Gaming Archives - Page 112 of 156

Pet PS3 Peeve

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Nimgimli

Dear Sony,

In general I really adore my PS3s (to the point I own two of them) but, please please PLEASE give us an option to turn off “preview” sound on the XMB.

Picture this scenario. The lady and I have dinner in front of the tv, and are watching Ghost Whisperer on DVD. A generally quiet show, not lots of explosions or screaming. We finish, turn off the PS3.

A few hours later, late enough at night that neighbors are sleeping, I turn on the TV, Receiver and PS3 on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water. Suddenly the walls are shaking with explosive sounds. I drop my glass and run back into the living room, where the PS3 is on, the XMB cursor sitting on the FEAR demo (thanks to Qore I already have it), and it is *blasting* out sound at an ear-splitting level.

I really, really hate that. I mean, I get that its cool that we can see and hear a preview window of the title selected, but please let us turn that off. Not everything enjoys an assault on the senses every time we turn our system on. The PS3, in our home at least, is much more than a game system: we watch DVD and Blu-Ray movies on it, watch Hulu via the built-in web broswer, and stream audio and video off the PCs in the office. It is very much a ‘media center’ for us, and me hitting the power button does not mean that I’m in the mood for EXTREME!!!!! violence.

And if Sony doesn’t give us that option, then publishers, please at least give some thought to what you’re blasting at us. The irony is that I turned the receiver way down to where the sound was reasonable, and started the demo…and had to turn the sound UP again. The ‘teaser’ was much louder than the actual game (and much louder than the DVD we’d been watching). And honestly, it made me think less (slightly) of the game…it was a bad first impression.

Thank you Sony, for your prompt attention to this matter!

Sincerely,
Dragonchasers!

Warhammer “Zone Domination” patch

Posted on January 18, 2009 by Nimgimli

Another wacky video from Paul Barnett. He teases multiple items in a mail, suggests that zone crashes are virtually abolished, and talks about “Zone Domination” in which the method by which you’d capture a zone would be “less rubbish.”

Probably too late for me, but good to see they continue to improve things. But the cynic in me wonders why things weren’t “less rubbish” at launch?

Switching channels

Posted on January 17, 2009January 17, 2009 by Nimgimli

So my EQ2 sub ran out, leaving both myself and Angela feeling a bit blue. We’d been adventuring together quite a bit; something we haven’t done all that much of in the past. I’ve left EQ2 so many times, and each time I come back I like it a bit more. This is the first time I’ve left wanting more. As soon as we get money stuff straightened out I’ll be re-subscribing.

Today I was MMO surfing a bit. I tried Warhammer again. Made a level but that didn’t really feel like it made much difference. Spent way too much time deleting gold spam from my mail box. Bleh. Did some more FusionFall, and honestly that game continues to be fun in a very cotton-candy sort of way. So easy to jump in, run around a bit, and jump out.

Then finally I fired up LOTRO. I’ve been exploring Evendim. Correction: I thought I’d been exploring Evendim but in fact I’d really been just on the fringe of it. Today I got into Evendim proper. One thing Turbine knows how to do is take your breath away as you explore Middle Earth. Remember in the movie version of Fellowship, when they’re paddling down river after leaving Lothlorien, and they come around a curve in the river and suddenly there’s the huge guardian king in front of them? While Turbine took that scene to heart. I don’t want to say more because the whole beauty is discovering this stuff for yourself.

I’ve said it ad nauseum, but I just adore exploring Middle Earth. It feels like almost a burden, though, that I have a quest log full of Fellowship quests at this point. I just can’t experience the world quite the same way when I’m in a group of people; can’t take time to stop and gawk at landscapes and ancient ruins and amazing creatures… I suppose I can always come back when I’ve out-leveled the content, right?

Mini-review: Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Nimgimli

I was browsing around the Steam store looking for something to occupy my time when I found an indie game called Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy. Hell yeah, pirates always rule! I immediately started downloading a demo of it.

The blurb was enticing:

Set sail across the Caribbean with Buccaneer. Will you become the world’s greatest and most feared pirate captain, or will you let your infamy ebb away and risk mutiny at the hands of your bloodthirsty crew?

I boot up the game and it is *gorgeous*. Detail on the ship is very nice, and the sea is filled with little ‘flavor’ touches like sharks prowling below the surface and gulls flying above. My first mission is to drive a rival pirate gang away from a merchant vessel so I can plunder it. Yo ho ho! I’m psyched!

And then I start to control my ship, and the world comes crashing down around me. First of all, there’s no wind in the game. Second of all, you have to hold down an ‘acceleration’ key to move forward. Let up on it and your ship quickly comes to a stop. Third, your ship turns fastest at slowest speeds. The “s” key puts you in reverse. If at this point you’re thinking “Well, that sounds just like a car!” well, you’re absolutely correct. You may be looking at a ship on the ocean, but what you’re playing is a car-combat game played on an infinite parking lot.

Forget any thought of tactics. Raking fire is less effective than trading broadsides. Your cannons fire nearly constantly so there’s no strategy there. No choice of shot type, or where to aim. No sail damage. No… well, no hint of any sort of nautical kn0w-how needed. Strap guns on the sides of a couple of cars, put them on a parking lot and let them circle around shooting at each other, and that’s what Buccaneer is.

What an incredible disappointment.

But wow, does it ever look pretty!

Fusion Fall First Foray

Posted on January 14, 2009 by Nimgimli

It seems almost silly to do a “first look” of a free, no active download game…after all, if you’re interested, go sign up and play! But I’m old school, eh?

I got about 90 minutes to play Fusion Fall tonight. It was gently amusing, but so far what I’ve seen has been *very* kid oriented, with little or no humor slipped in for the grownups (I’d hoped for some ‘dual layer’ humor similar to what the cartoons often have). The closest I’ve seen to “snuck in adult humor” so far was a quest name: Shock and Ow. But that’s ok; after all, kids *are* the intended audience, and it feels like they’ve gone to great lengths to make a safe game, right down to naming characters. During character creation, you can build a name by picking from lists of words (rather like Second Life) or you can request a custom name. I did the latter, and was told it would have to be approved first and that I’d be given a temporary name until my chosen name got approval. So all night I was Player43489342 or something. I’m guessing name approval goes in front of bonafide human eyeballs or something.

Dexter, of Dexter’s Lab, is the first Cartoon Network character you’ll meet, only its an adolescent Dexter, and he’s come to transport you into the future so you can help save the world from a gooey alien menace. Of course, Dee Dee gets involved and screws everything up and you get flung “too far” into the future. Now I have to admit my Cartoon Network knowledge is pretty out of date, so I didn’t recognize many of the characters, but presumably an age-appropriate player would.

Combat is fairly traditional action-RPG fare, with you basically holding down a mouse button to swing/fire. Targeting is similar to Tabula Rasa though. Normally you have no mouse pointer on screen and instead are in constant “mouse look” mode. There are no classes, at least at first, but you customize characters via the use of “Nanos”. These are tiny versions of CN characters that you collect as you quest. You have 3 “equip” slots for Nanos, and each Nano has 3 potential skills, of which 1 is active at any time. So basically you have 3 skills available at any time. You can hit a machine that lets you swap Nanos or activate different spells on your Nanos in the various “town” areas. (This system feels a bit like Guild Wars to me…lots of potential skills but limited slots to use them in.)

As an example, my first two Nanos were one of the Power Puff Girls and “Numbah two” from some current show that I didn’t recognize. The PPG’s active skill was a Stun, and Numbah 2 came with a run-speed buff. In both cases, their other skills were some kind of group buff, and some kind of collection buff (extra currency from kills).

The premise of this Planet Fusion which is trying to take over the earth means that you spend a lot of time in pretty banged up neighborhoods. Green goo is everywhere; walking on it causes you to take damage, and most of the monsters have some green goey bits on their bodies. Lots of cyborg looking amalgamations of goo and machine parts like some twisted Battle Bots arena. This goo-factor serves to lighten an otherwise potentially dismal motif. But there’s a LOT of green in this game!

There are some nods to arcade games. Every so often you’ll find an “egg” and running over it gets you a powerup buff (I’ve gotten run speed and jump duration buffs this way so far). There are also some light platforming aspects in certain areas, but you’d have to be really inept at platforming for these to give you any difficulty.

It isn’t clear at this point what the difference is between playing for free and paying for a sub. Presumably that comes a bit later, after they have you hooked.

Technically, the game ran very nicely, and did a lot of its downloading in the background; I was up and playing in no time. My browser (Firefox 3) did crash on quitting the game, but in all fairness FF3 on my Vista machine isn’t the most stable browser I’ve ever used. I do rather wish there was a desktop launcher, but maybe I can make one via a URL shortcut.

I think its natural to want to compare Fusion Fall to Free Realms. Both are bright, “lite” kid-friendly MMOs. I haven’t played Free Realms but from what I’ve seen it might be a bit more “different” than Fusion Fall (it seems to be heavy on mini-games?), which in most ways feels very ‘comfortable’ to an MMO player. Whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on what you’re looking for, I guess.

Will I keep playing Fusion Fall? Maybe a bit. It was amusing, but really for the little amount I played, it was *so* focused on being kid-friendly that I almost had an “I don’t belong here” feeling. I didn’t do any chatting and in fact didn’t *see* any chatting. So whether there was a channel I missed, or maybe you can only chat with friends, I’m not sure. For all I know everyone else running around was just as old as me. I can’t really put my finger on why I feel the way I do: I was quite comfortable in, for instance, Wizard 101. But I really felt kind of “out of place” in this world. We’ll see if that feeling continues. I want to at least get my name (Gillain Edgeward) rather than Player293r2342!

Return to SWG

Posted on January 14, 2009January 14, 2009 by Nimgimli

In other MMO news… if you have a dormant Star Wars Galaxies account that hasn’t been active since last July, it should be re-activated from now until February 15th.

The bad news is that your house is about to be demolished.

Full text of the email that went out follows:

============

House/Structure Pack-Up Notification for Inactive Accounts:

Effective March 3, 2009, at 4:00 AM PST your in-game player owned properties including Houses, Guild Halls, Theaters, Hospitals, Cloning Facilities, Merchant Tents and Factories may be packed-up, removed from the game server(s) and placed in your inventory!

Dear Former Star Wars™ Galaxies Citizens,

On March 3rd, we may pack up and remove items attached to Star Wars Galaxies accounts that have been inactive (an account that has not been logged into and had an active, paying, and valid subscription) since July 1, 2008. If your service has been inactive since July 1, 2008, and you do not validly re-subscribe prior to February 15, 2009, your houses, structures and associated assets may be packed up into your inventory and removed from the game servers at 4:00 AM PST on March 3, 2009. Should you decide to return to Star Wars Galaxies after that date, you will have to place these items back into the game world.

Return To The Galaxy and Reclaim Your House… Come Back to Star Wars Galaxies Between January 13, 2009 and February 15, 2009 at No Charge*!

Before you relinquish your valuable real estate and game assets to the House Pack-Up program, take this opportunity to log in and see how much has changed since you left. Here are some of the things you missed since you’ve been gone:

Hoth: The Battle of Echo Base Heroic Encounter
The Nova Orion Crisis Heroic Encounter
The Fury of Exar Kun Heroic Encounter
Profession Updates
The Search for the Meatlump King Theme Park
The online only Star Wars Galaxies™ Trading Card Game

We are offering you an opportunity to come back for free between January 13, 2009 at 12:01 AM PST and February 15, 2009 at 11:59 PM PST. Your account has been automatically re-activated; simply log in to take advantage of this offer!

Return and Get Rewarded!

If you return and decide to re-subscribe to Star Wars Galaxies with a valid, paid subscription before the free period ends on February 15, 2009, at 11:59 PM PST, you will be eligible to receive a special Sarlacc Trash Can** in-game item, perfect for that structure you just saved from being removed from the servers!

Coming Back is Easy!

Simply log in to your account; it will be reactivated automatically for FREE between January 13, 2009, at 12:01 PM PST and February 15, 2009, at 11:59 PM PST.
Don’t have Star Wars Galaxies installed? No problem! Download the Station Launcher installer HERE to get access to the latest version of Star Wars Galaxies.
You must log back in to your former account and re-subscribe before February 15, 2009, at 11:59 PM PST to receive the Sarlacc Trash Can in-game item. So don’t delay, log-in today and rejoin your friends!

Hoth, The Meatlump King, Exar Kun and Darth Vader are all waiting for you…

May the Force Be With You!

The Star Wars Galaxies Team

For More Information please visit: www.starwarsgalaxies.com/packup

Please be aware that if you do not reactivate your Star Wars Galaxies account by providing SOE with valid billing information on or before February 15, 2009, at 11:59 PM PST, your house, guild halls, factories, merchant tents, theaters and all associated assets will be packed up into your inventory and removed from the game.

*This offer, and the period of free game-play described in this offer, expires on February 15, 2009 at 11:59PM PST. This offer is only available for former Star Wars Galaxies accounts that have been closed and inactive since July 1, 2008 and is not available for current Star Wars Galaxies or Station Access accounts or for accounts that were banned or were not in good standing when its Star Wars Galaxies or Station Access subscription previously expired or was terminated.

Taking advantage of this free play period will not result in your account being considered an “active” account so that if you do not reactivate your Star Wars Galaxies account by providing SOE with valid billing information prior to February 15, 2009 at 11:59 PM PST, your house, guild halls, factories, merchant tents, theaters and associated assets may be packed up into your inventory effective March 3, 2009.

Entering billing information before February 15, 2009 at 11:59PM will terminate the free service and you will lose the balance of any unused free play period game time. In addition, if you re-subscribe to Star Wars Galaxies, you will not be entitled to any game time that may be included with the purchase of certain versions of, or other offers related to, Star Wars Galaxies. Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts do not ensure continuous or error-free access, use or availability of any game content, feature, game-play or server and may change, modify, disable, suspend or remove any such content, feature, game-play or server at their sole discretion.

To add billing information to your account, simply visit www.station.sony.com and log in to your account and select “Subscriptions Info” and click “Add Another Plan”. Select “YES!” to subscribe to the Station Access multi-game subscription offer (game software sold separately) or “No” to only subscribe to Star Wars Galaxies. Choose a Subscription Plan or Pre-Paid Game Card and click “Continue”. Enter the required billing information or Game Card Code (if available) and click “Continue”. Additional recurring costs apply as part of the Star Wars Galaxies account subscription.

**To receive the “Sarlacc Trash Can” in-game item for former subscribers, former account holders must re-activate billing on your Star Wars Galaxies account before February 15, 2009 at 11:59PM PST. The conversion reward is available through the /claim interface beginning on March 5, 2009. The Sarlacc Trash Can is offered on a one per account, non-tradeable basis.

FusionFall Launches

Posted on January 14, 2009 by Nimgimli

The Cartoon Network’s Browser-based MMO FusionFall launched today. There’s a free-to-play area, or full access starts at $5.95/month and drops a bit for longer sub periods. There’s also a $9.95/month family plan that gets you 4 accounts.

FusionFall is clearly aimed at kids, but let’s face it, Cartoon Network has plenty of winks and nods for us adults as well. Let’s hope some of that “duality” made it into the MMO. I remember sitting with my ex’s daughter watching The Power Puff Girls and she and I would laugh at totally different moments. 🙂

How I roll(play)

Posted on January 13, 2009January 13, 2009 by Nimgimli

Yesterday I had very little leisure time, and consequently I have nothing to say today. So I thought I’d try something a little different and share my technique for role-playing in MMOs. I’m just not quick-witted enough to role-play in ‘real time’ in games, but I do like to gin up some kind of storyline that explains where my character(s) come from.

In the case of Pirates of the Burning Sea, I was in a guild called The Highland Confederacy. The premise of this guild was that they were a group of Scottish, Irish and Welsh Jacobites fighting on the side of France. In game terms, we figured the English faction was going to be over-crowded, so this allowed us to play under the flag of France but still speak English.

I was playing two characters, a trader and a a privateer. The two were brothers. But what brought them to the New World and led them to The Highland Confederacy? I decided to chronicle their story as a series of log entries written by the elder brother, Morgan Rhydderch of Wales. I had fun weaving some history into their story.

This is pretty long so, y’know, I won’t be offended if you don’t read it all. And I’d best break the post here so I don’t swamp the RSS feeds out there. 🙂

Continue reading “How I roll(play)”

Size matters (EQ2)

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Nimgimli

So it’s time to buckle down and clean our Riowa’s quest journal. I keep trying to delete quests but my finger just won’t click that button (another of my many character flaws!), so instead Riowa partnered with Angela’s Moonbow (23 Warden), mentored down to her level, and voila, quests that were gray are now yellow.

The quests in question were in Stormhold, a zone I’m not all that familiar with, so I was following Angela’s directions while Riowa was leading Moonbow. One of the reasons I’m not familiar with Stormhold is that I hate the zone. All those tight corridors drive me crazy, and having a knee-high companion wasn’t making things any better — I kept ‘losing’ her.

I finally vocalized my internal grumbling, and Angela suggested I use my “Mystic Moppet Billy” that I’d gotten as a Veteran Reward at some point. This oddly named gizmo shrinks your character by 40%. Now a lot of MMOs have spells or potions or gadgets that shrink you or enlarge you, but I’ve always thought of them as just a lark…something to do for fun. And perhaps that’s the intent, but after activating Billy, my hulking Barbarian frame suddenly fit very nicely in Stormhold. Suddenly all those hallways seemed to be amply sized, and I could relax and have fun.

And have fun we did. Moonbow made four levels, we both snagged Achievement Points (well Riowa got one, I think she got two) and I’m finally starting to be able to find my way around Stormhold. Sadly Riowa did *not* finish any quests though. Stormhold is old-school (ie, annoying) EQ2, and the mobs he needed to kill just weren’t spawning. I’m so glad Sony seems to have moved away from long spawn timers, or tiny numbers of mobs, (or both!) in the later expansions. One quest had Riowa killing 15 goblin soldiers. As far as I could find (both via running around, and using EQ2Map), 2 spawn in all of Stormhold. I think he’s up to ten killed at this point, and he’s had the quest since level 25 or thereabouts.

Ah well, the point is, sometimes there are tools right in front of us that we just don’t see. I never thought I’d find a ‘practical’ use for Mystic Moppet Billy, but I sure did!

New digs (EQ2)

Posted on January 10, 2009January 10, 2009 by Nimgimli

Last night I decided that Riowa should celebrate hitting the 50’s by getting his own apartment. He’d been sleeping on the couch at Raffe’s (50 Alchemist) place since forever, which had been ok since most of the time Raffe crashes at the Guild Hall and Riowa is on the road a lot. The two never saw each other and only communicated via notes left to each other.

That said, Riannon (Angela’s 80 Templar) and Kharri (Angela’s 80 Carpenter) had decorated Raffe’s pad very tastefully, but Riowa wanted to try his own hand at decorating. Plus he was constantly hitting his head on that stupid spiral staircase that leads to the second floor of the Irontoes East, where the rented rooms are.

He first looked at some three room apartments, but quickly saw through the marketing hype. One room downstairs, one room upstairs, and then a walled yard with a tarp overhead! That’s not a room! Bah! The five-room homes are lovely but he didn’t quite have the status in the community to swing one. Actually he didn’t have anywhere near the status to swing one.

In the end, he rented a two room place in The Lion’s Mane, that cozy Inn in South Qeynos. It was very comfortably affordable, particularly once he did up the place with fancy items that appealed to the snooty housing committee [bringing the Status cost to 0] and placed a Treasure Trove [knocks 25% off the weekly Gold cost] in there. First thing he did was make an ice sculpture out of all the frozen goblins he’d collected in the icy keep.

Then he finally hatched the Mysterious Egg that he’d left unclaimed for several years, and look what hatched from it!

Next he bought a large cat, and brought his other pets over from Raffe’s place, taking particular care in transporting the baby dragon.

Next he arranged his trophy weapons around the door, so every time he left he’d be reminded of past successes.

An ice sculpture of some hot warrior chick rounded the place out. A real bachelor’s pad!

Not at all like Raffe’s girl-ish place, with his hearth

and his poncie bedroom

Admittedly the eating is better at Raffe’s, though.

The new suite has a long way to go, but Riowa is thinking me might wait until he can afford to five-room place before he really gets started on any serious decorating.

* * *

And while I’m in the image posting mood, here’s two shots of him with his new ice gear. One without the chest piece, and one with. You can see how over-done the ‘snowflake’ effect is on the chest piece. I think that’ll be the first piece I replace! (BTW, it is *uncanny* how simliar Riowa’s physique is to mine!!)