Month: September 2008

A Brief Sidetrip to the Hinterlands

Posted on by Nimgimli

No, I’m not talking WoW here… 🙂

I’m talking about the new strategy/rpg game from Tilted Mill Entertainment, Hinterland. It came out today, on Steam, for $20. I decided to check it out, partly because I enjoy both strategy and RPGs, but mostly because Tilted Mill’s offices are local, and I gotta support the local game devs, right? Plus, these guys are descended from Impressions, a company whose games I enjoyed for many a year. Anyway…

This is in no way a “review” of the game! I’ve played it for a couple of hours; not even remotely enough time to base a review on. This is just a brief description and some early thoughts.

Worst news first: the game freezes on me, and fairly often. If I’m patient enough, it’ll recover, but it can sit frozen for literally two minutes. Like, check the clock when it freezes, check it again when it starts moving again, and ~120 seconds have passed. Let’s hope for a patch for this soon.

The game is a hybrid, one part hack & slash RPG, one part “city building” sim. You start with a patch of land that is your “town” and a single house. Folks of various professions come to visit: farmers, merchants, craftsmen, etc. You can offer to build them a home, and if you do, they’ll stick around and start doing whatever they do (produce food, goods, money, or whatever). As is typical in this kind of game, you need to make sure everyone is fed, and you can spend gold to upgrade shops. Eventually you can set folks to doing research rather than manufacturing. Some folks won’t be willing to stay unless your town meets certain prerequisites.
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Bonus XP in LOTRO

Posted on by Nimgimli

[EDIT: Not only is it a bonus XP long weekend, but former players can come back and play for free for a few days in the Welcome Back Weekend.

From October 2-6, 2008, we’re offering free LOTRO access to our former players, and +25% bonus experience gain for everyone who logs in and plays. Returning players are invited to patch up, jump in, and start playing on their old characters to get them ready for Moria!

SOURCE
/EDIT]

In preparation for the release of Mines of Moria, Turbine has announced 25% Bonus XP from Oct. 2nd to Oct. 6th. I’ve been meaning to log back in to LOTRO — I don’t want to totally lose touch with the world — but Warhammer is shiny and new and comes with a monthly fee (I coughed up the $$ for a Lifetime Founder’s Membership to LOTRO back when it launched, so the game is now ‘free’ to play for me.) so I haven’t gotten around to checking in with Middle Earth since WAR launched.

Perhaps this will be my incentive. Balancing two MMOs is pretty difficult for casual gamers that get at most an hour or two per weeknight to play. This challenge is made worse if, like me, you’re an alt-aholic (I have 14 Warhammer characters already…granted lots of them are level 2 or 3, but still).

Honestly LOTRO is probably a better “workday” MMO for me in the long run. By the time I log in, I’m generally tired and cranky and fairly impatient, which doesn’t make me a great group member. The stronger PvE focus of LOTRO is a better fit for me under these circumstances. But for now, Warhammer is providing plenty of solo PvE enjoyment. I don’t really get all the hate that the PvE aspects of War gets, honestly.

Getting to know you…

Posted on by Nimgimli

My Warhammer guild has turned out to be an interesting social experiment. Usually when I join a guild in an MMO, it’s because I’ve run into the same people a few times, grouped with them, and have some idea of what I’m getting into. Not so with CoW. I learned about it through reading the blogs of some of the founders, but once the guild was formed (and it grew very rapidly) I was in this group of total strangers who nevertheless shared a common interest: blogging. And, well, Warhammer Online. 🙂

Things are going pretty well and so far the guild drama quotient is pretty darned low. A lot of people assumed a guild made up of a group of (by nature) opinionated bloggers was doomed to fail. But I can tell you that so far at least, there’s no sign of pending collapse. Quite the contrary.

In any group of people this big, you’re going to meet folks who have values that don’t coincide with yours. I’m working through that issue right now, in fact, and I keep expecting this to turn into major drama (given that the person in question is an officer) but again, thus far its been very much a “You do your thing and I’ll do my thing and we’ll both respect the other’s personal choice.” kind of situation. No harm, no foul, everybody having fun.

Granted there are people I don’t actively like: the constant complainer, the “I know more than anyone” dude, etc. Any reasonably large group has these characters. I still get along with them, but I don’t seek out their company, if you know what I mean.

But mostly I’ve been having surprisingly enjoyable experiences. For instance, y’know I’m a voice chat hater. But I’ve been running Ventrillo when doing RvR in CoW groups just because I can’t deny that it is easier and more efficient. Generally I just listen even though I have a mike set up. And I have vent coming through the speakers (I run it on a 2nd pc).

Saturday night I was in a CoW group, getting our arses handed to us in a Tier 2 scenario (we were pretty badly out-leveled), and one of my guild mates had his Vent on ‘handsfree.’ He was being pretty chatty, which should have driven me bonkers, but instead he was doing a grand job of keeping us entertained and keeping the ‘sting’ of losing at bay. Not only was I in stiches, but so was Angela, who was next to me playing EQ2.

To make things even better, someone in another group shouted “Why do all Shadow Warriors suck in RvR?”. I was the lone Shadow Warrior in the scenario. I just ignored the idiot because I didn’t feel I was doing particularly badly, given the circumstances. I’m usually the first one to come down on myself if I’m screwing up; I hate letting down my group mates.

But I digress. As I said, I just ignored the comment, but my guildies came to my defense, which felt pretty damned good. It wasn’t a big deal and the shouter never said anything else, but its the thought that counts, y’know?

So yeah, being in CoW has been a very rewarding experience so far. Would it be going over-the-top to say its even been restoring my faith in people, to some extent? I always expect the worst out of any group situation, and my expectations are generally met. I expected CoW to be an awkward experience; I’m not very extroverted and tend to hold myself apart from groups. But so far, its been a joy to get to know this group of strangers bound together by a love of gaming and a love of writing about gaming.

My first Warhammer gripe

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’ve been playing MMOs for a long time, and I’ve seen bad launches and really bad launches and complete and totally disastrous launches. I fear that this exposure has made me very forgiving of the problems that crop up in games that have good launches. Warhammer, in my opinion, launched very smoothly and I’ve generally been very content with it.

A lot of people gripe about the UI but I find it to be OK, and add-on support makes it even better. I don’t mind (and sometimes prefer) using some slash commands, and all the disappointment aimed at the chat interface baffles me, because it seems fine. That’s the old man in me coming out. “You spoiled kids! When I was young we didn’t have no steenkin’ tabs or filters! We had to write parsers to split out chat uphill, barefoot, in the snow!!!”

But the one thing that has been really, really bothering me lately is the lag, and in particular, root lag (I think I just made up that term). I’m mainly playing a Shadow Warrior, who uses a bow a lot. As is typical, there’s a minimum range for using a bow. SW’s get a root melee attack that, in theory, let’s you root opponents and run away to get enough range to unload a few arrows into him/her/it.

But what usually happens is I use the root and run, and the mob stays stuck right on me. If I try to shoot I get “Target too close.” Then suddenly the game will “catch up” and the mob will teleport back to where I rooted it.

If this were just a visual thing it’d be annoying, but it seems to impact game mechanics too. Like I said, I’ll get a “Target too Close” one second, then the thing will teleport away and I’ll be able to shoot the bow at it.

All of this is awkward in PvE, but in PvP it makes my root more or less pointless. Since players can resist the root, and don’t act predictably, I never know if the root took or not. I never know if I can try to attack them because they’re rooted and the game is lagging, or if they’ve resisted and they really are in my face. If I guess wrong, it generally means a Respawn incoming.

So essentially in PvP, I use the root as a last, vague hope for when I’m running away from someone bashing my skull in.

I’m 99% sure this isn’t specific to Shadow Warriors and other classes suffer through the same frustrations. I’d really like to see this fixed, and soon, because its really starting to detract from my enjoyment of the class, particularly in RvR.

Bonus gripe: What’s up with Morale Abilities not firing? I was talking to Fizz last night about this, and he confirmed the same thing happens to him. The ability is ‘charged’ and isn’t cooling down, and you click the icon and nothing happens. Click it two or 3 more times and finally it’ll fire, assuming your target hasn’t roamed out of range by then. Using the keyboard doesn’t seem any more reliable, either.

Here’s hoping Mythic is working hard on this stuff, working to get the game as lag free as possible. This Root Lag happens even out in the wilds with just me and 1 mob, so I don’t think its client-side. Or if it is, it shouldn’t be. But my point is, it doesn’t take me being in a crowded RvR Scenario for it to manifest. And it’s 100% consistent. The root never works immediately.

So c’mon Mythic! Fix my class (and any other class that requires a Root & Scoot technique)!

Warhammer 101: Choosing a Server

Posted on by Nimgimli

So the news is good for Mythic & EA. Half a million accounts created in about a week. Friends of mine who’ve shown no interest in Warhammer are suddenly contacting me and asking me what server they should roll on, so I guess the word is spreading.

Picking a server is pretty much the first decision you have to make in an MMO, and with Warhammer it turns out to be a fairly significant one. So let’s think about this together.

You’ve got two “axis” to work with. Core vs OpenRvR and Core vs RP. The latter is more a thematic decision. I generally prefer RP servers just because of the naming conventions. Stupid names bug me. But that’s just me and its a personal opinion; you need to make your own choice there. Just don’t roll on an RP server, name your character ChuckNorris and then bitch about “naming nazis” when someone complains about it.

The Core vs OpenRVR decision is huge, and I’m going to urge you to choose Core for your first character. There’s still plenty of RvR on Core servers. Now I’m going to be honest and admit I haven’t played on OpenRvR servers in Warhammer, but I just don’t see a reason to. If you’re in the mood to fight other characters in a Core server, you head to easily accessible RvR areas or enter a scenario. If you’re not in the mood to fight, you stay out of those areas. To me, Core = more choices, which is always good. Saylah has a lot more to say about this choice and I urge you to read her thoughts before rolling OpenRvR.

So assuming you know what *type* of server you want to play on, how do you determine which specific server to pick? And the answer there is, look at the population during the times you’ll normally be playing (which means you should probably first play War during your ‘regular gaming time’). Your instinct (OK, *my* instinct) may be to look for a server with a low or moderate population. No one wants to have to camp spawns on a crowded server, right? But that would be The Wrong Choice for Warhammer. You want to join a server with a High population for your intended side. But of course you don’t want to wait around in login queues, so avoid Full servers with large waiting lists (the number in parens after a server name indicates how many people are waiting to get in). Also look at the other side. You want the two sides to have relative parity. I honestly haven’t seen a server where the sides are terribly out of whack (high/low or whatever) but if you find one of those, avoid it!

Remember, you need another team to fight against. If your side has a higher population you’re going to be waiting a long time for scenarios to begin. If your side has a low population then you’re going to get rolled pretty frequently in open world RvR, and control of zones is going to be problematic. Everyone likes to win, sure, but the most fun comes from good competition on both sides. And if a server is low population on both sides, then both sides are going to be waiting a long time to enter scenarios and open world RvR is going to be sparse at best.

So to recap, pick RP or non-RP. Avoid OpenRvR unless you’re really sure of what you’re doing. And look for servers with High/High population counts during the times you’re going to play. One of those is your server, and your best chance of having an enjoyable, well-rounded Warhammer Online experience. Granted this isn’t an exact science; pure population numbers don’t indicate player levels or RvR affinity. But you have to work with what you’ve got, and hopefully this post can help you stack the odds in your favor a bit.

Fat Thursday at PSN

Posted on by Nimgimli

Wow, huge PSN update today. We’ve got Wipeout HD for $20, Megaman 9 for $10, GEON Emotions also for $10, and Burnout Paradise for $30. Plus the usual assortment of add-on content (for Buzz! & Soul Calibur this week) and Rock Band songs, game videos, demos of NBA 09 and Megaman. Just a huge update.

I finally pulled the trigger on Burnout Paradise. When the game first came out I played the demo and liked it, but I didn’t like it $60 worth. When it hit $40 on sale I was really tempted but still held out. Now, for $30, and all the additional content they’ve released for is since release, and no need to scrabble around looking for a game disk when I get the urge to play, I figured it was time.

Unfortunately the PSN network isn’t ever superfast for me, and tonight it’s seeming extra special slow. I started the download but don’t expect it’ll be done before bedtime tonight. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to log in to WAR! 🙂

An evening of relative peace

Posted on by Nimgimli

Spent a lot of time in front of the TV tonight. The DVR was filling up, so we got around to watching the 2-hour Heroes season premiere (first half was meh, the second half better), then a bit later this week’s Ghost Hunters and then an old Destination Truth.

That’s a LOT of TV for one night and didn’t leave much time for WAR, which might be a good thing. I was getting a bit *too* wrapped up in it; trying to parse too many things at once: new game mechanics and new places to explore, new classes to check out. All of which I wanted to do at the same time, all the while also wanting to keep up with much more hardcore guildmates, who I was trying to get to know. I was reaching that run-down, irritable state that Ysharros calls “enervated.”

And really, that whole previous paragraph could have and should have been written by her, because while it was me experiencing it, I wasn’t observing the Why of it all. Then I chatted (ok, griped) at her a bit and she just pegged exactly where I was at. Just feeling frazzled and tired and annoyed by really trivial issues. Time for a step back, let things settle a bit in my brain, get the perspective back, then move forward re-energized.

Anyway, I raise my glass to Ysharros. Guild officer, amateur therapist, and all-round good people.

Of course I did sneak in to get a couple of levels on my baby Witch Hunter, but at this point I can do the first few levels of Empire with my eyes closed.

Warhammer soothes the altaholic

Posted on by Nimgimli

One of the things I love about Warhammer Online is the number of characters per server Mythic allows (10). I am definitely an ‘altaholic’ when it comes to these games. I won’t ever play all these guys to end game, but I do like to sample a wide variety of classes just to get an inkling of what they’re all about. Some games limit you to X characters per account, others are more generous but limit the number per server. Back in the good old days, offering plentiful character slots was the norm; let’s here it for Mythic going retro!

Whoa, wait a minute. I still have room for two more!

Warhammer: Introverts & Extroverts

Posted on by Nimgimli

For the purposes of this post, I’m using (my understanding of) the Meyers-Briggs definition of the terms introvert & extrovert. I’m not normally a fan of Meyers-Briggs; I kind of resent being pigeon-holed into a 4 letter classification. But I do think they’ve nailed it on introverts and extroverts. These ‘labels’ aren’t indicators of whether you enjoy being around people or not. Instead, they’re indicators of where you go to ‘recharge your batteries.’

Extroverts who are feeling low-energy will seek out a group of friends, and from this group they’ll become rejuvenated. Introverts who are feeling low-energy find a quiet spot alone to read a book, watch a movie, draw a picture, play some music…whatever activity soothes them will also help them regain lost energy.

So what does this have to do with Warhammer? Well, I personally am firmly in the introvert category. I enjoy being around (the right) people, but over time I lose energy to the group and eventually I need to retreat to somewhere quiet to recharge on my own.
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