Community Q&A New World

 Under the weather so don't have the energy to share my thoughts yet, but wanted to post that the community Q&A with the New World developers has been posted.  Take a look and tune in over the next few days to my blog feed for my thoughts.  I will share though that I am happy hippos are coming to Aeternum!

You Don't Know Until You Know: Mouse Pad

 I am a fan of Glorious mice and keyboards (I still use a GMMK for work even with my recent Wooting 60HE purchase).  I also own a few odds and ends from Glorious such as their headphones hook, wrist pads, and mouse bungee.  Even with this investment in Glorious I was still using an old "freebie" mouse pad borrowed from my office now that I work from home.  That changed when I grabbed the Glorious Elements Ice mouse pad on sale recently.  I didn't know mouse pads could be this good and change how you use a mouse so much!

 Moments after placing the pad on my desk and moving my Glorious Model O mouse across the surface I knew this was going to be a difference maker in my set up.  The mouse glides effortlessly with almost no resistance.  The movement is so smooth I am baffled how long it took me to realize such pads existed.

 It wasn't long after getting the pad that I booted up Battlefield 2042 and New World and gave it a whirl in game.  The difference was immediate.  Mouse movement was the most smooth I've ever had in a game.  Not once did I feel like I was hitting a limit of my physical area and the times I needed to move the mouse to make larger swipes felt glorious (pun intended)!

 I am about a month into gaming with the pad and while it took a week or two to get used to the ice skate smoothness I can't imagine anything else now.  Even outside of games it is a game changer for productivity during work.  It is just easier now to use my mouse as it floats across the surface.  Sometimes you just don't know until you know!

Smedley leaves Amazon Game Studios

 John Smedley is leaving Amazon Game Studios.  John has a long history in the MMORPG community and people either hate him or love him.  My own feelings are mixed; he was there for a lot my favorites but was also there driving some of them into the ground before failing on some promising prospects.  He also failed to bring anything new to market in recent years; even when he had opportunity with projects like Everquest Next.

 Many felt that John would be the savior of MMORPGs when he joined Amazon Game Studios (AGS) and it was revealed that he was leading the team building a future sci-fi massively multiplayer game (not clear how RPG it was going to be).  Now with John leaving AGS what does that mean for the MMO community?

 

 As noted in the article I linked the game Smedley was working on was reaffirmed to still be in development.  Also based on other games AGS is getting involved in, such as Blue Protocol, it seems AGS is all-in on MMO games.

 The Bloomberg article that broke the Smedley news is a little more doom and gloom.

"Another veteran executive is leaving Amazon.com Inc.’s video game division, which has struggled to produce big hits since it launched a decade ago."

 It is hard to argue the big hits point, but that is ignoring that AGS have been on an upswing.  New World was a successful launch and continues to go up and down as it pushes content out the door.  AGS brought Lost Ark to the west, which has been a smashing success, and they are also involved with Blue Protocol which is getting buzz.

 Maybe Smedley wasn't the savior of the MMO community and it is actually AGS?  Was Smedley not getting the job done?  I'd argue he has a lot of dead prospects on the most recent road behind him (killed Star Wars Galaxies, failed with Everquest Next, multiple other SOE/Daybreak failures, failed kickstarter project) so not impossible he was failing with anew project.

 Or maybe Smedley is done with big corporate?  While SOE and Daybreak were not Amazon big they were still corporate.  I take Smedley's attempt at a crowd funded game (Hero's Song) to be indicative he wants the smaller scale and more intimate game development that an indie kickstarter offers.  It wouldn't surprise me if the only reason he moved on from Hero's Song is because AGS came in with a big paycheck and a sales pitch that they were here to save MMOs and they needed the legend himself to do it (if it were me that would probably be enough of a reason).

 Will be curious to see his next move.  My history in MMOs is as much Smedley's at this point.

New World Combat Balance Dev Blog

 New World posted a short Dev Blog on an upcoming Combat Balance Update.

 

  

 I wanted to share a few thoughts on each area they mention.

 In order they mention balance changes to

• Fire Staff - The running community joke is whenever there is a balance issue with any weapon the only correct response is to nerf Fire Staff again.  I can't imagine they'd nerf Fire Staff as its been nerfed multiple times (but I'd argue FS is still very strong in the right hands)
• Bow - The BowPR meme for OPR (Outpost Rush) is real.  Bow has been very strong for a while and stronger the more skill the player has.  My biggest issue with bow is that it combines mobility and top tier ranged damage.  I'd like to see mobility cut down with bow or damage reduced on range to balance out the mobility.
• Musket - Musket.  What can we say about musket?  The main balance change is nerfing the heck out of its seemingly unlimited range.  It needs to be effective at a short range and about worthless at a distance.  For PvE the musket needs some way to match melee left click spam to dish out damage.
• Hatchet - The only thing that is a problem with hatchet is Defy Death so I assume that is what we'll see a change to.
• Greatsword - The community is begging for a change to Greatsword.  It is the weapon of choice everywhere PvE or PvP.  Hard to pinpoint exactly what needs to change.  In my experience greatsword just feels right and I wish more weapons felt as good as it does.  Will be interested in what is changing here.
• Equip loads (light/medium/heavy) - This may be the biggest part of this balance update and is wide open as far as what may change.  I've talked on this blog before about changes I'd like to see such as restricting the Shirking perks to specific loads the way Shirking Energy is light only.  Ultimately light is simply too strong; damage/healing increase and best dodge roll.  Something has to change with it or Medium and Heavy need serious upgrades to be comparable.

 No matter the changes I expect backlash because gear will be impacted.  It may be a key weapon ability changing and thus making that perfect weapon with it's weapon perk worthless now.  Or it may be what I suggested around Shirking perks.  Could you imagine if Shirking Fortification (as an example) got restricted to just heavy equip load?  That sort of change would ruin a massive amount of gear (shirking fortification is a desired perk for most PvP armor).

 I hope AGS has the courage to be aggressive with changes even if they do cause unrest or impact player's gear.  Gear is getting easier to craft and get desired results and a good crafting economy relies on consumption so players having to swap to new gear will drive consumption.

 Now we just have to get the update on PTR and let folks pick it apart!  What are you hoping for in the changes?

Hitting the nostalgia hard! Coe's Quest!

 Watching my own Minecraft video from 11 (11!) years ago had me waxing nostalgic for those glorious early years of Minecraft.  A hallmark of those years, at least for me, was Coe's Quest on YouTube.  Anytime my oldest son starts talking to me about Minecraft (a daily occurrence) I hum the closing theme song to Coe's Quest... "talkin' about Minecraft.  Talkin' about Minecraftttttt".  Episode 001 is embedded below and some thoughts are shared below.

 Chills watching this!

Videos from my past: Minecraft Mondays 001

 With 2023 I am looking to do more with video content.  This has had me reminiscing about my past video endeavors.  There are some videos lost to time from when I published to Google Video (before they bought YouTube).  I am hoping to find those on old hard drives and resurrecting what I can.  With that said there are some videos on my YouTube channel so I figured a trip down nostalgia road would be neat.  Below is my first Minecraft Monday video and I share some thoughts after.

 The first thing that jumped back at me was the silence of the video.  No music or sound?  As best I can remember this was during a time of YouTube uncertainty around using music and getting your videos kicked off the site and I just wasn't ready at the time to share my voice with the world.

 As far as the content of the video it warmed my heart to see our old Minecraft server and my mountain base (still my all time favorite build).  This was a server we played on from our work PCs before workplaces got so hardcore about locking users away from the Internet.  I remember how difficult these minecart stations were to make and relying on glitches like minecart launchers where two carts get stuck together and glitch to move the cart forward (this was before powered rails)

 It is also crazy to me that this was 11 freaking years ago!  Even more amazing is the staying power of the game that is Minecraft.  This game is still one of my all time favorites.

 If memory serves me this video was captured using Fraps and edited using whatever came with Windows at the time.

Sunday 1/8/2023 Post

 Well at least I get my weekends back.  Such a fraud of a team last week.

2023 Blogging Stuff

 I wanted to avoid doing the cliche "what are my 2023 goals" or "2023 predictions" posts, but wanted to share some of my blogging plans.  I want to adjust the rate at which I blog and have a slightly different look to the content.

 In 2022 I got the bug to get back into blogging.  I set a goal to post once a day, every day.  I pretty much did it including weekends and holidays.  Most posts were made the day of but I had a few queued up to schedule on days I knew I'd be busy.

 For 2023 I want to adjust my goal for posting: 5 posts a week (basically give myself the weekend off).  Yes this will include posts from simple "hey look at the Packers score" to more in depth gaming discussion.

 There are a couple posts I look fondly at from 2022.  The best representation of these "fond" posts is http://www.heartlessgamer.com/2022/10/some-screenshots-from-brimstone-sands.html where I shared screenshots from my adventures in New World.  I realized after stumbling back accross that post that I don't share that type of content often.  

 For 2023 I want to get more into sharing the memories of my gaming sessions instead of just dropping opinions or sharing something I found.  More screenshots are really the key here.  Not sure if y'all will find it interesting but this blog has always been sort of for me so I'll enjoy it and maybe one of you out there will as well.

 And lastly for 2023 I want to get into some video content.  No guarantees on this but I enjoy editing video for work and for other personal use.  I did videos back before YouTube was a thing (sadly did not save all my Google Videos content... need to scan the old hard drives at some point), but haven't done anything since.

 

Why are my posts with no content the most visited?

 Just an inside-blogging question that boggles me.  Since returning to blogging daily I've noticed that the posts I put the most effort into get the least traffic and those that I put no effort in get the most.

 For example; yesterday's post just to have a post has already seen twice the traffic than any of my recent posts with actual content.  Going back further my "Cold. No Power." post with nothing in it is the highest trafficed post from December.

 Why?  I don't know but I needed a post for today and I had nothing else on hand so here it is.  What do you think?

Post a day!

 This counts right?  Sorry, first day back to work after a long holiday break and I am pooped.

Sunday 1/1/2023 Post

Just getting around to posting this (a couple days late).

Beat the Lions this weekend and we're in the play offs!

Narrator: They did not beat the Lions.

New Year New Keyboard

 Ordered a Wooting 60HE a while ago and it finally got shipped to me.  So far love the keyboard; especially setting the lekkar switches actuation point (you can customize how far you need to press the key to activate it).  More thoughts to come as I get some gaming time with it.

Happy New Year and some Axis & Allies & Zombies

 Happy New Year everyone and welcome to 2023.  One of our household traditions is to play Axis & Allies & Zombies .... and... I wanted to share my Axis victory image from last night. As my son would annotate his version of the picture "w for dad"!

 This should teach him not to get greedy with the Soviets in future games.  Moscow can fall quickly and is the most reasonable target for the Axis to win.  In the picture you will see black (Germany/Axis) in Moscow where a hard fought battle was won after a northern blitz move.  

 It was looking pretty bleak for the Axis before this which is why my son tried to start pushing into eastern Europe with the Soviets.  A move he certainly regretted when the tanks rolled into Moscow.

 What a great way to start off 2023 (for me at least)!

My Steam Replay 2022

Public link: https://s.team/y22/pkfwgv?l=english

 

Reviewed: Santorini: New York

 Santorini: New York is another game from the pile of new stuff this holiday season.  As avid fans of the original we were very excited to give this one a try.  Read on for some more thoughts.

 The first aspect of this updated version that catches your eye are the skyscrapers: giant golden buildings!  These beefy golden components not only look awesome but they play a key role in the game and we were excited to get to place them on the board!

 Gone from the original is the perfectly square map and in it's place is a New York shaped map.  This fits the theme but I feel like it gives up a bit of the "chess like" feeling of the original.  There are nooks on the board that a player will get stuck on (or at least did in our first couple of games).

 Also added to this version as a required feature are role cards that are played each turn that require/allow a player to take a unique action.  The twist is that if the card says "must" the player "must" take the action or lose a worker.  Simple to start but later in games this can be a real problem if, for example, you only have Subway Operators left and there is no free spaces to move to... goodbye worker (of which you only get two!).  

 The roles add some variety to the game and unlike the original where the cards were optional rules they are a core part of New York.  This makes the game a little harder to teach to anyone that has never played Santorini but for our family who are Santorini veterans it took no time to pick up.

Grrrrr... Statue of Liberty!!!!

 One annoying mechanic in New York is the Statue of Liberty.  The player that plays the highest numbered card that turn gets the statue.  You MUST have the statue in order to take a winning move.  If you can take a winning move (of which there are multiple in this version of the game) but don't have the statue you can't win.  I don't feel this really works and in our experience elongated games and punished players who were unlucky in the cards they were dealt.

 In summary the game is fun, but would not be one I recommend someone get if they don't have the original.  The original is superior; mostly for the "no god/role cards: version that is easy to teach/hard to master.  With that said, if you own the original and enjoy it, then New York is worth getting as it kicks it up a notch. 

Reviewed: Planted: A Game of Nature & Nurture

 Planted: A Game of Nature & Nurture was another board game in the pile of new games for the family this holiday season.  Here are some thoughts.

 In Planted players are raising house plants and working to keep them fed and watered so they grow up and score lots of points. Throw in some decorations (pots, shelves, hanging baskets, etc) for bonus points.  The game is played over four rounds in which players select a card before passing the remaining cards left or right similar to Sushi Go.

 Our family really enjoyed the game. It is light weight and plays quickly (~30 minutes in our experience).  It is easy to learn but requires some skill in planning out what you want  to focus on each turn.  

 Only persistent cards like tools carry over between rounds so each turn is mostly self contained.  This can frustrating if the cards dealt that round don't support what you are working for with your plants, but there is a catch all mechanic where unspent resources at the end of the round can be turned into extra victory points through a mechanic known as propagation.  This was very useful in the early rounds when I didn't have many plants and thus wound up with more resources than I could use and when victory scoring came it was the difference that put me over the top!

 The artwork and components are top notch.  We especially loved the water tokens.  The plants featured are all real and we found a few of our own houseplants dwelling in the mix.  "Hey is this the plant we gave grandma?" is the quote of the night; thats how good the artwork is of the plants.

 Over all a big thumbs up for Planted.  Anyone looking for a light weight family game this is it.

Reviewed: USPS The Great American Mail Race Board Game

 USPS The Great American Mail Race Board Game was gifted to our family this holiday season and we've had a chance to sit down and play a couple games.  Here are my thoughts on the game.

 The first thing I noticed about the game were the components.  Mail trucks, an eye pleasing board, package/letter/postcard cards, and best of all: the postage slips and stamp!

 To fast forward to some final thoughts; the components make the game.  The game itself is simple and after a few plays the strategy is limited.  But the satisfaction from stamping your slip when you complete a delivery?  It feels awesome.  Every. Single. Time.

 Components aside the game itself is easy to understand and teach.  It plays quickly (~30m now that we know what we are doing) which makes this a great holiday game to play with family.  We are looking forward to playing with my brother-in-law who is a true blue USPS mailman but doesn't play games; that is approachable the game is.

 The game play is straight forward and comparable to Ticket to Ride.  You get letters/packages that need to go places and you can draw cards that let you move across the board to get them to those places.  Postcards are on the board and once passed they are gained by the player.  The board is split into different regions and delivering packages from/to different regions gains additional points.

 Best of all as players complete the deliveries and actions on the board they get to stamp their little postal slip and that is so satisfying it has brought my family back to the table multiple times.  I personally love the stamp!

 There is a bit of player on player competition as well in the game.  If you are passing another mail carrier you can either take one of their deliveries or give them one of yours.  Have a long haul package destined for Alaska?  Drop it on another carrier!  Have the travel cards to grab a package from another player and delivery it?  Then sneak in for the steal.  The only downside is newer players will get picked on by experienced players, but it is one of the most fun aspects of the game. Without "assisting another mailman" this game would be far too basic.

 My biggest complaint about the game is that there is not variable rewards as far as distance for a delivery.  A delivery that requires you to go from coast to coast is worth the same as one you can complete in the same turn.  This is OK if you have the stronger travel cards such as planes or trains, but if you don't... well you either have to swap mail with other players and try to stick them with the stinker package or you need to spend your turns trucking it out to its destination; either way its the same reward.

 Another nitpick I have is that the next letter/parcel/postcard that will replace a delivered one is visible to all players.  This is too much information for players to plan moves.  Having the "next up" be hidden somehow instead of face up would add some much needed randomness to the game.  With that said the cards being face up does allow a bit of skill in chaining deliveries together.

 My last comment will be on the rules.  They are well laid out for the basic game but they offer nothing for the scenarios or questions that pop up regularly.  For example: what does "passing through" really mean?  If I stop on a spot but don't end my turn there is that passing through?  Or is passing through just when I move through it?  Does the hot air balloon count as passing through or not because it says "go over"?  What happens if a postcard appears on the spot I am already at?  Do I just get it?  Questions I am not alone in asking as evidenced by Board Game Geek's rules sub-forum for the game.

 Over all the game is a gem and far too good considering it is literally licensed by USPS.  Have you played it?  What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment and I'll assist you with delivering it!

Monitoring our 13 year old's game time and software to limit time spent on his computer

 As my oldest has hit the teen years (13!!!!) we've needed to better manage his electronics time.  After all we cannot have him becoming a real gamer like his old man... at least not until it's on his own dime and time.  So I've been on the look for technical options that offer management over the home network and scheduling aspects whereby we can let him have his space but have a say in when he can "game on".

 What I ended up with and what we are trialing right now is the Time Boss Pro software.  This software

Example schedule from Time Boss website.

allows you to set a schedule per user on up to three PCs on the home network.  It also has features to monitor further with event logs and such, but that's over the top for our use case as we engage with our son on what he is doing, who he is talking to and so I turn it off.  

 I really keyed in on the scheduling aspect of the software.

 In the software I can set time per day and total time per week.  I can do that whether on his gaming laptop ("his" aka the one he took over from dad now that I don't travel much) or from my main home computer.  There is a clear visual display on his end of time remaining and a built in warning system.  There is also the ability to get and give bonus time.

 Some parents may say this is overboard and "helicopter parent-ish", but I'd disagree.  One of our key jobs as parents is to prepare our children for the real world.  Regulating and managing your time and using tools to do so is a key to success as an adult.  Kids also need to learn and a tool like this helps them learn what, for example, "an hour" of actual gaming is. 

 Thinking everything can be solved through "just talking to your kid" is fine, but you cannot always be there to talk to your kid.  And as they get older the ability for them to have their own space is critical (and heck as parents we need our time apart).  Tools like this help build that trust from a distance.  Note: it still critical to talk with your kid about what they did, who they are talking to, and all that good parenting jazz.  Otherwise how else are you going to stay hip to the Minecraft lingo?

 Long term the goal is to get our oldest to a point of self management with no tools, but until then I will keep working on technical solutions on top of talking/teaching about healthy habits.  That may even require me to be a little more conscious about my own gaming/electronic habits so I can lead by example. Quick don't let my wife see this post.

We gave our 13 year old a phone for Christmas

 We gave our 13 year old a phone for Christmas.  We went with the Pinwheel phone for the parent portal and controls.  It is an extra cost but worth it for peace of mind.  No gaming on this phone though (mobile gaming is terribad anyways).

Sunday 12/25/2022 Post (Merry freaking Christmas)

Merry freaking Christmas folks! 

The Green Bay Packers play off chances are looking:

 

 

Defense in the first half... meh.

Defense in the second half... oh yeah.