Now awaiting Guild Wars 2...

Unless the information is false, i'm very excited for the development and release of Guild Wars 2. It looks like they're trying to break many old MMO barriers; hats off to them, Mythic tried with the public quests and now its a standard of the industry.

Read the faq here.

The main site here with the fantastic manifesto trailer

I love passionate and ambitious companies; I know its hard to change and much easier to make a clone, and if you fail, atleast you can say you tried your best. Its life; you only have one, you ought to make the best of it! (unless you believe in re-incarnation)

By the way, still haven't received any word on my Warhammer Online Stein.. i'm going to cancel the order. :P

September Wishlist

I'm looking on various sites, and i've only seen two games i'm interested in getting this coming month:

Halo Reach - Sept 14th 2010
I've only watched cinematics and very few actual gameplay trailers; I really only want to get this game b/c (1)there seems to be so much hype, (2) that my best friend and alot of people will be playing it, (3) maybe it was interesting like Halo ODST... but thats basically it. I haven't read much on it, but I think its probably pretty similar compared to other Halo games.

Civilization 5 - September 21st 2010
REALLY looking forward to this one. I can't remember that last turn-based strategy game that I was excited for besides Heroes of Might and Magic. I've played Civ4 when my computer would crash whenever I'd make a monument, the original nearly 10+ years ago on my father's friend's son's pc and I dabbled with Civilization: Alpha Centauri and even have the book. I wish I had one to practice before the new one comes out.

Am I missing anything?
What are you looking forward to this month?

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One thing I loved about DDO was the ability to grab onto ledges.

In most mmo games, developers probably remove this ability as it would break the game b/c it would allow players to get to inaccessible areas. In DDO it makes a big difference; for example, you thought it would be a good idea to explore the water in the docks area of the main city and found there was nothing there. You swim towards shore only to find only one access to the docks but its a good 2 minutes away. In a normal mmo, it would be a chore to have to swim all the way to that access. Instead in DDO, a character with some jump skill, is able to jump and climb up and onto the dock. Time saved. No longer are your arms only useful for holding weapons and shields.

Its a good thing.

FF Rest System Positives

Since i'm home sick with infinite throat phlem (tmi) and periodic coughs which won't allow me to take calls at work, I'll do an entry instead.

Lets talk about the FF14 Online Rest system.

The basic premise which is causing the public furor is that after 8 hours A WEEK the experience gain decreases, thus penalizing players from playing in excess and what seems to cater to casuals.

One of the very few reasons the developers could have been thinking this would be a good thing:
1. A longer climb to max level, meaning more play required, meaning people will play for longer and 'more' money for them through subscriptions.
//i'm not saying this is a right train of thought, just a possibility//

2. Trying to address the difference between casuals and hardcore and bring closer parity between the two.

Are either the right reasons for such an approach? No.

I personally like it; for one reason: If a game is amazing, i'll get addicted and can't stop myself from playing. In this way, i'd be 'better' able AND motivated to stop at a certain amt of gaming to be able to concentrate on other more important RL activities as I like to maximize the efficiency of anything I do.

Buying Used isn't bad

...and can still be capitalized on.

I've read some reasonable, and then i've read some harsh opinions on the current topic of developers guilting us to buy new versus used or 'other' methods.

I'll get straight to the point; we have the right to do whatever we want with our money.

Developers have been evolving and finding better ways to encourage us to buy new, which is reasonable b/c if we don't buy new, they don't get their hard earned money. Ways such as special characters, items, races/class, whatever.

If people buy used, I don't see that being too big a deal; as I commented on Syp's Biobreak, locations that take in used games aren't bad guys:
Say EB games takes in your games, they have promotions on a daily basis that allows you to trade 3 and get a NEW game for free, or trade 2 and (depending on the price of the game) get a new copy of a game for ~$15.
So in this case the developer wins (people get buy new), EB wins (company gets used games to sell), the consumer wins (they get a new game).
If this wasn't in place, games collect dust, gamers may not have the funds to buy whatever game they want meaning:
Developers lose (less people buy new games), EB loses (revenue through used games), consumers lose (no new games to try).

Yes there will be people that trade the games in and buys a used copy instead, but that still isn't a bad thing.
How so?
Sure the developer loses out of money. But there are two things to keep in mind:
1. If the game is good, the developer will gain notoriety and the user may want to buy future iterations of that game.
2. The developer can implement dlc which can only be purchased online

Lets talk about number 2; DLC can be anything; Expansions or Fluff.
In the case of Dragon Age: Origins; they not only had future expansions where the player could/couldn't buy in a brick&mortar place, AND they had fluff such as avatar t-shirts/hats/armor that were cool that even non-hardcore players would like. Heck, even if one didn't have the game, consumers may still buy their online fluff. Thats pure money in their pocket.
Also, that person that buys DA:O has the option of buying all the DLC that they may have gotten for free if they bought used. A person that buys that extra dlc, is probably a person (that if they love the game) that will buy that dlc AND more. As we all know.. this dlc isn't cheap and developers are now pumping out dlc which one would think they'd should have added originally to the game but have chosen a path to increase revenues.

So I don't feel guilt when buying used, or selling games to companies that take them in (except when i feel gyped by the low values). A company must evolve if the environment is changing with them.

What i'd like to see in ...

a future mmo.

A wilderness area that is so far away from civilization, that you need to build a camp (similar to UO) to log out. This wilderness may contain something grand, it may not. It needs to be a good 30 min run without stop to get there. For a long time, there may be nothing but trees, or endless expanse.. but it has to be out of the way. WoW had some areas like this like Azshara, but is cheapened (people would argue: "accessible") by the fact that they had flightpaths. Warhammer Online had easter eggs usually in untravelled areas such as Lairs. The creation of recall stone, flight paths and teleporters, has made the mmo world a much smaller place. No longer does one have to plan a trip to a certain area in great detail as it will take quite a while to get there. We just go to the city and there normally is some sort of quick travel option that gets us there in a blink with no danger. It will not take a half hour, or an hour of pure trekking to get there. There are normally large towns every 10 minutes, logically placed too, incase you want to do something there or log off.

I like in Torchlight how you have the option of using your pet to take your extra goods back to town to sell everything for you and depending on how deep you are, the longer it will take. I don't remember which game implemented this, but I think merchants should only buy good from you if it's in their line of business. And if it isn't, then they either don't take the goods or buy it at a reduced amount.

I also like the idea of wandering merchants in Torchlight. They're very few and far between, but they are a god-send, as you don't constantly need to send your pet away and can possibly buy some helpful items from them. If implemented in a new mmo, i'd like to see either friendly wandering npcs vendors, weak attackable but empty npc merchants, or semi-powerful attackable npc merchants with ok loot (similar to Fallout 3). Once again though, they are found far in the wilderness, have slightly higher prices, possibly unique gear, and far and few between.

Ugh. Palin and Tea Party-ers scare me for a future America. I'll stay in Canada thanks.

Wait.. its only Tuesday

I pose a question, does a mmo developer bring out more than one title b/c the other's aren't as successful, or b/c they want to capitalize on as many niches as possible?

You've got Cryptic who just announced they're working on a D&D: Neverwinter Nights mmo, when they already have their Champions Online and Star Trek Online games which wasn't as popular as they expected. And then you've got ArenaNet that has for the longest time only concentrated on Guild Wars and are currently creating GW2.

Blizzard has WoW obviously and is so successful they just need to bring out expansions every year... for now; and they're technically linked with Activision which owns Mythic/Bioware which is working on Warhammer Online. Mythic techincally does have UO and DAoC, but I think its different b/c those are very old games.

I hope the Cryptic's Neverwinter Nights mmo is an amazing success, and i'll try to get into the beta and do alot of research on it, but with Cryptic's current track record, I don't think this will be good for the series. Stick with one major title, develop it, grow it, maintain it. Don't spread resources, talent and time on many different projects/mmos otherwise you're just stuck with alot of so-so games and unsatisfied customers.

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Anyways.. cosplay from Gamescon.

And an even hotter cosplay model.


Lastly, if you can stop staring...FanExpo this weekend in Toronto; ill be there Saturday!

Back in business

So! The vacation is over. Work starts in a few hours. I'm sorta relaxed; atleast more than 2 weeks ago.

I was originally playing DDO and having a blast with my friend Capo.. he had his melee cleric and I had my ranged rogue. Later I created a beast of a fighter and cut down baddies by the dozens. But then Capo started playing many other different games (you should have seen his collection when we both worked at EB Games).. tried a different mmo called Shin Megami Tensei and he stopped altogether. It didn't make much sense since he spent alot of money in the cashshop for Turbine Points and didn't use it all up, but I suppose it'll wait there until he comes back.
I was a bit upset that I didn't have a friend to play with and didn't really want to pug, even with guildies and their flying airship. I spent only about 20$ buying enough points for the Drow race and the Favored Soul (high mana cleric/healer).. and the game lasted 2 months.. and I could come back to it if I ever wanted. So its not that bad.

I bought Torchlight (as well as the X-Com bundle) on Steam most recently; X-Com brought back memories of researching like crazy, being unable to repulse the aliens, world governments cutting back funding and an eventual invasion of my base. On my first try after last playing it over 10 years ago, I won the first mission.... only to have Steam crash, causing my game to crash. Fyi, there was no auto save 10 years ago. I tried it one more time, but found the graphics and game far too old to play again... atleast for right now. I really hope in the future they make a new X-Com with updated graphics, storyline, research trees etc etc. Yes yes, there is the new X-Com game... but that looks like it was set in the 70s and its FPS.

My gf was able to get ahold of my Torchlight anddddd loves it. And now I can't really play, but thats alright. You read all the reviews, yes, its a good game, exactly like Diablo 2 but with some differences, and missing multiplayer. Per my last entry, Torchlight 2 is in development with added multiplayer.

At the start of September i'll list out the games i'm looking forward to that should be releasing; there is still nothing in August (game-wise) worth talking about.

Back

Back from a relaxing vacay; I was intending on writing some entries on Monday, but there are too much good vids and links:

A new Heroes of Might and Magic....
http://kotaku.com/5616482/hey-theres-a-new-heroes-of-might--magic-game
http://kotaku.com/5616648/might-and-magic-heroes-vi-might-be-magic
Can't wait.. I need more turn-based strategy games!

Cosplay fix here.


I purchased Torchlight via Steam a few weeks ago.
So freaking addictive; just like Diablo 2.. but better.

And just like the vid says, the thing that was missing that would have made this game the next Diablo.. or until Diablo 3 would come out, was: Multiplayer.

I just can't do it; I can't play Dragon Age: Origins for a second full playthrough. I finished the core game with my female evil rogue.. and have an aoe mage 3/4 of the way.. but I just can't do it again.

In case you can't view it.. go here

The next two..

So... Mythic.. where is my Warhammer stein?

You've delayed it already once.. I keep getting emails about murloc steins... or other WoW steins.. honestly, if it's delayed again, i'm cancelling my order. Unacceptable.

Going on a birthday vacation for the next two weeks, so I won't be updating very often.
Take care people!

The Best Friday there can be!

Your day just instantly became better:

Your future Bloodelf hottie, Alodia Gosiengfiao for the possible future World of Warcraft movie wishes you a happy Friday.

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For a rather good Civilization 5 preview from Kotaku, go here.

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Aha! I shall be able to continue to write more entries on Borderlands as there is apparently a new dlc in the works. It seems to heavily favor the Claptraps.

21 quests apparently in this one; 9 Main story, 12 side quests. No word on lvl cap increases or what lvl you need to be to access this area.

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Below is a giant touchscreen version of Catan... looks really cool :D

Dodgeball-Highfive!

Go to this gallery for some more dodgeball pics

Two more bloggers removed. The list is sadly getting short. I ought to find some new bloggers; what ever happened to the 'new wave' of WAR bloggers?

A Hawaii internet cafe robbery is foiled; I wish the robbers were more harshly dealt with :P

Go to this gallery for more cosplayers..

One more week

Went to the Toronto Caribana this weekend; it was alot of fun. Took alot (284) shots, but only came out with 20 good ones. Despite what people say, its not 'that' dangerous; yes there HAVE been a shooting before, but this year, the most dangerous thing was over-weight people jumping over high fences and people trying to get past the security guards.

Cosplay fix here.