Day: October 19, 2008

Rock Band the Second

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last year I was introduced to the whole ‘plastic instruments games’ genre as dominated these days by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I’d sniffed haughtily and declared them “silly” many times before taking the plunge and, of course, having the time of my life playing. But as with everything else I get involved with, the infatuation passed. I kept downloading any freebie songs and things like that, but never got around to playing them.

Today the PS3 version of Rock Band 2 came out (I play these games on my PS3…I have a 360 but don’t trust the hardware very much, having had to send mine back for repair twice already). We were out and about doing chores and stopped for lunch and I had a beer which lubricated my purse strings enough that before I knew it, I’d picked it up, even though there was no budget for it. 🙁

Tonight I booted it up and the joy came flooding back in, buyer’s remorse flew out the window, and that silly grin reappeared on my face. I almost always play alone, and one of the nice things about Rock Band 2 is that they included some RB1 “band only” features for solo players in #2. Instead of flat playlists to work through, you now have the “world tour” where you have to earn money and gain fans and fames enough to work your way to bigger and bigger venues. It makes the game feel more like a game, which I like. But you can still set up your own sets and play those if you like.

There’s a Battle of the Bands feature which lets you match scores against other (basically anonymous) bands, and then there’s a series of challenges… basically a whole lot “more” than what RB 1 had.

Make no mistake, the basic mechanics are the same (why mess with a good thing, right?). The presentation is sharper and things like guitar solos seem more tailored to the music that’s playing. I spent the $5 to get an “Import License” for the RB 1 songs, which do take up 1.5 gigs of space (that would be a big deal on my 360 but the PS3 has a 60 gig hard drive).

There’s still a few things I’d like to see: I’d like to create characters to fill out the rest of my band, for instance, and I don’t *think* you can do that right now. I mean just for aesthetics. I hate it when my lead guitarist is all decked out in punk-ish threads and ends up in a Gwar-themed band, for instance. Actually it’d be pretty cool if you could play any character in a band at different times, now that I think about it. But I think the “band leader” always has to be present.

Also when you create your own sets, there can be some weirdness. I had some rock dude singing Belinda Carlisle’s vocals in “We Got the Beat” during one set. But since the band doesn’t change across the songs in a set, I guess that’s as much my fault as the game’s. And really this is nit-picky stuff.

I played for like two hours so this is NOT a review of the game. But my initial reaction has been really positive. If you enjoyed Rock Band I can’t see any reason why you won’t love Rock Band 2 as well. And if you’ve never tried one of these games, well, time’s awasting. They’re an awfully good time. Just be careful who is around. Apparently I sang every lyric of “Psycho Killer” while I was playing through it, loud enough to be heard by others. Much teasing ensued.

When I was younger music was a *huge* part of my life (as it is for many young people) but the older I got, the less I listened. What I love about Rock Band and Guitar Hero is that it gets me back to listening to music (while “playing” it) and in fact often hearing it in new ways. Yeah, they’re “toy” instruments but still these games feel like they have a bit more meaning than your typical shoot-em-up.

Melee DPS in War: Huh! What are they good for?

Posted on by Nimgimli

Absolutely nothin!

OK, that’s not literally true but I needed to say it to invoke the classic song. You young’uns will just have to trust me.

Anyway I spent the weekend alt-hopping, and I’m growing increasingly disillusioned with melee DPS classes in Warhammer Online for doing RvR (they do great at PvE). I’m writing this post so people can tell me how stupid I am and convince me that melee DPS is deadly when handled right.

Over the past couple of days I’ve played a healer, tank and melee DPS on both sides of the fight. Healers are hard to kill and, well, heal. Tanks are hard to kill and do plenty of damage. Melee DPS drop if you look at them wrong and do plenty of damage, assuming no one looks at them wrong. (None of this includes Range DPS…I haven’t been playing them.)

The problem boils down to survivability. Melee DPS armor isn’t anthing to crow about, so you really need external help to stay alive. Healers tend not to heal DPS classes for a couple of valid reasons: 1) Healers are busy keeping themselves and the Tanks alive & 2) Melee DPS takes damage so damned quickly that it’s almost impossible to keep them up unless the healer is laser-focused on 1 particular melee DPS. Plus some healers seem to have an inherent disdain for melee dps since all they do is “smash buttons to do damage”.

Before you react too strongly to that last paragraph I say again, I’ve been playing a healer on and off the past few days, and I too didn’t heal the melee DPS after a few tries. It just wasn’t efficient to do so. By the time they draw the attention of the other side and start taking damage, they’re as good as dead. You can’t dump healing on them fast enough to keep them up unless you ignore everyone else.

Tanks seem to be plenty good at busting through enemy lines and laying the smack down on their healers & ranged DPS. A tank with a pack full of potions can stay up for a long time even without heals; have a healer drop a HoT on him now and then and it’ll take sustained attention from 3 or 4 enemies to bring him down. And his damage is good, too.

To test all this I’ve been playing Scenarios (which, btw, reaffirmed my dislike of them and the people that play them, each of whom is apparently the single person on their team who knows how2play!), so I have a “scorecard” to check. I’ve won some, lost some, playing as Order, playing as Destruction. My Tank consistently ranked near the top of the charts for my side in terms of Damage Done, and near the bottom in terms of deaths. My Melee DPS was the inverse, often topping the charts in number of deaths and being near the bottom in damage done. It’s hard to do damage when you spend most of the scenario face down in the mud.

All of this experimentation was done in Tier 1, so hopefully things change. The classes I played were a Rune Priest, Ironbreaker and Marauder (and I play a Witch Hunter as my ‘main’). It’s possible I picked the best tank and the worst melee dps, or something equally odd to skew my experience. In particular when playing Order I’ve had some bad Witch Elf experiences, and I think that has to do with their short-term stealth maybe?

I’d love to hear from other melee DPS players. Has it been rough for you, or do you do ok? There were literally times with that Marauder that I was killed before I even reached the back ranks of the baddies. They saw me incoming, I got a face full spells and was respawning before I knew what had hit me (literally). I played a high level Marauder in beta and I know they get that freaky tentacle that’ll yank an enemy TO you rather than you trying to charge through enemy lines, so maybe that’s the basic Marauder M.O.?