Month: November 2009

The return of the weekly Dragon Age video!

Posted on by Nimgimli

I guess the Bioware/EA press juggernaut took a week off to catch their breath. But they’re back and this time a decent video of the combat system in Dragon Age. Clearly the people being filmed expect you to be watching this before you play, so there’s a bit of redundancy (assuming you’re playing DA:O right now, and if you aren’t…why not!?) but they also talk about where they drew inspiration from and what they were ‘going for.’ (You can decide if they hit their target.)

A short epilogue talks about how many more stories there are to tell in this universe. Whether that’s a tease for DLC, an expansion pack, or a sequel, I don’t know. I’d be happy with all three, myself.

City of Eternals hits closed beta

Posted on by Nimgimli

Back when Ohai formed, mostly I thought “Cute name” and then pretty much forgot about the company. They’ve been keeping a low profile until now, when City of Eternals stepped out of the shadows (and you will, I pray, pardon the pun).

This is a web-based, Facebook-connected MMO featuring vampires and zombies and other things that go bump in the night. Oddly, the coverage I’ve been seeing comes from places like TechCrunch and VentureBeat, not the gaming sites (at least, not the ones I read). Facebook games are suddenly big business (just ask EA) and these techie/vc blogs are paying attention to the money.

I’m not in the beta so I’m not being coy when I tell you I don’t know much about the game, but here’s some video from TechCrunch. Hard to really tell much about any depth that may or may not be present, based on the rather simple combat shown, but hopefully their pool of testers will broaden considerably in the near future. You can sign up to be considered for beta here, but you may need to log into your Facebook account on the way to that link.

Question of the Day: Would you play an MMO if you knew it only had a year to live?

Posted on by Nimgimli

Wow, not sure I ever tried a title that long… let’s see what happens.

Anyway, all this idle speculation about the future of Warhammer Online (not to mention Champions, not to mention the early death of Tabula Rasa) has me wondering something.

Would you start playing an MMO if you knew it was only going to be around for 9-12 months?

I’m not going to do a formal poll but I’ll offer my own conflicted answers to the question, just to get you started.

On the one hand, I have an unhealthy level of curiosity about games, so knowing a title won’t be around too long might prompt me to sign up just so I could get a chance to check it out before it ‘dies.’

On the other hand, one of the aspects of MMOs I love is how open-ended and never-ending they are. If I knew one was going to have a limited lifespan, I’m not sure I’d want to bother putting the time into it to ‘establish’ myself.

I do know I quit Tabula Rasa very much intending to come back to it, then when I heard it was shutting down, it didn’t seem worth the effort of going back. Yet I found myself wishing I’d played it more when it launched.

Still I feel conflicted when it comes to answering this question. What about you?

Cross-Post: EA to lay off 1500 employees

Posted on by Nimgimli

I don’t usually do this, but since it is topical I’ll make an exception.

My blog post at ITWorld today is an opinion piece (and I wish that site emphasized posts tagged opinion more) about the EA layoffs:

Game developer Electronic Arts announces 1500 job cuts

A bit more ‘extreme’ thoughts that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing over there; I think this is a really bad sign for the so-called ‘core gamer.’ It sounds to me like EA is shifting it’s emphasis from the PC/Xbox/PS3 triad over to free-to-play web games with micro-scams… I mean micro-transactions.

I never would’ve imagined Facebook would become such a threat to “real” games.

TorchEd release imminent?

Posted on by Nimgimli

RunicGames said on their twitter account today: “TorchED update, we found a bug on the last build, going to try to fix it tonight and get it out tomorrow. Updates in the forums!”

So here’s hoping we get it tomorrow. They’ve posted a few items to get you prepared and/or psyched for the toolset:

First, you’re gonna need .Net installed.

Second, here’s Ten Helpful Tips for Using TorchED

I’m so sucked into Dragon Age I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull myself away to play with TorchED right away, but I have been thinking when I’m finally ready to get my hands dirty, I’ll start with TorchEd and before taking on the rather intimidating Dragon Age toolset.

Rags to riches for me. I haven’t had a neat RPG toolset to play with since NeverWinter Nights, and now I have two at the same time!

Response to the MBACD

Posted on by Nimgimli

Warning: Not a game related post.

Today in the MMO blogging world a new event launched, the MMO Blog Alliance Charity Drive. I have issues with this.

But before I get to them, I do want to acknowledge that I feel like I know a few of the bloggers associated with this drive, and insofar as I do know them, I fervently believe that they’re people with good hearts who are trying to Do The Right Thing.

I just think this ‘drive’ is a mistake. Maybe my life is different from yours… but in the past I’ve donated to quite a few organizations, none of which want to let me go. It has gotten to the point where now, at this time of year, I start to drown under a deluge of requests for further support. The phone rings (in MA the “do not call” law doesn’t apply to non-profits) and the mail box fills up. Those are the personal requests. Outside every grocery store is someone (sometimes several someones) propositioning me with sad tales of people living a hard life who need my help. Soon Santa will be ringing his bell at the mall. Donation coin cups will be passed around the theater. Coin cups will be next to the register at the coffee shop. TV ads showing starving children, puppies, or children with puppies will pop up 4 times during every TV show. The Giving Tree will go up at work. Kids will knock on the door looking to raise money for some cause… in some cases these causes may even be legit.

In short, without being deaf, dumb and blind it is *impossible* not to know that there are needy people and good causes in the world, and I’m all for contributing to these causes if doing so feels right to you.

But the *last* thing I need is another vector for outstretched hands being shoved at me. Particularly a gaming blog. (And yes, I appreciate the irony of me writing this post on a gaming blog.)

Now I’ve been called “Scrooge” (in a kidding way) and ‘mean’ (in an apparently serious way) for this attitude already today. But y’know what? You don’t know me. You don’t know my past, or my habits. You’ll have to take on faith that fact that I contributed often in the past. Not as much these days, both due to my personal financial situation, and more so because of all the spam and the harassing phone calls that charities use. Calling me 3 times in a given week asking me for even more money is not a way to get me to continue contributing to a cause.

And when I have something spare to offer, I don’t need a random blogger (no matter how much I enjoy their insight into gaming) suggesting who I should donate to. Really, are there people out there saying “I’ve got $500 I want to donate but I have no idea who needs it.”? I can’t believe there are. Personally, my Q4 donations tend to go to fire departments (because my father was a volunteer fireman) and a charity that brings toys to kids in the hospital, because when I think Christmas I think kids and toys.

Now, you might suggest I’m over-reacting and to be perfectly honest I’d have a hard time arguing against that. What irked me most about the MBACD media blitz is that it was a media blitz. A bunch of MMO blogs I read all posted at the same time encouraging me to donate to those less fortunate. I likened it to getting 6 phone calls the same evening asking for donations… even if I was in favor of the cause, that’d be pretty irritating. Ferrel pointed out that not everyone is going to see multiple postings and he’s right.

But some of us will and, having no advance knowledge of this organization, it felt like a trap. We’ll lure you in with good talk about MMOs then suddenly hit you up for money!

Again, I absolutely understand that these people are well-meaning and trying to do some good (and of course won’t profit from this campaign in any way). I just don’t think most of us need another group of people urging us to donate, and when you push something on a person hard enough, the response will be pushing back. I suggest that people are getting so sick of being ‘urged to donate’ that they’ll stop donating out of spite. I’m personally getting close to that point myself.

Those of us who wish to donate will, no matter what we read in our RSS feeds. There’re plenty of big budget media campaigns making us aware of the need. Those of us who don’t, or can’t, donate, aren’t going to be swayed by a post on a friend’s blog, no matter how sincere the plea is.

Urging donations is getting close to talking politics (or religon) and I don’t think a gaming blog is the right place for any of these topics.

If you disagree…if you really do want to help and somehow have gotten this far in life without gaining awareness of the many good causes out there, then by all means please do read Ferrel’s post about the MBACD. He, and the blogs he link to, can offer you many suggestions for charities that could use your donation.

[Edit: Clipped a few rantie tangential paragraphs off the head of this post, as advised by my new BFF Brian (see comment #1) since they were really unrelated to the topic and in consideration of the rather solid conversation that has emerged in the comments. The removed ‘graphs were just me grumping about the “Holiday Season” starting too early and the current political incorrectness of referring to “Christmas” rather than “The Holidays.”]

Dragon Age: Hoisted on my own petard

Posted on by Nimgimli

So after promoting Dragon Age heavily for the weeks leading up to the game, I’m happy to say that it is everything I hoped it would be, and I’m very much enjoying my time in the game. I spend much too much time reading and re-reading the codex and chatting up every NPC I can find who has a conversation tree (including my own party members).

Because of this, and a slow start, I assume I’m far behind other folks who are just jamming through this like they would any other game while I savor each moment. According to Raptr I have 15 hours into it, and probably another 5 when I wasn’t running the Raptr client. And yet I feel like my journey is just beginning.

The downside is, I don’t have anything to post about the game. I hate spoilers and I don’t want to spoil anything for others. I’m burning to talk about the choices I made but can’t really do that without spoiling things for myself and other people. Heck I’ve started unfollowing (temporarily) people on Twitter who’re talking specifics about the game.

I’m finding I’ve really missed this sense of “What happens next?” in my gaming. I’m usually playing MMOs months after thousands of people have hit cap and are talking nonchalantly about so-and-so actually being a dragon and the instance that exposes her and so on… you can’t really prevent spoilers in an MMO unless you’re one of the obsessed individuals who stays up for 72 hours straight to be the first to hit cap. The first time you do a group-based quest someone (who has done the quest 4 times on different alts) explains exactly what is going to happen when. Just the nature of that kind of game when you’re a slow leveler like me.

I had no idea how much I’d missed rich western-style single player RPG gaming until I started playing Dragon Age: Origins. I’m already thinking of the different choices I’ll make the next time I play. And I’m wondering what sorts of side stories we’ll see both from Bioware and from talented amateur game designers.

I see this one having a pretty long reign on my hard drive, even if it may mean some quiet days here at Dragonchasers.

Dragon Age backstory – If only I had known

Posted on by Nimgimli

If I’d known then what I know now…

I’m not going to go into spoilers, but some events that happen in the Dragon Age storyline are going to hit people who read the prequel novels a lot harder than those who didn’t. If I’d known ahead of time what was going to happen in the story, I would’ve urged folks to read The Stolen Throne and even The Calling (though it wasn’t that great a novel it did contain a goodly amount of backstory) before playing.

And yes, with the weekend here I’m finally done waffling and creating ‘alts’ and am actually moving forward in the story!

Dragon Age: Origins — Learn2Play!!!

Posted on by Nimgimli

If you bought your version of DA:O digitally, or if you bought the console version, you might be interested in downloading the manual for the game (I haven’t seen the console manual but I’m told it’s pretty thin). I just had a read through it and learned some nuances I wasn’t aware of. Plus it gives some info that might help you in picking a race/class combination.

If that isn’t enough, there’s a fan-led project called Dragon Age: Origins – The Missing Manual (at least, that’s what it is called until O’Reilly, who publishes “The Missing Manual” series, hears about it). It’s very much a work-in-progress but already does a good job of making existing information easier to parse. For example, this chart on what each character behavior setting does is, to me at least, easier to grok then looking at the tool tips in-game.