Today

 Remember when I said yesterday I'd get back on track with blogging daily?  Then work happened today.

Everything is fine.

April 2024 In Review

 Taking some inspiration from The Ancient Gaming Noob (TAGN for short) I wanted to start up month-in-review posts.

Microsoft Designer / prompt "an image to represent a blog post summarizing the month of april"

The Blog

 I will likely write a bigger post about this but I had a "surprise" after researching recent random traffic spikes.  The findings are best explained in this summary which guided me through blocking spammers that are abusing Google Analytics GA4 tags.  Needless to say my bubble was deflated as 90% of the traffic to my blog has just been spam and not real traffic (which explains why I see so few comments).  So where I was thinking I had 1,000 visits a day I really just have 100 (and that may still be high).  

 Anyone using Google Analytics should read that article and take the actions to block the spammers and build reports to review your historical traffic without that traffic counted.  I did parts of this through April so won't have a full picture quite yet and will share more on traffic stats in future monthly updates.

 In other metrics:

• Posts:
  
• Target: 22 (at least one per week day)
  
• Posted: 16
• Difference: -6
• Why the miss?  Work.  It's been busy so spare time has been gaming instead of blogging.  Fortunately clearing up here for May to get back on track.
•  Search Trends
• "new world ultimate trophy" is the main search driver to the blog and then hundreds of other New World search terms after that (daily checklist, season 5 artifacts, upgrade named gear - just to name a few)
  
• "call of the wild the angler multiplayer" is the big non-New World driver anytime that game seems to have a hiccup with this multiplayer features.
  

What I Played

 New World continues to dominate my time even though there isn't much new to do in the game.  My main focus has been on 3v3 arenas and the Springtide Bloom event.  The spring event, while bugged, was a good "do it and chill".  The bug let you get rewards faster so I was able to get all skins and rewards from the event with less effort than expected.   For 3v3 arenas I peaked into the top 10 for wins briefly for Season 5 and am back to 12th.  My main playing partner hit #1 though so that was cool to see; though both of us lack the time to stay on the top for the full season.  We'll still give it a go though.

 Fallout fever caught me as it has so many others and I gave Fallout 3 a couple hours of attention, but will admit it fell off almost immediately in favor of New World.

 I also got time with the Pax Dei Wilderness Alpha and spent several hours there.  The game has a good bit to improve but there is a little glimpse of promise of game there.

Years Ago

 One thing I wanted to steal from TAGNs is his look back over the last twenty years (we're getting old!).  My look back will mostly be from my blog history but a real life event may pop in here or there.

1 Year Ago

 April 2023 brought us Season 1 in New World and Rabbits Revenge (which due to patch delays we did NOT get in 2024).

5 Years Ago

 April 2019 caught me in my drought of blogging so had no posts, but my youngest son was also just turning 3 months old at the time so I was plenty busy.

10 Years Ago

 April of 2014 was all about the MEGASERVERS coming to Guild Wars 2.  Ten years later and we still have MMOs thinking they can launch with single servers.  How I wish New World had a megaserver model!

15 Years Ago

  April of 2009 I was looking at the news about A Dance With Dragons being delayed and fifteen years later, while we did get Dance, we have NOT gotten the next book in the series!  But GRRM is not my bitch so I'll leave it at that (if you get this comment you get it).

 20 19 Years Ago

 Technically I have 20 named years on my sidebar, but mathematically 2005 is only 19 years ago.  And April of 2005 I was not yet blogging, but that was all about to change as I started in May 2005!  Which means I was thinking about it in April!

Pax Dei: Wilderness Alpha Feedback

 The Pax Dei Wilderness Alpha has come and gone and I put a few hours in so have feedback to share.

Welcome to Pax Dei!

 First, the world feels immense in scale and that is apparent from the moment you start out picking where you are going to put down roots in the world.  The size of the world is reinforced as you begin running around looking for resources and realizing hours later you still haven't left your own starting zone let alone reached any of the many other zones on your server.  

My starting zone; one of many, many zones.

 The next reality that hits is that you can claim any piece of this world (at least the zones I was playing in) as your own and begin building a home.  Pax Dei is a survival crafting game where you carve your spot out in the world.  Err well maybe not so much a survival game but definitely crafting and building your place in the world.

 I did find it confusing what my purpose was in the game.  Was I meant to just plunk down a claim and build a house? Or was I building towards producing armor and weapons to go on an adventure?  The game leaves this open ended which may be fine for some players but personally I found it unappealing.  I felt like the game should have nudged me in some sort of direction.

 There was no tutorial so I had to spend some time on Discord asking how to get started.  Part of the issue was that when I started the beginning materials were not abundantly available in my area.  It seemed like that may have been a bug because they were more easily located later in the test.  A tutorial that assures resources to get started would be ideal for launch.

 Once I had starting materials I was off and crafting.  The game was on par with any other crafting survival game except there is not a pressing survival component (i.e. I didn't starve to death immediately).  I built a campfire.  I built a starting workbench.  I built the next thing and the next thing and...

 ...then I hit a wall.  The crafting progression has some bumps.  As I mentioned early on in the test some of the starting materials were tough to find.  My first day I couldn't find clay so I couldn't make a kiln and thus everything past that was blocked.  Later in the test I encountered recipes for starting crafting stations that had steep material requirements and little help guiding me to where to get them. I think the progression can be smoothed out with a pass on what recipes require what materials so they fall in more logical order.

Eventually I was able to get a kiln.  Don't ask where my clothes went.

 Gathering was also bumpy.  Again there was clear issues early on where some resources didn't seem to be available or weren't re-spawning (at least that's my guess).   However, part of the issue is the game seems to have a "node" system so there were times where I was surrounded by rock but I couldn't actually gather any of that rock for recipes that needed rock.  I got used to games in this genre, like Enshrouded, where you can just go bash a rock pile to get rocks.

Rocks, rocks, everywhere but I can't gather any of them.

 One thing that I had hoped would happen naturally was that if I hit a bump in progression that I could rely on a neighbor who maybe had made further progress but I found it very difficult to interact with players in the game.  In fact I don't think I once was able to communicate or interact with anyone even though we ran past each other numerous times.  I had to jump out to the Discord server and even then couldn't find folks in my area and I wasn't up to run long distances to get to them.  The game needs to make it simpler to find and interact with other players.

 Crafting in the game features both station crafting where I stood at a station and crafted as well as factory crafting where a station took inputs and some time later provided an output.  When crafting there is a chance of success or failure that improves as skills improve.  Personally I didn't like this as there was only a "down side" (i.e. failing the craft) and no "up side" where if you got lucky you got a bonus or some masterwork version of something.  

 Also each individual item has to be crafted by itself and the success/failure bar has to fill up for each.  Unfortunately this meant a lot of time just watching the bar go up and not a lot of time playing. Add in the progression of recipes and a massive quantity of inputs required and players in the alpha found themselves spending hours just standing at stations doing nothing.  I would recommend they get rid of the success/failure mechanic and just make bulk crafting instant.  Don't waste players time.  It is fine to have "factory" stations that are time gated  but once I have materials just let me craft with one click.

 As I continued to play I made progress and eventually equipped myself with a weapon and shield.  This brought me into combat.  My first encounter was with a bear which ended with me dead.  I opted to pick on a boar next which... also ended in my death.  Each death meant a run back to get my corpse to get my items back.  Corpse runs are fine I suppose.

 Boar or bear there is risk to fighting with the basic weapons and part of the problem is combat is... how should I say this... bad.  It is just bad.  As it was an alpha I feel like I owe more words in feedback so I'll try to give some here but don't let these words lead you to believe there is anything to this combat system.  It is really, really bad even for an alpha (note: they have also said this is the combat system they expect to have for early access).

 The first issue with combat is there isn't anything to it.  You left click to attack.  That is about it.  Combat feels floaty and your actions lack weight which is odd because combat is terribly slow.  Animations are... not good... making it hard to connect with what is visually happening to what inputs you are providing.  Add in desync situations with the client/server connection and it's a poor experience.  I can't see myself playing a game with a combat system this poor.  New World combat has spoiled me.

 Visually the game offers stunning views, but I found the details to be less impressive once you were up close.  The mountains are stunning at a distance but generic up close with no character.  The world is clearly procedural generated for the most part and thus lacks any points of interest unless you walk for long distances to somewhere hand crafted.  I suspect player buildings will make it more interesting once the game is live but player buildings currently don't offer much of interest aside from "oh cool" or "not sure what they were building" moments.

 For an alpha test the game offered a lot of pieces and I really liked day one where a little neighborhood started popping up.  Crafting and building are in a good spot and can get better with more reviews of progression and recipes so they are more logical.  Seeing other players share their builds there is a lot of potential out there in seeing the world come alive.  If the game can then add in some better reasons to seek out and work with other players it will hit a sweet spot for some gamers.  However, combat 100% needs a do-over. If they cannot massively improve combat this game is going to miss for many players. The crafting/building is NOT better than other games in the genre and the only advantage Pax Dei has is it's massively multiplayer with the promise of thousands of players building in the same world together.  If they an figure out combat and interesting content to go with it this game will be a winner.

Some more screenshots:

Swim two feet, die.

Amazing views.

Again, don't ask about the clothes.  No, I didn't finish my house.

Monday Screenshots 4/29/2024: New World

 Some Monday Screenshots for you; this time from New World!

My good friend Indestructible, on Valhalla server, reached #1 on the arena leaderboard.  I am in 12th.

Playing some music inbetween picking flowers during Springtide Bloom

Farm Game Fest!?

 Steam is holding a Farming Fest event starting tomorrow.  Get your farm game on!  As I just got most of my garden planted out this past weekend I'll be on the lookout for a farm a chill game.

Steam Backlog: Fallout 3 (and a fix for crashing when you click New Game)

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).

 I jumped back into Fallout 3!

Oh how I've missed you Pip-Boy!

 

 First; I kept crashing when starting a new game in Fallout 3 and a little searching directed me to needing a DirectX9 file.  Once downloaded and placed in the right folder I was off starting a new game.

 One thing I realized off the start was that Fallout 3 does not use cloud saves of any sort so all of my past adventures are long gone.  I had to start back out at the beginning which is literally as a baby coming out of my mother.  Then I explored the vault as a toddler > teenager > young adult before finally heading out into the wasteland.

 Once out into the world I had to admit myself the game graphics feel dated.  It is amazing to me how games that looked "amazing" 10+ years ago just don't hold up anymore.  That is both a good and bad thing I suppose.  Good that we've seen such amazing progress in graphics but bad in that I don't get the same sort of nostalgia hit from a Fallout 3 as I do from a stylized graphical game like a Super Nintendo RPG.

 I made my way to the first town in the game which is named after the nuclear bomb at it's center: Megaton.  This is where my journey ended for now as I have to contemplate how I want to solve this particular puzzle :)  Anyone that has played the game knows what decision happens here.

The clever way that Fallout 3 has you set your starting stats via a children's book... while you are playing as a toddler.

 

Wilderness here I come!

Yay!

 I've been invited to the next Pax Dei alpha test entitled "Wilderness".  This will be my first time testing the game and I am looking forward to this one.  Part survival, part builder, and an MMORPG - right up my alley!

Some more info on the Pax Dei Wilderness Alpha

What can you expect in this Alpha?

For this second large-scale test, we’re going on an adventure!
 
Our team has been hard at work on every aspect of the game related to challenges, and we now want to test that foundation with our community.

We hope you will have a great time, and we are looking forward to your feedback.

•  Gear up. We have revamped and introduced new statistics for all gear in the game. With hundreds of items for mixing and matching, you will have no lack of choices in crafting your own role.
•  It is dangerous to go alone. Denizens of the world will now present a real challenge. Don’t wander away from home without a party and the proper equipment.
• Master your weapons. We’ve added new spells, combat abilities, and weapon types. Keep an eye on their durability, you don’t want them to break when you need them the most.
• Welcome to Fight Club. Divine peace doesn’t extend to Lyonesse, our new province. Enter here at your own (mortal) peril, if you’re willing to try out our first iteration on PVP.
• Build & craft away. We've made multiple changes to the peaceful aspect of the game as well, be sure to check our release notes for a comprehensive overview.

Fallout to the Fallout

 

 The Fallout series on Amazon is all the rage and rightfully so as it recreates not only the theme of the games but also the quirkiness.  I am one episode in and even I, the can't-ever-seem-to-play-single-player-games gamer, am contemplating a jump back into the Fallout games.

 I was reading Tales of the Aggronaut and the post from Belghast: Radioactive Nostalgia.  Both in title and content the post was spot on.  The Fallout TV (is it really TV?) series is spot on translating the game to the screen.  From the look of characters to the well-placed medpacks on the walls everything just feels right in the first episode and I can't imagine it gets too far off later in the season.  

 It is so good that it has many players such as Belghast back and playing the Fallout games.  Even I'm considering going back to Fallout 3 or 4 which I never finished.  Or maybe like Belghast I revisit my favorite in the series: New Vegas.  Regardless of my decision the SteamDB charts don't lie: lots of folks are returning to Fallout games with the popularity of the TV series (see charts below).  You might say there is some fallout... to the Fallout.

 

Major Anvil Empires Test Coming!

 The season of MMO tests marches forward!  Anvil Empires moves into it's next major testing period on April 18th.  I have not posted about this game before but it caught my attention for a few reasons I'd like to share.

 First, the game is from the same developer as Foxhole and while I never got deep into Foxhole the promise of the game was amazing.   Foxhole is a WW2 themed game where everything must be created by the players; every bullet, gun, vehicle.  Not only that but they must all be transported to the frontline and the frontline isn't static.  Players can dig and build and then destroy anywhere.  Frontlines form naturally where force meets force.  Foxhole is a big sandbox.

 Second, Anvil Empires features an isometric view which always has my nostalgia ringing for the days of Ultima Online.  The view evokes something deep inside of me that I can't explain; like a gamer looking down upon a tabletop game and imaging all of the possibilities.

 While I like the isometric view that was not the case for Foxhole where I found it very limiting for the context.  In Foxhole I have a gun or a vehicle with a gun but I can't see more than a little bit in front and behind me which made it very hard to get a broader sense of the battlefield.  While this was all part of the design and gave value to certain things it also felt constraining to me as a player.

 In the medieval context of Anvil Empires I think the view will work better.  There is more melee scrums than there will be long range warfare.  The view supports that action better.

 On top of the view and pedigree of the developers other hit there is a lot of depth to the game that has been announced so far.  There is homesteading so you can make your mark in the world all the way up to empire building to dominate the world.  And that world is persistent so should minimize how much instanced content there is.

 If the team can deliver Foxhole but in a fantasy/medieval setting then I'm sold.

Hide UI in New World?

 Hiding the UI in New World used to be Alt+H, but after Season 5 it was changed to a default of F10.  That's it.  That's the post.  You can change the key bind in settings if you want.