A throwback to that time Ozzy Osbourne made a World of Warcraft commercial

RIP Ozzy Osbourne.  Let's remember him for one of the greatest MMORPG commercials ever made! 

Soulframe is not an MMORPG

Starting a journey into a new game

 I put a couple of hours into testing the pre-alpha version of Soulframe yesterday. I was impressed with the state of the game and how it ran on my computer. If this is truly a pre-alpha build, then this game has a bright future—it felt better than some games that are fully released. However, I came to the realization that Soulframe is not an MMORPG, and that’s unfortunate.

 So if Soulframe isn't an MMORPG, what is it? It's a single-player RPG with optional multiplayer co-op and online social hubs. Some may argue it will be "massively multiplayer" because there will be thousands of players online at any time that you can group with and interact with, but I don't buy that argument. I'm still a firm believer that a cornerstone of an MMORPG is a persistent open world that 1,000+ players inhabit at the same time. Unless you choose to, you won't see another player in Soulframe.

 MMORPG or not aside—how is the actual gameplay of Soulframe? As I mentioned in my opening remarks, they are advertising this test as pre-alpha, but they would have fooled me, because the game feels far more complete than most pre-alphas.

 When you first log in, you go through a unique player creation phase where you select your mother's physical traits, which then pass down to your character. This was interesting, but it did feel like I had limited control over my character's visual appearance. Also, it's awkward picking character traits with a half-naked, recently-regnant woman standing in her underwear in the background.

 Once in the game world, I was surprised to find there wasn't a tutorial. I don't know if that is the long-term plan or not. It didn’t bother me, and I sort of liked it. Instead of some predetermined route, I was free to check out the nearest thing that caught my eye. I saw a nearby enemy camp and ran over to get into a fight. The combat wasn't explained, but it was obvious that left click attacks and right click blocks. The UI indicated that I had some health potions and abilities tied to keybinds, and while it wasn’t obvious what the abilities were doing, it was easy enough to know I had access to them.

 The game does not put any indicators over enemy heads until you attack them. Once attacked, a health bar of sorts appears with a number that I assume indicates the enemy's level. There is no name or indication of what type of enemy you're fighting, so it’s left up to what you can visually see. This is sort of irritating when Enemy A is level 1 and easy to defeat, and Enemy B—who looks exactly the same—is level 10 and going to send you to an early grave.

 Combat itself was enjoyable and smooth. The controls are responsive, and timing dodges and attacks is rewarded with defeated enemies and a full(er) health bar. Potions take time to consume and put you at risk during combat, which was nice to see compared to the instant restoration most games offer. I'm still not sure what my skills do, but I have two of them now. The game could do a better job explaining or showing me what they are doing, because they aren’t any form of attack but seem like some sort of buff. Confusion aside, I see a lot of promise for this combat system!

 It was after my first combat that I caught on to my bird guide, who points you in the direction of a quest. It wasn't clear if this was the default starting quest or something I came across, but nonetheless, I set off to complete the objective. It was nice that I could activate the bird over and over again to have it direct me where to go, because the quest descriptions were not enough. Also, there is inconsistency in the world—two doors will look exactly the same, but one will give you an interact icon for the quest and the next door will not.

 I get that some folks think it's immersion-breaking to see floating icons over quest objectives and names over the heads of enemies, but unless the game goes out of its way to make every last door, chest, bottle, etc., interactable—and every enemy uniquely distinct visually—the game falls down on communicating to me, the player, what I’m dealing with. This is a similar complaint I have with Dune Awakening as well, as it does the same thing—no indicators for the player to clue into until you're standing directly over something.

 Another discovery I made was that pressing Tab took me to a camp area in a pleasing visual of my character falling backward into the ground, only to reappear in the camp. The camp seems to exist in some suspended reality, and after my first quest I was rewarded with a new station in the camp. I'm not sure what all of this does, but I did find I can change equipment and do some other camp-related things. I assume this is where I’ll do crafting in the future as well.

Discovering my camp for the first time

A new station was unlocked in my camp

 

 The best part of going to the camp was that there is no load screen. Your character falls out of the main world and appears almost instantly in the new world. The same goes for exiting back to the open world, and I was surprised to find it puts me right back where I exited. I had assumed maybe it’d drop me at some sort of teleportation stone. I'm hoping this means I can skip the runs back to town when I fill up on inventory and instead just tab in and out of my camp. I'm very curious to learn more about what I can do there.

 The “no loading screen” experience applies to the open world as well. As far as I can tell, everything is seamless in the open world. If there are loading screens out there, they must be tucked away somewhere, because everything I've done in my first couple of hours has been loading-screen-free. A huge technical win for the game!

 The only real gripe I had with the game was the UI. The menus, settings, and such are fine, but the UI while exploring the world and during combat needs work. The main issue is that the two core elements are hidden on the bottom left and right of the screen. With larger monitors, this means I have to take my eyes off the center—where the action is happening—to see things like health status or ability cooldowns. They need to let us move these elements closer to the center. Personally, I'd also prefer to turn off the "artsy" frames around the UI elements and have just clean lines. Oh, and make the health bar horizontal instead of curved.

 As you can tell, I'm still early in my journey with this game. I have not followed it closely (which is evident by me not realizing it wasn’t a true MMORPG), so I'm genuinely getting to experience some things for the first time. Again, for a test marketed as pre-alpha, this is a very polished experience. I had zero performance issues, zero bugs, and I'm really enjoying running around to whatever catches my eye and seeing what it has to offer. I'm not sure the game will be right for me in the long run, but it has enough going on to keep me testing it a bit longer.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness and em dashes (—) are the AI.  

Testing Soulframe

 Soulframe is available to be me to test so jumped in to get a character spun up.  Definitely an interesting character creation experience where you pick your mother's visual attributes instead of your own.  You also don't set a name as it uses your account name.  Then it drops you in the world with minimal guidance and you are just off and running. 

 Will share more thoughts as I progress. Let me know if you are giving the test a try. 

June 2025 In Review

June 2025 has come and gone; along with half of July!  Better late than never here is the look back at June.

The Blog

Blogger recorded visits for June: 61,663 (note: below graph includes some July dates and is missing June dates)

In other metrics:

• Posts:
  
• Target:  n/a (been unmotivated lately to blog so every post is a bonus in June)
• Posted: 8
• Difference: +8
•  Search Trends
• Search trends had a major shake up in June with searches for "ARC Raiders" taking over in the place of my longstanding top search topics of New World and Battlefield. Let's look at some of those ARC Raiders search strings:
• "arc raiders news" - everyone wants news about this potential GotY contender launching in October!
• "arc raiders countdown", "arc raiders shadow drop", "arc raiders timer" - a hidden countdown ended in disaster when ARC Raiders didn't surprise launch at the end of it.  We were all disappointed.

What I Played

I got back into New World for a bit in June working on my Season 8 pass.  Everytime I jump back into New World I get a little lump in my throat.  The game plays so well and the combat is so satisfying; it's a shame it's not more popular.

I also jumped into Dune Awakening after some friends started playing it.  I need to post more about my thoughts but for now I am just casually enjoying it with my friends because I know from my testing experience the end game is rubbish. 

Years Ago

1 Year Ago

As June 2025 has me playing survival MMO Dune Awakening it is worth mention that in June of 2024 I was addicted to another survival MMO: Once Human.

Let us not forget as well that June 2024 marked the start of the dark ages for New World Aeternum as the "big announcement" turned into a big fat nothing. Read more in my Dark Days for New World post.

5 Years Ago

June 2020 featured no blog posts.

10 Years Ago

May of 2015 marked my blog's 10 year anniversary!

15 Years Ago

June of 2010 marked my 10 year mark in the military.  Fast forward and I am now retired from the military!

I was also complaining about the "game that shall not be named: Counting the lies: Star Wars: The Old Republic "Hope" Trailer 

The gaming community got our first look at the OnLive service which at the time blew my mind that graphically demanding games were going to be able to be played on an iPad via a game streaming service like OnLive.  OnLive didn't end up lasting but the concept of streaming games still lives on even though its a small niche in the market. 

20 Years Ago

I started blogging in May of 2005 so June of 2005 was month two!  At the time I was hopelessly addicted to World of Wacraft and getting into organized group content.  Of course this means I got screwed out of a loot roll and complained about it.

World of Warcraft also brought us the first PvP battlegrounds: here were the basics as I saw them back then. 

I was also enjoying Battlefield 2 and playing the medic class.  A trend that started a long trend of me playing supporting/healing roles in many games following. 

 

Dune Awakening Is Better With Friends — And I Wasn't Ready for That

I went ahead and bought Dune Awakening. Not because the game is setting Steam on fire or because influencers are fawning over it. Truth is, I play-tested Dune Awakening for a good stretch over the past year, and I walked away feeling… lukewarm. The survival systems felt grindy, solo play was a slog, and the world—while beautiful—felt empty.

Then my friends jumped in.
And with nothing better to do, I reinstalled the game, hopped on my sandbike, and joined them. What I discovered surprised me: Dune Awakening is way better with friends.

Yet another heartlessgamer awakens

The Test Phase vs. The Real Thing

During testing, I mostly played solo. Any player interactions I had were random: impromptu squads tackling a challenge or strangers passing by. It was functional, but forgettable. The core systems—crafting, grinding, building—quickly became repetitive.

This time was different. 

My friends had already left the newbie zone behind and were holed up in a base far from the starting area. I zipped across the dunes to catch up, and what followed felt like an entirely new game.
 

Zipping to my friends base... and I better zip faster

Skip the Grind, Embrace the Game

When I arrived at their base, I was immediately drenched in generosity—literally showered (pun intended) with water, tools, weapons, and armor. Suddenly, I wasn’t scraping by for resources. I wasn’t stuck in the slog of early survival. I was on pace with my group, and for once, I could let them make the rookie mistakes and discoveries I had already been through in the tests.

It was… relaxing.
Dare I say, fun.

Movement Is King

If there’s one thing Dune Awakening nails, it’s freedom of movement. You can climb nearly any surface. Suspensor belts let you float. Grappling hooks (from the Trooper tree) open up vertical play. There are speed boosts, dashes, leaps—you name it.

If a direction exists, you can probably travel that way.

These traversal tools are normally locked behind hours of progression, but because I had friends, I skipped straight to the good stuff. 

Watching your friend almost get eaten by Shai-Hulud (he just made it to safety)

 

The Ornithopter Express

Then came the ornithopter.

My group had already unlocked one (while I was still several hours away from myself), and they graciously let me borrow it. I even got to share how to carry a passenger by having them hop on top. Of course, that also meant I had the honor of teaching them the hard way what happens when your pilot sucks.

Dune made the smart choice to not gate being able to use vehicles behind your own progression. If it exists in the world you can most likely use it even if you can't craft it yourself.

The game changes entirely once you have access to an ornithopter

Why It Works Now

With three of us working together, life on Arrakis is smooth sailing. There's always water at the base. Always a vehicle available. Always enough solari (the in-game gold) to get by. The punishing grind that wore me down before? Gone. Replaced by collaboration, shared goals, and just enough chaos to keep it fun.

The Final Word

Dune Awakening hasn’t suddenly become a perfect game. I still have my complaints. But I’m having actual fun, and that matters more than any patch note or feature list. It’s proof that even a game I once shelved can come roaring back to life—all it took was the right people beside me.

Lesson learned: survival is better with friends. Especially on Arrakis.

TL;DR:

If you're playing Dune Awakening solo and bouncing off it, try it with a crew. It just might change everything.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts and specifically in this post, the snarkiness, are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI. 

New World 0.5... Chrono Odyssey Beta Test Thoughts

 So I played a few hours of New World 0.5... err, I mean the Chrono Odyssey beta test. Here are some thoughts.

The tutorial starts out with a giant dragon flying in the near distance

 

A fast travel point... hmmm.. looks familiar

 First, for anyone who doubts the New World comparisons—especially coming from a player like myself who has spent thousands of hours in New World—I suggest taking a look at some of these discussions and videos:

• Reddit: I copy your homework

• Reddit: New World copy pasta

• Twitch: A literal exact copy of the fort and war camp from New World

 The evidence is stark. There are areas in Chrono Odyssey that are exact copies of New World. And since New World is not built on a proprietary engine—nor on something common like Unreal Engine—it’s very, very unlikely that Chrono Odyssey just happened to use the same store-bought assets. Not only are the visuals strikingly similar, but the rest of the game—even the UI—is eerily familiar. I’m fine with games copying systems and features, but this feels like a whole new level of copying.

Is that a sandworm!?

 

New World comparisons aside: how was the actual game?

 Chrono Odyssey was... OK.

 Performance was the biggest issue during the test. Like many testers, I suffered from poor frame rates and desync. Walking in crowded areas felt more like skipping along. The developers have stated that this was an older build and that performance should improve in future tests, so we’ll see.

 Graphically, the world is a bit wild. There are massive backdrops with all sorts of over-the-top visuals. The tutorial includes an amazing scene featuring a massive dragon flying overhead. The starting zone has a mix of giant, ominous beings floating in the sky.

Some of the bizarre backgrounds of the starting area

 Combat is mediocre. It uses action combat that lets players equip two weapons, each with up to four skills, plus a basic left-click attack and a special right-click move (e.g., blocking with a shield). There’s also a target lock-on feature—which is controversial in action combat games. Personally, I’m fine with it, but I ended up playing without it most of the time. It made me feel like I was losing control of my character, especially when the camera whipped around too much.

 The biggest issue I had with combat was the lack of weight. It felt like I was floating just above the ground, sliding around—especially with target lock enabled. My character felt like they were getting whiplash from all the turning. Weapon abilities just felt like “bigger numbers” you cycled through before swapping weapons and doing it all over again. Overall, combat felt generic.

A familiar weapon skill tree screen

 That said, I still preferred this action combat over traditional tab-target systems. There’s potential here—if the devs can carve out something unique.

 There were a few things I did like. The game gives you a mount early on, which is nice. PvE content poses a challenge early, requiring players to either gear up or get better to progress. There are also chrono abilities that seemed interesting—and were the biggest departure from its New World-inspired design—but I didn’t get far enough to comment deeply on them.

 Overall, my impression was very much “this is New World 0.5,” meaning it’s a worse version of New World. It was another game that just made me wish I were back playing New World. As I’ve said before, New World has spoiled me on MMORPG combat. I’ll argue with anyone: New World has the best combat on the market.

 The test topped out at a bit over 65,000 concurrent players, which is higher than similar points in New World's testing timeline. I can see Chrono Odyssey attracting a good audience—especially if they steer clear of shady pay-to-win systems (which the devs claim they will). If this test proved anything—both from the hype leading up to it and the actual player count—it’s that there’s still a strong demand for new MMORPGs.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI.  

 

A Testing We Shall Go

 The Chrono Odyssey open beta is this weekend and I've been invited to give it a try.

 

Embark Disappoints

 

 I was wrong. ARC Raiders was not shadow-dropped at Summer Game Fest last week, as many of us had hoped. That was probably for the best, considering I lost internet for most of the weekend. What we did get was a new trailer and a release date: October 30th. After that deflating announcement—like my internet—the hype dropped for ARC Raiders.

 Am I less interested in playing ARC Raiders? No. I'm still looking forward to the game. I'll just have to wait a little longer. The game will likely be better for it, with extra time to add content and smooth out technical issues. It was unrealistic to expect a shadow drop. Shame on me.

 But I can’t stand here and say I’m not irritated about how things went down—especially considering this is the second year in a row I’ve had my excitement for a game crushed by a lackluster Summer Game Fest announcement. Last year, it was New World and their “big announcement,” and in a shockingly similar series of events, ARC Raiders followed suit this year.  Maybe it's Summer Game Fest?

 Last year, I was able to shift my perspective and stay interested in what New World's announcement meant for the game. I expect to do the same with ARC Raiders the game. Just like then, I'm sitting here every day checking news feeds, waiting for the next bit of info about the game.

 While I’m still excited for the game, I have to admit I’ve lost a bit of respect for Embark Studios. I really thought they were a different kind of developer—one that could actually surprise gamers. They built and fueled the hype after Tech Test 2: the hidden game files with the secret countdown timer, the bleeped troll video, the Summer Game Fest teaser featuring Scrappy the rooster. All of it now feels unwarranted, considering all they delivered was a ho-hum trailer and a release date. Basically, we had a secret countdown timer... to another countdown timer. That’s a fat L on Embark’s part.

 With that said, Embark did issue an apology (see image below post)—and it seemed genuine. My main concern, though, is that they had to see this coming. They had to know the level of hype and the tactics they used didn’t justify what they were actually delivering. If they didn’t... oof. That wouldn’t reflect well on their marketing and community teams. If they did... oof.

 I’ll hold onto my own dumb hope that Embark wanted to shadow-drop the game and just came up short. In my odd little gamer mind, that’s the only explanation that makes sense for revving the hype engine up as much as they did.

 So, Embark takes a few steps back on my developer list. ARC Raiders stays at the top of my “want to play” list. Now I just need to figure out what to play until October 30th.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI. 

 

Embark Apology screenshot 

 

0th. 

I'm not playing Dune Awakening (yet)

 Dune Awakening, the new survival game pretending to also be an MMORPG, launched this week into early access. The Steam charts are peaking, YouTube videos are flooding in—and yet, here I am, not playing. Can I really call myself an MMORPG gamer?

 First, I want to note that I was a long-time tester for Dune Awakening. I’ve already gotten into a squabble about "breaking the NDA" once, so I’ll be careful not to let any of my opinions here be influenced by those NDA test periods. Even mentioning I was in the tests is technically breaking NDA... but whatever—the game is live now. My comments will be based on the public tests and general community feedback so far.

To start, I’ll pull a quote from Belghast’s early access impressions:

"I am in this weird state of equilibrium with the game where I don’t love it and I don’t hate it."

 That sums up my feelings as well. It's why I haven't rushed to get into early access or the standard launch (yet). I’ll keep adding “yet” because I’m not playing much else right now, and a new game—even one I don’t see long-term potential in—is tempting.

 One area of concern is Dune Awakening’s server setup. Players share servers, but different areas have different restrictions and player caps. Depending on demand for your “slice” of the servers, you might be locked out of progress entirely if you can’t reconnect to the area where your base is located. Can I move servers? Can I move my base? These questions are flooding community sites. It’s more confusing than it needs to be.

 All of this server weirdness cuts at the heart of what makes an MMO an MMO: exploration and organically running into other players. Dune Awakening feels less like an open world and more like loosely interconnected hubs. There were many times in the public tests where I didn’t encounter another player at all. Later in the game, players are drawn together more often—but server caps and restrictions still undercut any sense of “massive.”

 Then came the announcement: players can buy private servers. I groaned. When you add that to the already limited planned server capacity—which, when you do the math, is below the number of players trying to get in so far—it just doesn’t feel great. I’ve never followed an MMORPG that sold private instances to its players. It’s a baffling design decision.

 Some readers may remember I heaped praise on Once Human, a game very similar to Dune Awakening.  Like Awakening, Once Human was also a quasi-MMO survival game. Once Human was buggy and janky, with a similarly questionable server strategy (caps, instances, planned end dates and relaunches). And yet, I loved Once Human during the time I played it. I can’t explain why the server stuff bothers me more in Dune Awakening. Maybe it’s because I expected more from Funcom than I did from the relatively unknown developers behind Once Human.

 Another issue: the combat. As a Dune fan, the thing that always made Dune’s combat interesting was how shields rendered ranged weapons mostly ineffective. Melee mattered. In Dune Awakening, melee combat... isn’t great. They’ve made changes, they’ve talked it up—but based on launch day streams, it still doesn’t look good. Meanwhile, ranged weapons are overused, making the game feel more like a generic shooter than something rooted in Dune lore.

 Speaking of lore—that’s another sticking point for me. I get that the game had to make choices, but water feels too easy to come by. One particular source—blood—is used far too frequently. In Dune lore, purifying blood into water is a rare, revered act. In the game, it’s something you do every few minutes. Again, I understand the design trade-offs, but it breaks immersion. That’s a me problem, I admit.

 Even though it’s been several months since I played Once Human, I still feel worn out on survival games. The idea of harvesting rocks for the hundredth time just doesn’t excite me. Dune Awakening adds a twist—you have to trace a pattern on objects to break them open. Neat the first few times. Tedious after that.

 There are UI quirks I don’t like, either. The crafting menus feel cluttered and unintuitive. There are eight usable item slots, which you have to mix weapons and utility items into. Eight is a lot—it requires finger stretching to make use of them all. And you need them all. Everything from sucking blood to summoning your vehicle takes up a slot. Many of these actions could’ve been bound to separate hotkeys. I’d prefer weapons were statically tied to 1/2/3 rather than needing to assign them manually.

 That said, there are things to like. I expect we’ll see strong peak player numbers (it was already nearing 100k on day one of head start). The atmosphere can be phenomenal. The desert at night, with ships hovering overhead, oozes menace. Your first encounter with a sandworm won’t be forgotten—though your gear will be if the worm catches you. Players always surprise with creative buildings. And there’s PvP later in the game.

 We’ll see what comes out of Summer Games Fest announcements tonight for ARC Raiders, and I’ll also weigh whether I want to engage more with New World Season 8 before making a final decision on Dune Awakening. Launch periods of MMORPGs—even quasi-MMOs like Dune here—are often the most memorable. If I’m going to play, it’ll be soon. But for now, I’m watching Dune from the sidelines.

 

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI.

ARC Raiders: The Final Countdown

 

 Today (6/6/2025) is Summer Game Fest, and just like last year, I find myself waiting for yet another BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. Last year ended in tragedy with New World's nothing-burger news after hyping the announcement to the moon. Once again, a year later, many of us in the gaming community are waiting on bated breath for what's next for ARC Raiders, developed by Embark Studios.

 In a flashback to the New World announcement last year, a developer from Embark trolled the ARC community with a recorded video that bleeps out all the words being said about ARC Raiders. My mind jumped right back to when the New World developers pulled the same stunt last year. What I said then:

They better have a banger of an update for June, otherwise this video will likely be forever held up as the moment "remember when New World died?"

 The same could be said for Embark Studios and ARC Raiders. The hype for ARC is unprecedented, and Embark has a specific history that supercharges it. Embark's first game, The Finals, "shadow dropped" 32 days after it held a closed beta. No one expected the game to launch—and yet, BOOM, there The Finals was in all its glory. It was a very well-received launch.

 Now we sit exactly 32 days from the last ARC Raiders tech test, which received universal praise and is responsible for everyone's excitement. Embark has left clue after clue about something BIG on 6/6. There was the secret game update pushed to Steam that teased 6/6. There's the counting of letters in the ARC Raiders slogan "Enlist. Resist."—6 and 6. And of course, there’s the aforementioned bleep video.

 If this announcement isn't a banger, I will sincerely be worried that I’m cursed to follow games made by flunkies with poor taste in how to deliver a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. So what do I think we're going to get later today?

 Realistically? A new trailer, a release date, and a beta test announcement.

 But I'm not known for staying within the bounds of reality in these situations, so here’s what I think is going to happen: Embark Studios is going to shadow drop ARC Raiders. By end of day, we’ll be playing it live. The buzz will be insane.

 Why do I think it will be shadow dropped? I’ll spare you links to all the theoretical supporting evidence—like major streamers hinting at an undisclosed game they’ll be streaming tonight. For me, it comes down to my faith in Embark Studios. They are not your average dev studio. They feel very much like a "game-and-gamer-first, business-second" developer.

 The Finals, while not as popular now as it was at launch, was an unexpected gem. Embark shadow dropped it to wild success. They can and will do the same for ARC Raiders—but this time, the hype is on another level. I’m also hopeful that Embark wants to maintain a reputation as a developer willing to surprise gamers. Again, that "game-and-gamer-first" vibe I get from them.

 They will drop ARC Raiders today. See y’all on the surface.

 

 

 

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI.