardly anything the last few weeks, but I got it out of me this weekend. So I was glad to be able to devote time to Oblivion, which I've had ups and downs with since I began playing it. Unfortunately, this whole session was a bunch of un-fun. Let's list the un-fun things I dealt with.
1. Missing Name - Ok, this was actually un-un-fun. It was more weird than anything. I was pickpocketing an NPC and she had this item. It was a Missing Name. It didn't weigh anything and was worth 0 gold. I stole it, saw it didn't do anything interesting, and dropped it. When I dropped it, it materialized into this big bright yellow wall of oops-bug-in-the-game with a giant light blue exclamation mark. I...was stunned. What is this? Why is it here? Why is there a giant yellow mass with an exclamation mark? I googled it and saw that other people found it too. Very strange.
2. The NPC that I stole the Missing Name from gave me an interesting quest to enter this guy's dream and save him. He was lost in his own dream. I saved him, and when we teleported back to his bedroom, he immediately enacted the pissed off and territorial AI script. He began threatening me and demanding I leave his house and chased me around until I did. What a jerk. I save him from his dreams and that's all I get in return. AI in this game is truly inexplicable sometimes.
3. Another silly AI story: I was trespassing in a castle at night when I didn't sneak quietly enough and woke up a servant or cook or something. She was naturally angry to find me there, although half the time, the NPC will wake up and speak to you like normal. Anyway, this one acted like I would expect one to act about an intruder and attacked me. I ran, and another NPC came out behind us and launched a fireball at me. It hit the first NPC instead of me, and the first NPC turned around and attacked the second one. They fought and the fireball NPC won, killing the first NPC. Then the fireball NPC went back to her room to sleep. What? If I had killed anyone, I'd be arrested. NPCs can do whatever their stupid AI tells them and not be arrested. And why would they fight one another? Accidental fireball = fight to the death.
4. So this castle that I was trespassing in is a dangerous place to trespass because guards are ardent patrollers of the master's quarters in castles. I was spotted several times and had to flee the city. The 3rd or so time this happened, I came back in and noticed the city guards were bugged, stacking on top of one another. Always amusing. I walked to the castle door and one guard was staring off into space. I entered, went to the hallway where the countess was, whose room I had to gain access to for a Thieves' Guild quest, and found the Countess lying sprawled on the floor with an attendant standing over her. What happened? How fortuitous actually. Somehow the countess has died in the hallway and I can just loot her corpse and take the ring I'm supposed to steal from her lockbox for my quest. Oops, she's not dead. She's just unconscious. She gets up and begins running in place. The attendant walks into another room. I start trying to pickpocket the countess, but it's like she's not really there. I can't interact with her. She's just running, stopping, running in place, stopping. Then she passes out from fatigue again. Wakes up. Runs in place. And so on. This is frustrating, so I try to reset her somehow. I ran back outside the castle and came back in. This time she runs out the hallway door and turns and runs into a guard in place. I tried to pickpocket her again,but this time it said she was fleeing, so I still couldn't. Ok. I'll walk out and back in again. That worked and she finally got unstuck and returned to normal. I followed her back and pickpocketed her ring. But it didn't give me the quest. Ok. Quest says to steal it from her lockbox at night. So I went to her lockbox after I followed her to her bedroom and she went to sleep. Nothing there. ARg. I could absolutely not figure out what to do. I think all that bugging screwed up the quest, and then me taking things from the lockbox earlier and stealing the ring from her instead of the lockbox might have done it. Who knows. It's irritating though because, unless I want to load my game from way earlier, the game has just bugged out this Thieves' Guild quest, so I can't continue down that storyline. And I'm a thief. So annoying.
5. The last rant is about another stupid NPC. I picked up a quest where I had to lead an NPC to some island she wanted to go to. On the (long) journey there, I discovered a tomb, and we went in. I told her to stay, and I went on alone so she wouldn't die. What happens as soon as I encounter enemies? She comes running. I loaded and did it again. She still comes running and almost gets herself killed. So apparently telling the NPC to 'wait here' doesn't mean much. So after fighting a few times and her almost dying a few times, I just went on with her at low health. Bad idea. As we're walking along the coast, some big spider monster decided to target her and one-shot her. I loaded it back and tried to intervene, and did this about 20 times. Even if I get to the spider monster first and pump like 5 arrows into it, it just ignores me and goes straight for my NPC companion and kills her. So annoying. And what's worse, I can't get my NPC companion to follow me away from the monster! Once she realizes the monster is going to attack her, she runs toward it no matter what I say. So she dies and I can't do the quest. Finally by some stroke of luck, I got to where she avoided the monster and we made it to this camp on an island. She had told me not to attack any of the NPCs there, that she wanted to talk to them. So it's me and her, and there are like 5 NPC men around a campfire who are not hostile to me. She stands on the edge of their camp and doesn't do anything. I go talk to her, and she yells like "Get out of my way!" and just makes a suicide run into the camp attacking the guys. What? Why? She does it every time. And here's the even dumber thing. Even if you leave her alone, that spider monster comes running from a mile away and kills her anyway! Monsters leave you alone if you run far enough away, but this one was just intent on killing her for no good reason. I messed with that stupid quest for an hour before giving her up as dead. So frustrating! The NPCs in this game are so ridiculously stupid I can't believe it. Not only stupid, but they just do things that make no sense whatsoever.
Since this sums up my play session for the day, I really feel like this game isn't worth continuing. It's been ups and downs the whole time, but I've kept with it hoping it will turn into more fun. But it's just not. It shimmers here and there, but overall I find it very frustrating. Two things I wanted to do but haven't are purchase a house and do some of the main quest line. But I've really no motivation for either anymore. I can buy a house, but so what? I can stash things in it? Woohoo. I can do some of the main quest line, but again, so what? I have reason to believe I'll encounter many more stupid NPCs, bugs, and general un-funnery. I am done. Uninstalling.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Oct 10th, 2010 at 07:08:52.
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Oct 10th, 2010 at 05:54:52 - Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC) |
I created a trial account for Warhammer Online originally a year and a half ago because Daniel bought it and was raving about it. We played together a few times and I didn't think anything of it. Since I was still on my old computer, I could barely run the game with graphics all low, and it stuttered and characters floated around, and it generally sucked because of that. I re-downloaded and made another account about 6 months ago and had a blast with it. You can play all you want up until level 10. I got one to 10 with one faction, then leveled another on the other faction to 5, and made a level 2 on the first faction. The level 10 was some dual-wielding melee class; the 5 was a Witch Hunter, who dual wields a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other; the level 2 was a goblin pet class. I just logged in real quick to get some inspiration to put some old thoughts about the trial experience down on paper and so I can close the gamelog for it.
WAR revolves around PvP, or RvR as they call it. RvR is everywhere and involves the two factions, Chaos and Order, fighting it out all over the world. There are RvR objectives built into like every zone, even the starting zones! This makes the game dynamic as territory is always shifting hands. You can, at any time, enter one of a handful of instanced battlegrounds, or you can wander into an official world RvR area in the zone, where teams of players are running around capturing and holding objectives. There are 3 battlegrounds by the time you're level 10, which is awesome. There's basically a dual experience and reward system, one for 'regular' leveling and one for RvR leveling. When I say this game revolves around PvP, I'm serious. You can level up only doing BGs and RvR events if you like. In addition, there are the standard quests, and in these starting zones, a lot of them orient you to RvR objectives.
As far as PvE goes, WAR has these incredibly cool open quests. I can't remember the proper name, but there are areas in each zone with ongoing PvE events that occur in phases. Any player or group can wander on by and see what phase of the event the public quest is in, and they can choose to participate or not. As soon as, say 20 skeletons have been killed in total by all players in the area for phase 1, phase 2 begins and there is a different objective. Anyone stopping by can hop straight into phase 2. It's a very fluid system, and loot is rewarded based on your contribution to the overall quest. After it's all done, it resets, and they all go on like this constantly.
These RvR and PvE events are integrated fantastically into the story of the game. Each part of a zone is a chapter in the story and each PvE or RvR scenario really has something to do with the fighting going on in the Warhammer universe between Chaos and Order. Again, it feels very cohesive and believable. I think the environment and the feel of the world is amazing. The game looks great, the sounds, oh my god, the sounds are phenomenal. You hear shouts and explosions and thunder and howling wolves. The war-torn world is accompanied by a perfect sonic landscape.
A final note on this brief praise of WAR is that the town NPCs are very well done. They go about their business building, moving around, speaking scripted speech with one another, and so on. They did a great job bringing the world to life with the friendly NPCs.
I was tempted to subscribe to this game for a while over the summer, but got busy and never got around to it. I would definitely put this on my #1 spot for games to commit some time and money to after the ones I'm already committing time and money to. I'm very curious as to whether or not it stops being so immersive and plain fun. In 17 total levels, I never got bored. There is always something to do, and it's not just fetch quests. You actually have a bit of a choice in how you want to level. Oh, and BGs scale everyone to the same level, so you're not at a huge level disadvantage, which is a fantastic idea. You can start PvPing at level 1 and be on more or less equal footing. And that's that. Great game, love the trial, will consider trying this one out further in the future.
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