Archive for September, 2008

Warhammer Online – Age of Reckoning Impressions

{ September 10, 2008 @ 12:56 pm } · { Reviews/Impressions, games }
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This article ignores story and lore intentionally. There are no spoilers below.

Screw the intro. Lets just launch into this.

For some perspective, my MMO background starts in some MUD somewhere when I was an AOL user in middle school. I dabbled in Ultima Online as well in high school, but I didn’t play Everquest at all. The first MMO I really sunk time into was Final Fantasy XI. And I sunk way to much time into it, though I’ve made a number of lasting friendships for which it will always be an important game for me. After that I moved onto WoW, and from there I’ve dabbled in various MMOs through the past few years. The MMOs which I still consider myself ‘active’ in are World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, though I am a very casual player.

For a casual player of MMOs, Warhammer may not be in their field of view as much as it should. I personally didn’t follow the project except in a very cursory way, and in fact I didn’t apply for the beta at any stage until recently when I placed a pre-order for the express purpose of giving it a go and writing this post. Warhammer itself is not something I ever seriously considered getting into, both due to money issues and (to be honest) the typical Warhammer player in my experience tends to be the kind of gamer I dislike (but that is a subject for another rant).

I don’t have an issue with the setting. I find both the fantasy and sci-fi variants interesting, and I enjoy the very gritty-low fantasy feel. I also definitely respect the setting as being pretty much the basis for Warcraft initially, and is in some ways directly responsible for however many millions of players are stomping around Azeroth right now. With that in mind, and a certain amount of curiosity as both a gamer and MMO enthusiast I woke up Sunday morning to give it a go.

As I logged into the game I had no real knowledge of any of the classes. I went with the time honored tradition of what looked the coolest. I ended up as a Witch Elf (Destruction), and started poking around. I did a few quests and I immediately noticed the combat as being a lot slower than I’ve gotten used to, which initially turned me off a bit. Early on, when you only have a few skills, it is a little frustrating to not be able to use them quickly, but taking into account the abilities you will get through the levels, it seemed like a fairly wise decision, and will most likely make PvP a little more manageable. During my time as a Witch elf, I did a couple of the early quest nodes and joined an RvR scenario as well. The proved to be quite entertaining, and the short (15 minute) time was perfect. It also helped that we won.

After that I decided to give Order a try, specifically the Witch Hunter, which had caught my eye in several pieces of artwork and in promotional screenshots. I enjoyed the initial quest progression a lot more, and I found the special mechanic really entertaining, though not very interesting perhaps in terms of gameplay (attacks cause Accusations, which you use to pass a Judgement. Think a WoW Rogue’s combo points and finishers, a basic mechanic shared with several other classes). So with pistol and rapier in tow I started schlepping around Nordland, rallying villagers, stabbing minions of Chaos, and using siege equipment to blast mages from afar. Eventually it started to get a little dull, and then I stumbled into my first Public Quest.

I’ll tell you straight up. Public Quests are the primary reason I’m considering purchasing this game at retail. As someone who doesn’t always have a lot of time to sink into an MMO, being able to not only jump into a quest, but have it also yield useful rewards and an epic experience is fantastic. I found myself repeating them to not only acquire my faction rewards, but just to improve my personal performance, as the quests reports damage dealt at the end of the entire scenario, and the top contributors get better rewards. The quests I tried involved protecting a farmstead from Chaos battalions and eventually an ogre who arrived on the scene after knocking down some trees, battling mages and their summoned horrors around a flaming windmill, and hunting down chaos marauders in some ruins.  I think the key to their success is that not only are they fast, but they have their own story that fits into the lore, and they tend to be great set pieces. When that ogre arrived, knocking down trees, and the villagers fled leaving us to slay the monster, it was a fantastic moment, and if Mythic delivers more of them at frequent intervals throughout the experience curve, this game really should be a no-brainer for a lot of people.

My concerns for the game at this point are fairly minimal. I’m fairly certain that the level grind will be interesting the whole way through with liberal sprinklings of PQs throughout, and the occasional RvR scenario (which, by the way, awards a little bit of EXP). My only concern come from the endgame. Obviously I’m not at a place where I could discuss this with any real knowledge, but I worry that unless the RvR scenarios and gameplay aren’t rewarding are varied enough the game might not have as much longevity as it should have. That being said, Dark Age of Camelot didn’t have that issue, so I have faith that Mythic will keep the content flowing and keep the battles interesting. As for myself, I think I will continue into the retail release and see how it goes. For now, color me optimistic. I’m going to spend some more time with the beta this week, and if I find anything else worth discussing I’ll be sure to append it here.

Recap

{ September 6, 2008 @ 12:25 am } · { my life }
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Since Wednesday:

Stuck in 3 traffic jams in Boston. One at 11pm.
Ate at Mary Ann’s twice.
Carried a kiwi fruit in my pocket.
Met a cat named Starla.
Played the 24 card game and lost to terrorists.
Drank the rest of my beer.
Made new acquaintances from Providence to Manchester.
Played cards while watching Billy Connolly.
Went to Nordic Lodge.
Drove 600 miles.

I am tired. I wanted to write a real entry, but that’s not happening until later.

Run away

{ September 5, 2008 @ 9:42 am } · { Amusing, The Little Things }
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(Not my cat :( )

A simple joy

{ September 3, 2008 @ 3:09 pm } · { The Little Things }
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This meal gets me through anything. No matter what happens I can always derive joy from a tasty sandwich mixto and a cafe cubano. Plantains also help.

The Inevitable Braid Post

{ September 2, 2008 @ 10:29 am } · { games }
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I finally got to spend some time with Braid last night, after having downloaded it shortly after its release. I suppose its become mandatory at this point for those who have played the game and consider themselves gamers with an appreciation of the medium beyond the latest craze to mention it on their blog. Speaking of which, I wonder what the tally would be like at this point?

At any rate, my experiences with the game have been minimal so far. I didn’t jump on the game immediately for a few reasons, and you may feel free to shake your head disapprovingly as I list them here. The first, and biggest reason: I thought (and still think) that the game itself is so pretentious as to turn myself off to it immediately. When pretense and hype pair up I find myself not enjoying media as much as I normally would.  The fact that the art-game literati were trumpeting this thing as a life-changing, mind-expanding experience was an immediate red flag for me (even if the game itself might be these things- more on that in a bit). To explain, there are two instances of this sort of thing that immediately jump to mind, and which will perhaps shed some light on why I think the way I do.

1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Everyone who I knew that had seen the film couldn’t say enough about it. Amazing! Fantastic! Moving! Oh the hidden meanings! The clever shots! Everyone spent so much time telling me why it was great and why I should think it was great, that when I finally watched it, it was a bit of a let down to be perfectly honest.

2) House of Leaves: I really enjoyed this book. I would have enjoyed it more if I had just picked it up and read it on my own. All of the metaphor is great. The stories within stories were very clever. And the history of the setting, glimpsed throughout the stories, was something I found very compelling. But in the end, I found that between the book taking itself so seriously, and the legions of mindless zombiesfilm majors I really coulnd’t enjoy it at face value. And to be perfectly honest, why should something have to be obtuse to be worthwhile? Really the best media should not only be interesting, nay, riveting at face value, as well have those layers of meaning behidn the facade, to ensure longevity and relevance long after its time is gone.

Okay, tangent: ended. To recap: The first reason I wasn’t keen on Braid: the pretense. The second reason: the art. Now don’t get in a huff. I’ve changed my tune (for the most part) on this, but in seeing screenshots of the game I never looked at it and thought ‘beautiful’. Not even lush. And both Tim and the monsters you encounter just seemed ugly to me, in a way. Not to say that the artistic vision isn’t cohesive, because it is, no question. 

Anyhow, those were my two major caveats. I had no clue about the music, and only knew a very little bit about the gameplay. As a rule, unless I am on the fence with a product, I tend to stay away from videos and look at screenshots as little as possible. Maybe thats foolish, but I like to have my experiences for games, movies, and the like be fresh and open minded.

With this in mind, know that on Saturday morning, I sat down in front of my 360 with a pot of tea, some breakfast, and started up braid. The title screen, paired with the music chosen by Blow, was a good start. And seeing Tim in action was heartening. My initial minutes with the game were spent mostly enjoying the soundscapes and reading the story segments. The exploration was fun initially, though in my characteristic fashion I started picking up less and less puzzle pieces in an effort to see more of the artwork that I had quite wrongly dismissed (though I still don’t particularly care for the catrabbits or hairy dwarf things). The backgrounds were lovely, and the music really set a mood that seemed quite appropriate for the cool late summer morning.

I only had a little while to play Saturday unfortunately, so last night I came back to the game, and after I finished blazing through the game I returned to World 2 to start assembling the puzzle pieces and to really try and wrap my head around the different world mechanics. There may be puzzle spoilers ahead, so you have been warned.

My first epiphany, and possibly many other people’s, would have been using the incomplete picture in world two to create a bridge to not only move a hairy dwarf to a more advantageous position, but also to reach an otherwise unreachable puzzle piece. Through the next few areas I continued to puzzle out what needed to be done, completing World 3 after a bit more trial and error than I would like to admit. Before calling it a night last night, I did take a substantial chunk out of world 4, and I must say at this point I’ve enjoyed it the most in terms of feeling the rush after solving a puzzle. Eventually my exhaustion won out and I had to stop for the evening, but I knew the game had something special when i sat down to my computer to poke around at a few sites before lights out and I found myself quite randomly thinking that somehow the logic of world 4 applied to my web browser and instant messaging. Crazy? Maybe. But I was thinking about the puzzle solving method of a fraction of a game without realizing it. That pushes a game into the ranks of my personal AAA titles, for what thats worth, especially seeing as its gameplay, and not story or characters that I find myself thinking about when I’m not playing it.

At any rate, my tune has mostly changed about this game. I plan on completing it over time during the next week or so, depending on how busy I am. You may call me convinced though that perhaps pretense, while not something I’m willing to be okay with just yet, can be just the thing the industry needs from time to time. I don’t know if Braid will end up being a life-changing game for me. But it definitely is something that everyone shouls take a look at, especially small developers, or people who always had an idea but were to concerned it woulod be washed away in a deluge of big releases.

If the idea is a good one, and the implementation is skillful, you could change an industry, or at least shake it up a bit.

 

For another view on Braid close to my own: crouton days

For the game’s music (which I insist you check out): Braid Blog, Buckman’s Magnatune blog