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Archive for June, 2010

how much games can I get for this watch – Steam

29 Jun

Steam has recently launched a “stay inside for summer sale”. The timing could not be more perfect as hundreds of thousands of gamers are bouncing around games trying to find something that appeals to them..

Steam has deeply discounted over 200 games and most are 50-75% off with some as high as 90% off. They also have daily deals that change at 10am PST which typically includes some newer release type games.

If you have a lot of money, head to Steam today and load up. If you have no money, do not follow the link in this post. If you can find a dollar, go buy Puzzle Kingdoms which is 90% off and costs $1. It is the most entertaining game you will find for a dollar!

The only thing missing from Steam’s Summer Sale is financing options and a way to hock your belongings for games.

The sale ends July 4th.
Link: Steam Sale

So far this sale I have purchased: Puzzle Kingoms, Altitude, Age of Booty, Avencast, Introversion Pack. Looking to grab Killing Floors and Champions Online soon.

 
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Posted in Gaming, Online Gaming, Software Deals, Steam

 

backseatdev’s warhammer online fantasy expansion

23 Jun

I have been asked several times in discussions about adding content to Warhammer about what I would like to see done. Obviously this is not based completely around realistic requests and I have not spent many hours of careful thought on it, but it is a more put together answer then I usually give when asked this question.

Base stuff for expansion:

  • 6v6 Scenerios: Just add a few of these in. You don’t need to make a ship to fight on, just have Caledor woods 6v6 and Caledor Woods regular scenerios as queueing options. You know what else this does? this funnels “some” premades into the 6v6 queues and away from the people queueing solo for the regular versions of the other scens. The community could also run event nights based on that 6v6.

  • Level Cap to 50: Resets everything in a way. All of a sudden people that were on top for the past 12-18 months now have a new game to play.

  • Add some level 50 gear in, but with limited resources, maybe just use the current gear, but add ways to upgrade the armour, stats and abilities on them as rewards for pvp and pve. (Armour increase shards, special talismans…slots only available for level 50 bound gear)

  • Add a base armour set with maybe only some wounds/toughness on it. Lots of slots for people to customize it as they wish. This fits in great with the change to appearance. Let any armour piece be set to look like any piece of that slot you have unlocked in your tome.

  • 5 more tactic points. 10 more renown points at 50.

  • Make the weekend battlefronts epic. Bring back thunder valley and throw 24 people in there. Make the rewards GOOD. etc..

  • Make high level versions of Gunbad (scale the mobs, rewards etc..)
    Make high level versions of the low level city instances..
    Add a cool arena type instance where your group has to fight off waves of mobs and boss rounds.

Complicated Stuff:

  • Create a new server if it was easier and create a third realm. Dont care how its done. A new server would be a huge reset of the game, and a perfect marketting opportunity to bring new people and old people in and start fresh with the polished game and additional content. Obviously this would be a lot of work, but I think it would have a great ROI.

  • PvP Quests: Add towers/objectives all over the lakes. Have people solo/group get these quests and be sent to take a tower for example. On the opposite end, another realm is dispatched to stop them. (From APB)

I am sure there is other things, but those would be the biggest for me.

 
6 Comments

Posted in Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

timing for an expansion – Warhammer Online

22 Jun

People all around Warhammer are pushing for some sort of expansion, asap. New content, fresh things to do, something to bring people back. Start on it now, release it last week.

Is the timing right though? From a business perspective I started thinking about it and I am not so sure. This post will of course be filled with assumptions and theories.

Assuming an expansion is in the works, first off, there is information out there suggesting that no box expansion can be released before the middle of next year. That does not mean there is even one in the works, it is just a note. More likely is a free expansion similar to TOVL, which could come out at any time. If a free expansion was close to being released, I am sure Mythic and/or Bioware would already be hyping it for a fall release. This would put it just before the release of the new Star Wars MMO.

If I was Mythic Bioware, I would make the assumption that regardless of what you release before SWTOR, your going to have a large number of people at least try SWTOR. Meaning if you release an expansion this fall/winter, you will bring some people back, and then take a large dip in subscribers when SWTOR comes out.

If you plan for something ~3-6 months after SWTOR then you would, assumably, have a solid update on a very solid game to draw people to that are not enjoying SWTOR. GW is also scheduled for release early on as well, so if you come out just past both of those, you can possibly grab a lot of players and in a strong marketting campaign that almost acts as a re-release of WAR, it could do very well.

Obviously there is a pretty big risk waiting almost a year to release a large expansion. The biggest risk being keeping minimal subs and profits on a game that many would argue is dying fast due to the lack of growth in the content section. I can only imagine this must be somewhat difficult for Mythic, who are still pouring their heart and souls into this game, but in the broad company scheme, the rate in which it is shrinking and with Bioware releasing its MMO soon, Warhammer is quickly becoming unimportant.

 
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Posted in Business, Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

all points bulletin systems applied to Warhammer Online

18 Jun

I just finished my review of All Points Bulletin, which you can find on the post just before this, but now I want to speculate on what systems Warhammer developers could take a look at from APB.

Sure they are very different, but use your imagination.

Mission System: This is perhaps the neatest and imo, has the most potential to be awesome in any MMO. It is a bit tricky to apply to WAR because of the combination of killable/non-killable targets. WAR does have pvp flags implemented though, so maybe it is not that far off.

Imagine a current pve zone. You group heads over there and a NPC shouts at you saying that scouts have seen a dirty bunch of Order heading for a farm on the other side of the map. You accept and start heading there. Of course the Order group had a similar start only their NPC asked them to burn down a farm house. Both groups receive buffs where other people cannot interfere with them while they are on this quest. No outside heals, no outside attacking etc..

You get to the farm and Order is completing the clickable objectives to burn it down. You attack them and clear them out. You now need to hold the farm for 5min to complete the quest etc..

You quest complete, get X rewards and the farmer asks you to escort his wife to a certain location. Your group is now charged with protecting her. Meanwhile an Order group gets dispatched to kill her. Because your group won their last 5 quests, they have a higher hidden skill ranking, and higher skill ranking order groups are paired against you for the quest.

Maybe a mix of these kind of quests and open PvP would be a great way to get people into the lakes. In between actual quests, general pvp and general objectives could be fought over. These special quests could add value to the campaign as well. Towers and question objective objects could be placed around the lakes.

I admit, I am a bit all over the map with some of these ideas, but just thinking about it brings up a lot of cool, creative ways you could use some of the systems in APB in a MMO like warhammer. The two above were the mission system and the skill matching system.

Cheers,
Tyanon

 
1 Comment

Posted in Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

All Points Bulletin – Review

18 Jun

This week I jumped in the beta event for All Points Bulletin.

If you just imagine an online version of Grand Theft Auto, you will be pretty close to imagining this game. The game runs as instances of zones. 40 people from both Enforcers (loose moral police) and Criminals on each side in an instance.

The game graphics do not impress, but they are not too bad. Everything about your character, its clothes and its vehicles is customizable and the customization is actually quite impressive.

The gameplay is fun, especially when you have a few friends. Grouping with them is easy and missions get applied to your group. Level difference doesn’t matter, anyone can combine for groups. So you get your buddies in a group, jump in a car or two (1 driver, the rest in the car or hanging out the windows with their guns ready).

The mission system is great! Everything has stages and missions tie together. For example, a dispatcher comes up and it is a request for backup. You accept and you and your friends are suddenly brought in on another Enforcers mission. He is on stage 4 and needs to protect a building, but on the Criminal side, 4 criminals have been assigned to try to burn that building down. You get there, but the criminals wipe you. It flips to the next stage and the criminals are trying to escape. Now all the enforcers are trying to take them out before they escape.

It sounds complicated because in a way, it sort of is. People and groups get pulled into missions at various stages and both Enforcers and Criminals cross-paths almost the entire mission. There is almost no PvE aspects. When your playing, the complexity is not visible, you are just responding to dispatches and it is clear what you need to do.

The game does have some cons. At the very essence of the game, it is a fps. Unfortunately, it lacks the smoothness of a fps. After playing Battlefield BC2, it is frustrating to go to the clunkier GTA type interface for trying to fight players.

The other con is cost. From what I hear, it is $50 to purchase this game, $10 a month to play and you also buy currency from their website. Everyone I spoke to that tried the beta, enjoyed the beta and would love to try this game out for a month or so with friends, but the cost seemed wrong. It seems more like a free client type game where you pay per month or whatever. I would be surprised if the payment model does not turn into that within 6 months.

Gameplay seems like it would get old fast. Perhaps it was just the beta, but there seemed to only be a couple different mission types. The game just seems like it would have a limited replay amount compared to MMOs.

Summary: I don’t see me jumping in on this game at release, simply because of the cost. My assumption is that it will drop drastically in cost and at that point, if I can find some friends to ride shotgun while I rid the city of crime, I will consider it.

Cheers,
Tyanon.

 
1 Comment

Posted in Gaming, Online Gaming

 

i heart producer carrie – warhammer online

15 Jun

I have been meaning to weigh in on the couple changes announced in the producer letter.

The first is the armor graphic choices. While I don’t know exactly how this will be implemented, I have for a long time been suggesting that they should allow people to set the look of the armor pieces from items they have unlocked in their tome. Allowing players to have a unique look. For almost everyone, stats reign supreme and looks are always secondary. You pick your gear based on how well it will let you win your battles, not how amazing it looks. In a lot of cases these choices would be very different if you wanted your character to look how you would like. While this obviously isn’t game changing, it is a very cool nice to have thing for the game.

Now, Zealots:
It has been mentioned that the harbinger mechanic of the zealot will be changed to a toggle, toggling magic and healing. I could make assumptions about the specifics on how this will be implemented, but instead I will generalize on how the intention will affect it.

Zealots at the moment are either healing or dps. They are decent healers, but not a first or even second choice really for healing classes. I assume most groups would still aim for dok/shammy if they had a choice and skill was equal. For DPS, no group is going to try to seriously compete with a zealot DPS. There is just too many alternatives for dps that can actually spike damage better. Hybrid zealots tend to fail at both. They bring some utility, but they end up taking up a group spot that could be better filled by someone who fills a role to its full potential.

My expectation is that changes aiming at making a zealot a better hybrid class will make the Zealot more well rounded, complete and more enjoyable to play. At the same time, in my opinion, it will add very little effectiveness to the class. Healing focused zealots will still be dedicated to healing tasks in competitive battles until the tides turn, then they could switch to damage and have some fun, but really, the outcome was already decided before they switched. Who knows what any potential cast time, cooldown time etc.. on switching might be. I would assume you could not switch back and forth instantly, or why have a toggle at all, just have your stats share full time so you dont have to macro things.

The biggest problem from my perspective is, I want the class to be top healing class. In line with WP/Dok/AM/Sham and a in a lot ways, RP in terms of healing and survivability. However, in this case I am 100% wrong, Mythic has always wanted the zealot to be a true hybrid class and they are now getting around to to turning it into the class they envisioned. It really isn’t their fault I want it to be something else.

My hope is, in some sort of spell/skill swapping, zealots end up with Ancestors Echo and a reduced cooldown on our AE detaunt. RPs can have anything they like, I would pay money to give transference to Rune Priests, then start a count down until Order realizes that Rune Priests running around specced for transference is actually a nerf to order as a realm.

The information may not be as plentiful as I would like, but one thing is certain. I really like that Carrie and the communications team is sticking with the monthly producer letters. I can’t wait to find out more about what may be coming to Warhammer Online.

 
4 Comments

Posted in Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

RIP BSD 6v6 Tournament

11 Jun

BSD 6v6 has died. I pulled the plug myself.

In general, I think the May BSD 6v6 tournament ended up being a failure, but it was not without some good points and learning value.

What happened?

What eventually happened was I simply didn’t want to hand-hold all these teams that seemed so interested in the tournament. I was too dependant on teams showing up that I had no power at all. If a team didn’t show up, I couldn’t just cut them because we needed teams to compete so instead I had to work my ass off finding a time that would work for the team, then making sure the team members knew about matches etc.. it was too tough for the team leads to tell their team. After getting down to a finite number of teams, I set a date a couple days in advance for everyone to show up and play the remaining matches. Every team came up with some excuse the day of the final matches, so I rage ended the tournament. hehe

What did we learn?

-We learned that there is a demand for organized and structured group vs group combat in Warhammer Online within a confined space and set of rules.

-We learned that leaving scheduling in the hands of the teams competing ensures it will never get done or organized.
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We learned that most people competitive enough to sign up in such a tournament, would rather not show up then risk losing a match. In general, if a team couldn’t field the best 6 people they know about, they would not make it to their scheduled time.

-We learned that a scheduling forum helps, but a team captain excited about 6s is not capable of checking a scheduling forum once every 24 hrs or so.

How I would do it in the future?

-I would start by not putting the focus so much on winning, or being “the best on the server” so it becomes more about playing an enjoying the spirit of competition, then having to win.

-I would probably not do 6s again, I would probably do 3-4 person groups and enforce spares.

-I would probably set a time, maybe Wednesdays at 7pst and have everyone show up at that time weekly, and work on rankings based on the results from teams that show up and complete matches. Teams will know in advance if they can make the time.

-I would continue to use the scheduling forum for events, all team members would have access and teams could alternately schedule matches for whenever if those chose to.

-I would keep the ruleset and location. They did seem to work out well.

-I would hint at a possible BSD 3v3 tournament on my blog by posting a how I would do it in the future section to a post.

Big thanks to those that did come out for 6s and did help out. A lot of you did do good work telling your teams and making matches. Some good matches did occur, and I know the team I was on enjoyed our matches a lot.

 
3 Comments

Posted in BSD 6v6 Tournament, Gaming, Warhammer

 

Steam Deals -Fallout 3, Oblivion

10 Jun

Head to the steam deals for Fallout 3 for $29.99, probably one of the best games I have ever played, and I am not a fan of the genre.

Oblivion was amazing too. They have the GOTY edition with a ton of DLC for $8.50 here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/900883/

I purchased Oblivion just a minute ago.

Cheers.

 
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Posted in Gaming, Software Deals

 

“where have all the soldiers gone” – Warhammer Online

10 Jun

Let me start off on a positive note, as I believe it is important.

Warhammer Online is finally becoming one of the best MMO’s on the market. I rarely run into any bugs or issues and the UI/battles feel polished and well done. Classes and abilities are for the most part pretty balanced and group vs group fights are fun and engaging. To anyone out there looking to get into MMOs or looking for a new MMO to play, I really and truly reccomend Warhammer as a great game to subscribe to! Every patch improves the game and it gets better and better.

While unfair and unrealistic to make this comment, if the game released in this state, in my opinion we would be giving WoW a run for its money. (assuming developers could have been working on content releases rather then bug fixes and polishes)

BUT

Warhammer Online content for people that have played since day 1, or even just for a decent amount of time, is incredibly stale. If there are people that have played from day 1 and are still kicking around, they are either hanging on by a thread in the hopes the next patch brings something big or are on their way to unsubbing due to “been there, done that” syndrome.

From my perspective as a Guild/Community Organizer, the summer is a slow period, then come fall people are looking to get into games. I plan to talk to all our members and see who can no longer jump back into gaming due to spouse/family etc.. and find those that are excited to jump into something. From what I can see, Warhammer will not be a game we will be promoting much. The core people that have stuck with Warhammer mainly feel the same way. I hold out hope that Mythic has somehow kept development secret and they are waiting on BioWare to choose the right time to announce an big content update, but at this point, I think anything announced would fail to beat games like GW2 or the new Star Wars to release.

When I started this article, I expected to do a bit of research into expansions and find that WoW and other recent MMOs had expansions every year, but that was not the case.

Warhammer Released September 18, 2008. First Expansion 9 months later on June 23, 2009.

World of Warcraft Released November 23, 2004. First Expansion 26 months later on Jan 16, 2007, Second Expansion 22 months after that. Third Expansion ~22 months after that.

Age of Conan Release June 2008. First Expansion 23 months later on May 11, 2010.

Looking at the dates of expansions, you might think they can be compared, but having played those games and thinking back, they don’t really compare at all. In WoW, expansions came and brought in huge content updates, but incremental patches also brought in a lot of new content. In fact, some normal WoW patches rivalled Warhammers LOTD Expansion in size and additions.

Age of Conan compares fairly similarly to Warhammer. It released and had a lot of wrinkles to iron out in its base game before it could add additional content. For the most part since release Age of Conan has been working on fixing/redo’ing itemization, graphics bugs, crafting system, pvp system and pve system. Content has not been new, but simply getting what was released working properly. Warhammer has been much in the same boat. Getting the classes they wanted to release in, balancing classes, getting the city working, getting instances (relatively bug free) and polishing the game. Age of Conan, released its first major expansion in May.

Warhammer released with not a lot of actual content, and over the past year a substantial amount of content has actually been removed in its updates. I am not complaining, I think the removed items did improve the game, but it does get mentioned.

In Summary, Warhammer, coming up on 1 year after Land of the Dead free expansion, and 21 months into the game has nothing announced, nothing to look forward to but more polishing of the base game. The teasers for the next patch, zealot mechanic changes and armour visual choices. These are great changes, I think back to when I posted both of these ideas in 2008 and early 2009 and can’t help but think Warhammer this polished would have been amazing in 2008.

Interesting note: The other day I was heading to the computer to help out with some scens, feeling more guilty about not playing with the guys much lately then actual desire to play, and I saw the hall needed vaccuuming. A MMO where you make your wife happy? A sad day indeed when that seems more to the veteran WAR player.

 
4 Comments

Posted in Mythic, Warhammer