Two Weeks of Gaming in a Hotel

I will be out of town for a couple weeks starting tomorrow, which means I move onto the great adventure of online gaming via crappy hotel wireless. Or lack there of. Most likely, I will end up installing a few single-player offline games on my trusty laptop.

I was thinking Never Winter Nights 2 (I still haven't finished the single player campaign!). Or maybe Warcraft III. Oh, and The Path to see what hidden secrets I can find. Plants vs. Zombies too, because it simply rocks. Peggle for that matter as well!

Now, lets hope the wife doesn't read this.

You Will Shoot Them and They Will Stick to the Wall and They Will Die

No, the Huntsman doesn't stun. It pins dead/dying players.

Any experienced sniper will tell you how irritating it is when your targets keep moving around. The question is how to stop these cheaters from wind-sprinting around like they own the place. And the answer is to pin them to a wall. How? With arrows!

"Now, hold on," you might be thinking. "I'm strong, but no one could throw an arrow that hard." Introducing the Huntsman longbow, which solves that age-old throwing problem.

"Now, hold on," you keep saying. "Aren't bows and arrows primitive and harmless?" Why don't you ask the dinosaurs? Except you can't, because the cavemen bow and arrowed them to death. One headshot from the Huntsman can mean an instant crit, in addition to a bolt-riddled corpse hanging from a wall that's gruesome and funny.

And even if you don't kill them, they'll carry around a certain arrow-shaped something as a living testament to your awesome archery skills and their frankly unawesome dodging skills. Comes with 18 arrows and a one-second charge for full power shots.

Team Fortress 2 + class updates + sniper + bow and arrow = win. Now, Valve, how about that next "meet the X" video?

Mythic Checks Another Item Off WAR's Lazy Designs List

Great. Fucking. News. (for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning players).

Wards will now be pieced together to form character-centric sigils, which are placed inside of the Tome of Knowledge instead of on the armor itself. These sigils are always active, no matter what armor you’re wearing, eliminating the need to carry the right wards on the right parts. Prior players who are loaded with ward gear, do not fret! Your wards will combine together to form sigils right off of the bat, so you won’t be outdated when the new system hits.

The ward system in WAR, by itself, was not bad. However, the way in which warded gear was limited to certain sets, made all other gear attained in WAR pointless. Often times, epic gear that took 100s of hours of playtime to obtain (RvR influence rewards), had to immediately be discarded because they did not contain any wards.

This proposed change fixes not only the warded gear itself, but the randomness of waiting for a specific piece of gear to drop from a dungeon on a lockout timer.

Even if you don’t have the right wards to get a sigil, you can now unlock “pieces” of the ward by completing achievement objectives, like defeating a boss that would give you that piece of ward armor X times. So even if it never drops for you, you’ll still get it eventually.

The timing for this change is excellent as well, as the Land of the Dead expansion is going to require players to be up-to-par on their wards for the new content. Not only that, but there will be tons of new items that would have otherwise gone to waste had the ward system not been revamped.

Outside of the obvious performance issues, the debate over warded gear raged loudest and this appears to be a silencing shot from Mythic. Still, the performance issue must remain Mythic's priority, and until Mythic gets it under control, no amount of design greatness is going to save WAR.

However, it is still good to see that Mythic is slowly, but surely checking off items on their Lazy WAR Designs List. I just wish the same could be said about the WAR Performance Issues Log.

Free Realms' Similar Demographics

While surfing Aeria Games' twitter feed for any updates on Shadowbane's future, I cam accross this gem of a quote:

We're interested to see what you think of Free Realms. Our Hello Kitty Online will also have similar demographics.
about 24 hours ago from web

Ouch.

Mythos: Two Studios, One New Beginning

After Flagship flagshipped themselves, the free-to-play faux-MMOG Mythos disappeared off the gaming landscape. Now there is news that Hannbitsoft managed to hang on to the Mythos license and tech upon Flagship’s demise and are putting not one, but two, development studios to work on resurrecting the game:

The funny thing about Mythos is that it was essentially finished, with future plans being more about additional content than sweeping changes. Hannbitsoft, however, seem to have tasked the new studio (two of ‘em, in fact - T3 Entertainment and Redbana US) with a fairly significant rethink. “MYTHOS is currently in a good condition where it’s being reconstructed” says the official release. “We are trying to keep the strengths that MYTHOS used to have, and strengthen them even more to make more suited as an online game.”

While the linked article notes that Mythos was "essentially finished", something I strongly disagree with, the questions have to be asked.

Will it remain free-to-play?
How many changes will be made?
And what's the end goal? Traditional MMO? Quick time waster? Other!?

When I last played Mythos, Flagship was in the process of gutting the game from a Guild Wars-style hub-world design to an "Overworld" traditional MMOG. I did not like the move and I believe Mythos lost its charm in the process.

It will be interesting to see what the new developers do with Mythos. I am hoping they can put the technology behind the game to better use than Flagship. The original idea that Mythos was going to be updated on-the-fly while gamers were playing never came to fruition and by the end of Flagship's existence, Mythos turned from a neat little testbed for Hellgate's multiplayer tech to a washed out hack'n'slash game trying to be an MMOG.

Darkfall, The Lost Review (made possible, unknowingly, by Kieron Gillen)

Smart people, when confronted with a bee's nest, avoid it. Others carelessly walk into it and learn their lesson for the next go-around. The rest of us get a stick.

Not letting a crisis go to waste, I present a review of Darkfall, as made possible by Kieron Gillen, edited by me, and published below without permission.

There's an urge to give it one out of ten. Maybe a two, because two sounds more genuine than one. One sounds like foot-stomping petulance. Two sounds considered, as if I really do mean it. I'm not, because I don't, but it'd serve a couple of good purposes. Firstly, if considered solely as a classical game, Darkfall is bloody terrible. Secondly, if you're the sort of person who cares about the review score, it's almost certainly not for you and I should turn you off as quickly as possible.

That's what a lot of this review is going to be about. Darkfall is a strange, unusual, progressive and unique game, which may even be important for the industry and the development of the form in a handful of ways. It's not for everyone. And I've got to write a review which says that, while not turning "It isn't for everyone" into a challenge for people who quite like to think of themselves as one of the Not Like Everyones.

The name "game" is always going to confuse people. You only really work out what something should be called after a name's codified. Names for mediums are always kind of made up on the fly. "Novel" has a particularly tortured history as a word. Comics comes from the fact they were the funny pages in the paper - but soon became anything but. A century down the line, they realized they should call comics "sequential narrative", which cuts to the core of what the medium is. It'll never stick, because it's so bloody ugly and there's already a name everyone knows. C'est la vie. We're stuck with novels, comics and games - and novels that aren't novel, comics which aren't comic and videogames which aren't...

Darkfall is a videogame that isn't a game. Or at least, the game part is deeply vestigial. It is deeply interactive - in fact, in parts about interaction - but in terms of the mechanics which characterize games, there's "sporadically collecting and killing stuff". It's most like an adventure game, but there are no puzzles. The win/lose state is ironic.

That's fine. As a medium, videogames' fundamental characteristic is interaction. The classical "game" is a form of interaction, but it's not the only thing we can do, and certainly not the only thing we've loved - think of the first half of The Cradle in Thief 3, think about the rollercoaster linear scripted sequences in many shooters where you've got no chance of dying, think of selecting jokes to make in old school LucasArts adventures which don't change anything. Games are more than games. Don't come to Darkfall expecting any of that.

Eyes glazed over? It's safe to say that Darkfall isn't for you. It'll try your patience far more than a mere 500-word "what-are-games-anyway-man?" intro. And it's even more pretentious. No, really.

Darkfall is a riff off the old MMORPG. You choose between six races: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Mahirim, Orks and Alfar. You're then deposited at the start of your racial capital, with little more than a name, some basic equipment, and a neutral alignment. You’re given two commands. One, go kill stuff. Two, be killed. If you obey, another player will kill you in a couple of minutes and you’ll be told by the death screen you've lost all of your gear. You probably won't do that. You go off and find a wolf to kill. Eventually, after the confrontation, you've wandered outside some clan’s city, in the rain, and you slowly limp inside before being presented with a semi-interactive nightmarish walk around the city before you're finally escorted to the death screen with oblique, brutal images. You’ve just been PK’d. Now the death screen says you've succeeded, and you're deposited back on the selection screen with a race played and five more left to go.

In the previous paragraph, read that wolf as "Wolf". It's not that literal. In fact, if you're looking for literal, you're really in the wrong game. The Wolf is what, for better or worse, puts an end to your character. Everything is explicitly shown, and some ends are suggestively brutal. You suspect that the developers would agree with Poe's famous quote about the death of a beautiful woman being the most poetical topic in the world.

So it's a horror game, in an atmospheric, oblique manner. The atmosphere is the point. It's about as goth as Dracula's armpits. And as dark, though less smelly. The visuals are dated, jaggged, and drab. The smears of sound alternate between semi-pastoral and openly nagging oppressive, swelling brilliantly in the game's set-pieces.

And then there's the actual game. You're on a single track, and any interaction with the controls makes you take another step along this delirious route. If you don't keep moving, someone will find you and I've never actually been brave enough to just leave to see what happens. This fact, for me, is one of the finest formalist parts of the game - that step-to-move captures how you feel when you're actually getting PK’d. Running through houses, knowing something's behind you, trying to escape, knowing you're on a track, trapped...

It's not the only place where interaction is reduced for an aesthetic effect - though generally speaking, they're less successful. For example, to interact with anything in the game, you press F, and then your character will wander over and have a nose at whatever's nearby. To interact, you stop interacting. I more admire the elegance of that control system than its obvious deconstruction. The one total mis-step is removing the run option when you're out of stamina, forcing you to walk around. It actually discourages you from exploring these locations as it takes so long to do. The most interesting parts of the game - this misty lake, this abandoned fort, this massive stage - find their effect slightly neutered.

The stars of the game are the other players. From their visual design, to their animations, to the one-liners they respond with to whatever they just did, each is well characterized and memorable. They live and they die and we know them better for that. Replaying the game for a second time, actively seeing what each player makes of something an earlier player did is part of the... fun? No, fun's not the word. But the interest. To see what happens. To explore.

If you put aside its pace - which is its point - the biggest reservations with it are how it both introduces itself to you and how it uses its game elements. The irony of the lose-everything-on-death undercuts somewhat callously any affection you had for your character, for example. When it clicks, the UI is obvious - icons on a hotbar and a map towards the periphery guiding you towards interesting locations - but when a game throws as many visual distortions over itself, it's easy to miss their importance. There's some minor twitchiness around some of the characters - like running into trees or characters magically appearing, which cuts the atmosphere for a second.

The problem with Darkfall is that to explain it is to ruin it. It's an exploratory game, and being surprised by the first time you see something, and wondering what it's for and what it's about is the main thing. The game rarely spells anything out. You spend a lot of time bemused - sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad - and wondering what it's about.

I'll say this: you'll have a strong opinion on it if you play it. Friend-of-Eurogamer Ed Zitron was profoundly perplexed by the game. Others have come claiming it's a rape simulator - which, for the record, I consider unsupportable by the game, even if you take everything on a solely literal level. It is, at worse, a being raped simulator - though I'd say that was a misreading too. What do I think? Metaphorical story of a character’s growth to adulthood, with each "death" leading to the birth of the next. But that's an essay. I don't know for sure. If you play it, you'll have your take. That's kind of the point too. It sticks with you and provokes thought. It's probably art, if the a-word matters to you.

It's totally no fun. It's interesting, but there isn't a fun bone in its mopey body. But I've paid to go into modern art galleries. I've paid for really oddball, minimalist art films. I've gone to gigs where music is divorced from any physical reaction and raised to some cerebral, abstract place - and plenty of gigs where most sane human beings would consider there was nothing actually musical going on. I haven't, but could pay for experimental theatre tickets. Lots of poetry. Whatever.

In our corner of the world, the thing with close-to-pure art-games... well, they're all pretty much free and buried away on the internet. Darkfall is on one of the biggest game distribution systems in the world, for a reasonable yet "proper" price, and still does what it does. Its existence is a statement of belief that, like any other media, there's a small niche of people who are happy to actually pay for this kind of cultural material.

That's who Darkfall is for. And if you're one of them, Darkfall is probably worth it.

If you're not, really, run for your bloody life.

For those of you lost; Aventurine declined Eurogamer's offer to have Kieron Gillen re-review Darkfall. But don't worry Kieron, I've saved you the pain of having to stoop to their level.

$24 Million Dollar Arsebiscuits

News today, Richard Garriott blasts NCsoft with $24 million lawsuit:

Yesterday, Kotaku broke the news that Garriott was suing his old pals at NCsoft to the tune of $24 million for fraud, and generally being a bunch of fetid arsebiscuits.

Interesting, this shall be.

By the way, what are arsebiscuits?

H is for Hypocrite and Heartless_

Yes, I am playing Free Realms. Yes, I still hate SOE, but I simply can't argue with a quality free games. Yes, I just referred to SOE, game, and quality in the same sentence without any curse words.

After a couple hours of play, I like the basics of Free Realms: do whatever you want, whenever you want. There is competitive, co-op, and solo play galore. Free Realms boils down to a bunch of mini-games connected via a hub world.

So far, I have not run into anything in-game asking for a credit card number, but then again, I was side tracked at the race track with the destruction derby mini-game for most of my playtime. I know micro-transactions are out there and that the card game (which is of great interest to me) relies heavily upon real cash.

I am skeptical that the micro-transaction model can generate enough revenue to support, what seems to be, a traditional game with a significant development footprint. Especially when a lot of game is available free of charge.

My other concern, after a few hours of play on US Server #1, is the lack of socialization in Free Realms between players. I found myself wandering aimlessly, rarely meeting another player in the hub world. In the destruction derby competitive mini-game, it wasn't very clear how to identify other players or how I could communicate with them. On top of that, Free Realms encourages players to always be doing something, which makes it hard to socialize properly.

Oh well, look for me online as Heartless Gamer, male of the human variety.

Quake Live Dev Says Mac and Linux Are "Top Priority"

We have news today that support for Linux and Mac will be coming to Quake Live:

Mac/Linux
These have proved more difficult than expected, but we're getting close. We expect to also be testing Mac and Linux versions of QUAKE LIVE internally this month and then making those publicly available just as soon as we feel they are ready. This work is being done by a separate programmer in parallel with the other work that we're doing, and is his only priority - point being, that this is a top priority for us and not being delayed because of other work.

Personally, I want to know why support for Linux and Mac is even needed. After all, Quake Live is a browser-based game.

Anyways, beta is probably a good time for figuring this stuff out.

Aion and Other NCSoft Titles Available via Steam

Being the Steam connoisseur that I am, not sure how I missed this one: NCSoft adds its titles to Steam.

If you're one of those gamers who prefers the digital minimalist approach as opposed to having game boxes everywhere then you're in luck. MMO-giant NCSoft have announced they will be offering their titles -- including City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and Lineage -- via Steam. They're also planning to offer their latest, most anticipated and shiny MMO, Aion as well when the game launches later this autumn.

Aion has me somewhat intrigued, even though I am on a free-gaming kick currently. There is just something a subscription-based MMOG delivers that freemium, free-to-play, and micro-transaction games don't.

Honestly, it will be great to finally have an MMOG available at launch via Steam. I'm still bitter that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was months late to the Steam party.

Not Gone Yet!

Shadowbane, as far as Ubisoft cares, is gone forever.

However, the development team doesn't seem to be giving up without at least some sort of massive send-off.

Following our recent news, the support and enthusiasm the community has shown for Shadowbane has led to an extension of the closure date to July 1, 2009. This should allow the community enough time to play out its final days appropriately. We are looking into various options to make these final days as fun as possible!

Shadowbane, the cockroach of MMOGs-that-should-be-dead-already.

Update: Aeria Games has twittered some interest in buying Shadowbane and keeping it afloat.

@game_zine Not yet. We are discussing with Ubisoft on Shadowbane. Let us know what you think about the game.

@LisaFinefrock Please give us feedback as we are very interested in Shadowbane.

@grumpywalker Please let us know what you love about Shadowbane.

Warhammer Blows

Mythic, attempting to fight another forest fire for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, have come up with the the Winds of Change.

The goal of this system is to ensure the best Open Realm vs. Realm experience for as many people as possible and to prevent server crashes. Overall, this system will only take effect in the most extreme server load situations, and will only happen as a last measure before the zone would actually crash.

In order to accomplish this goal "The Winds of Change" will now teleport a small number of players in Realm vs. Realm lakes to the closest "safe point" when crowds are large enough to threaten the stability of the server. This will generally be the nearest Warcamp, however, it may also be a Chapter Hub within the zone depending on where performance is being impacted the most.

Interesting solution, but any solution that doesn't address the root of a problem is going to face criticism.

Server stability is a fundamental of an MMOG. When there are issues, development needs to come to a screeching halt and all resources need to be redirected to evaluate the stability/performance issues. Mythic has continually shown the opposite, opting to steamroll develop new content in the face of continually worsening performance.

Maybe, Mythic does have all cylinders firing on the problem, but what little they tell the community shows no signs of it and in the case of announcing something like the Winds of Change, one has to wonder if Mythic is taking the problem seriously.

Personally, if this system stays in the game, it nails the door shut on any chances that I would play WAR again.

Update: 29 April, 2009 - As Werit pointed out in the comments, the Winds of Change have been retracted.

After reviewing the metrics and community feedback Mythic have removed the Winds of Change feature from Dark Crag. - Nilax, English Community Manager

Heartless_ Gamer's New Look

I have uploaded my new template for the world to see.

Thanks go out to lawnydesigns for the great base template to build from and the frivolousmotion blog for the tag cloud code.

Please report any bugs to the proper authorities (preferably with browser name and version # if possible).

And my blog roll disappeared into thin air, so stay tuned for a newerish version.

Because I Can!

I am changing my blog layout.

Why? Because I can! And I want to play with some stuff; like a tag cloud!

Watch my progress here.

Book News: Wheel of Time, A Dance With Dragons, and Crichton writes from the Grave

Boy has there been some big news in the book world lately.

First, the final chapter of the Wheel of Time has grown from one book into three. The final books of the series are being penned by Brandon Sanderson.

This morning Tor-Forge announced that A Memory of Light, the conclusion volume of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, will begin publishing in November 2009. That’s the good news!

The bad news? A Memory of Light is going to be broken into three separate books released one year apart each, the first of which is titled The Gathering Storm.

I'm still on Book 4, The Shadow Rising, so this gives me a reason to procrastinate. I'll still catch up before the last book is published.

Secondly, George RR Martin has delayed A Dance With Dragons, book 5 in his Song of Ice and Fire series. The most important thing I can do in regards to the delays is have everyone read this: In Defense of George RR Martin.

This long article is about author George R. R. Martin and, more importantly, the misgivings and negativity some of his more vocal fans have concerning the lateness of his forthcoming book, A Dance With Dragons.

Trust me, it is worth the read. Personally, I can wait. The end product will be worth it.

Lastly, Michael Crichton, recently deceased, will have a couple novels published posthumously.

New York, NY (April 6, 2009) - HarperCollins is proud to announce the global publication of two posthumous Michael Crichton novels. The first, Pirate Latitudes, will be published on November 24, 2009; the second, as yet untitled, will be published in Fall 2010.

Crichton's Lost World was the first "real" book I read in my youth and I can not thank him enough for the road that reading has lead me down. Ironically, that is the only book of his that I have ever read.

This Is A Test Post

Tested submitting posts from e-mail.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.

W A R Stands 4

Waiting on Aion's Release

Sorry, couldn't help myself.
Anyways, Aion looks pretty cool.

Mythic Does Get It

Mythic does get it. Need proof? Read about WAR's upcoming Keep Upgrade System.

The real question is, why has it taken them so long to "get it"? They had these sort of features figured out with Dark Ages of Camelot years ago, but completely dropped them off the face of the earth for WAR. Sad, truly sad.

Dungeon Party Open Beta

Ahoy there! More free MMO gaming ahead!

Dungeon Party has gone into Open Beta.

1. Register here.
2. Download here.
3. Play.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Free games are flowing faster than I can write reviews (or maybe free games are finally to a point where they are fun to play for more than 10 minutes and therefore I don't have time to write reviews)!

The Path

Just a quick note, Eurogamer has their review of The Path posted.

Very few Indie games intrigue me, but The Path has intrigued me enough to spend $8 on it. Yes, it sounds that good IMHO.

This Title Has Nothing To Do With This Post

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is introducing a token system.

The RvR Quartermasters are "Barter" merchants who will trade players special items and equipment in exchange for specific items earned in RvR. These Quartermasters offer players an alternative way of obtaining items in RvR such as the item sets normally obtained via Keep PQ bags. In addition the RvR Quartermasters will offer exclusive items and rewards not obtainable elsewhere.

Under System Goals, Mythic lists the following:

Help offset "Bad Luck", allowing players to obtain items they may not have gotten out of PQ's due to unlucky rolls.

Personally, I've never understood why MMOs shifted so far towards rewarding luck instead of rewarding investment and smart play.

Anyways, Mythic may just have a game worth returning to come the Tomb Kings content expansion.

Update: The title for this post was from an old draft. I have changed the title to reflect that it has nothing to do with this actual post.

Something That Every MMO Needs: The Aggregator

Runes of Magic has introduced The Aggregator.

Using this Aggregator item you can transfer statistics from items that belong to you to similar, new items.

You can e.g. transfer the stats of your new and better but not so-good-looking robe, to your trusty and well fitting robe immediately.

So you can still look cool and do not have to go without your beloved bonuses!

Are Blizzard and Mythic listening? They should be, because this is an absolute brilliant idea.

I'm still on the fence for micro-transactions in MMOs, but Runes of Magic and items like The Aggregator are slowly changing my opinion. This micro-transaction stuff can work with solid design principles behind it.

With that said, I'm still a bit bummed that the PvP server for RoM requires a massive cash investment to be competitive on. So, kudos for The Aggregator RoM, but -50 DKP for the PvP server (which is in really bad shape).

One More Hour

One more hour and I can start using the Internet again. No, your April Fools jokes are not funny.

@Anon

On my "WAR, what is it good 4?" post, Anonymous asked:

I just started playing the game and I would be curious what fundamental game designs you think it lacks?

Upfront, the performance was my dead horse to beat for the majority of my time in WAR. I have a good PC, a solid connection, and the end game zerg Realm vs. Realm was nigh unplayable. It did get better and last I played, lag and choppiness (outside of Fortresses and City Sieges) was fairly reasonable in most cases.

OK, that really isn't design related, but performance issues make a game's design difficult to evaluate. Here is a list of the fundamental design issues I found with WAR.

1. Another Mythic game with overpowered group crowd control (Rift, Electromagnet, AOE disables, and knockdowns) combined with overpowered AOE damage abilities. Sorry, I hated PBAOE groups in DAoC and I hated the AOE farm groups in WAR. Both were overpowered and both destroyed the fun of venturing out into RvR without 100 of my closest friends..

2. Open-world RvR zones were referred to as lakes, but were more like deserts. They were void of content outside of keeps and zerg RvR. The warcamps were too close together and there was no point to venture out alone. RvR zones should have been like every other zone in the game, but with the addition of keeps and battlefield objectives. Maybe we will see some of this out of the Tomb Kings patch.

3. City sieges needed to last longer and have a bigger impact. Instead they were short, laggy messes that benefited everyone equally. Honestly, players wanted their city to be taken so they could farm the defender Public Quests for fat loot. That is an absolute failure of Mythic's design.

That really sums up my problems with WAR. Three strikes and you're out and all that jazz.

Actually, the only item off my "list" to get fixed was scenario grinding.

How To Install Google Calendar Sync on XP 64

Since I'm knee deep in a project between my company and Google, I've started using Google Calendar Sync at work to sync my Outlook Calendar to my Google Calendar. It's turned out to be a neat little tool and I've been meaning to install at home. However, I use Windows XP Pro 64-bit edition at home and Google Calendar Sync does not support it. Fortunately, with a simple little "hack", I've got it up and running just fine.

Get the Google Calendar Sync installer.

1. Right-click on the installer file and select Properties.
2. Next, select the Compatibility tab.
3. Turn on "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select
Windows XP from the drop down box.
4. Click OK.
5. This will run GoogleCalendarSync_Installer.exe in compatibility mode for XP 32-bit, allowing the program to run on an XP 64 system. There are no issues that I have found running it this way.

Now, this trick works surprisingly well for a lot of software that does not support XP 64. Give it a try and let me know if there are any questions.

EVE LOL

Everytime I think about maybe (just maybe) going back to enjoy some EVE Online, I read something like this:

In another demonstration of developer misconduct CCP renamed Kenzoku to Band of Brothers Reloaded. This has never been done for an alliance, character, or corporation, ever.

CCP has designed a great virtual world, but hell is going to freeze over before they get control of their own personnel and the players they insist on helping out of the deep end of the pool.

Review: Ideazon Merc Stealth

I have, for the most part, avoided PC gaming gear. Outside of a good Logitech gaming mouse, I have stuck to using standard issue PC peripherals for my PC gaming needs. A regular keyboard has always been the end-all, be-all of PC gaming controllers.

However, for some reason, I decided to break tradition and cash in my holiday stash of gift certificates and purchase a “gamers keyboard”. I honestly thought I may be missing something with all this eye-candy PC gamer gear floating around out there. It was my turn to get the “edge” that all these gadgets claimed to give.

My first inclination was to get a gaming pad, such as the Nostromo n52 Speedpad, but after some searching and shelf surfing at my local Best Buy, I settled on the Ideazon MERC Stealth keyboard. The reasoning goes: for the same price as a side-pad type controller, I could get a full keyboard that INCLUDED a side-pad.

There are two nice things I can say about the MERC Stealth.

1. It sure is pretty.
2. The management software is user friendly.

Unfortunately, that is about all I could find for positives. Negativity, as they say, is my thing.

The first glaring problem is the layout of the QWERTY keyboard. Unlike most gaming keyboards, which maintain standard QWERTY key placements, the MERC Stealth moves critical keys around and plays complete havoc with the number pad. I found myself completely lost on the keyboard, feeling like the kid in typing class that is always getting yelled at for looking down.

Secondly, the side-pad is poorly designed. The keys are oddly shaped, poorly placed, and the pad itself is uncomfortably rotated to the side. I gave up after an hour of struggling to find a comfortable position to keep my arm in while keeping the keyboard level with me. I eventually just turned the damn keyboard and straightened out the angle on the pad.

The key placement and design on the side-pad is fundamentally flawed. The movement keys are HUGE. The function keys are tiny and all jammed together. I honestly wondered if any of the function keys were meant to be pressed at the same time as I was using the movement keys. I never found a reasonable way to utilize any of the other keys while using the HUGE movement keys. At that point, the side-pad becomes worthless.

The death knell of the MERC Stealth comes down to the combination of the altered keyboard combined with a horrible side-pad. Sure, with time, I could retrain my fingers to the MERC, but it would be a never-ending battle between my work setup and my gaming setup. The truth of the matter is that computers are a part of most PC gamers day jobs, and moving any standard keys on a keyboard is an easy way to make it feel too awkward for use.

I only spent about 30 hours gaming with the MERC stealth, so maybe it’s a muscle memory thing or maybe I just needed more time. Regardless, I returned the MERC Stealth, because at the end of the day my fingers were horribly confused.

Next up: the Nostromo n52TE Speedpad.

Bob's Red Ball

From Broken Toys we meet Rights, Profit, and Drama:

Rights: Well, of course. He’s stating the obvious. Does your landlord in the real world, even though he owns your house and the land it’s on, have any right whatsoever to read your mail and pop in unexpectedly when you have a date? Why should virtual landlords have more rights than realspace landlords?

Profit: I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion. If I’m going to be threatened with lawsuits because of constitutional rights you have to my server, I’d have to be retarded to ever open my company up to such liability by making a server. These are entertainment products, and we are being paid to create a safe and enjoyable environment for everyone. There is no such thing as virtual civil rights, only EULAs. And if you somehow get the courts to disagree, we’ll take our balls and go make console games.

Drama: I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I WAS RIGHT I KNEW IT the company needs to give me my account back now.

Read on through that link for the full article. Read below for my thoughts.

I have always had a simple idea of ownership. If Bob paid for the red ball, is holding the red ball, and decides to give it to you to play a game of kick ball (for free or for a rental charge), Bob still owns the ball.

Virtual space is still real. It exists on a hard drive somewhere. Thou who controls the physical media, owns the virtual goodies within. End of story.

MMO gamers don’t own the physical media and should not have rights to it. MMO gamers pay to access a service. BOB OWNS THE FUCKING BALL!

Playing Free is the Way to Be

Part of my move towards value-based gaming includes keeping a keen eye on the Open Beta market. Open Betas are often a chance to play a full-featured game for free, and sometimes they can last quite a while.

The Chronicles of Spellborn, an MMO long in production, has finally hit Open Beta.

To gain access to the Open Beta simply download the game here and login with your Acclaim User ID and password. If you don't have an Acclaim User ID you can register for free by clicking here.

Enjoy!

018108

That is my house number in Runes of Magic. I am playing on the Grimdal PvP server as Column the Rogue, which I'm planning to Dual Class with Knight. Level 8 and mooooving!

Update: 8 June, 2009 - I am no longer playing on Grimdal. I am debating which PvE server to play on. Runes of Magic PvP servers suck and require massive cash investment to compete.

WAR, What Is It Good 4?

Absolutely nothing.

My WAR account will go inactive after this weekend. It was fun while it lasted, but there are too many fundamental game designs that I will never agree with and refuse to pay for.

Runes of Magic: Linux, Launch, and U

In keeping my ear to the ground listening for great values in the gaming market, I keep coming accross Runes of Magic, a free to play, but supported by micro-transactions MMO. I normally disdain micro-transactions, but I can live with them when the game is being given away for free.

Anyways, I figured I'd take the time to throw up some info I've come across while researching RoM. First, it is launching on March 19th.

So here's the plan: Tomorrow on Wednesday, 18 March 2009, at 2am PST / 11:00h CET we will take down almost everything.
The Runes of Magic game servers, the official website and the official forums.

Only the patch-server stays online. We want everyone to be able to keep their clients updated so that when we go live on Thursday not everyone tries to download the patch at the same time. Be aware: if everything goes to plan, it might take a while to get through. Good news: there is no need to download a new version of the client!

While the servers are down - as a little incentive for new and old players - you can top-up your Diamond account.
We offer a 30% discount on Diamonds during the game's downtime.

During the downtime we go through the forums, tiding up a bit - doing our equivalent of spring cleaning - and uncluttering that unwieldy forum structure.

So that's what we have to dom but what about you? You don't really think we'll just let you go on playing like this, do you?

Well, actually we don't let you. You have to wait.

And when the servers come back up on Thursday, 19 March 2009 at exactly 1am PST / 10:00h CET you do have to redistribute all you TP again, because there's a big TP reset for everyone.

Secondly, for the Linux gamers out there, it looks like RoM runs smoothly through WINE.

Bounty Hunters, Concerns

Bioware has released another video documentary for Star Wars: The Old Republic and in it, they announce the Bounty Hunter as a player class. My Boba Fett action figures are jumping for joy.

However, I have to voice my concern for the underlying gameplay that Bioware chooses to show in these videos. The concept art is great, the developer commentary is spot on, but the actual gameplay looks dated and depressing. The animations and combat looked average at best.

Every new video from Bioware seems to feature fewer seconds of actual gameplay and more "how great this game will be" propaganda. It makes me wonder what Bioware is hiding.

Hopefully this is all overblown huffing and puffing on my part over some alpha (or earlier) footage of the game, but there is this little jaded gamer inside of me that doesn't buy that excuse.

Unreal Tournament III Free Weekend Play

My Internet has been down all day thanks to my ISP trying to block my wireless router's MAC address, otherwise I would have posted this sooner. Unreal Tournament III can be played for FREE this weekend via Steam. Plus it's on sale for %40 off (making it just $11.99).

Load up Steam to play Unreal Tournament III, and the recently released Titan Bonus Pack, for free, until 1PM PST, March 15th.

One more reason to love Steam. One more reason I am loving my shift to FREE (aka the best value in town) gaming.

And for anyone getting started this weekend, READ THIS FIRST!

He Loved Cheez Its

Our pet rabbit has passed away.

Let it be known that he loved his Cheez Its.

The Corollary to That

“The corollary to that is if you’ve seen a game consolidate servers, you know it’s in deep, deep trouble — that’s not a healthy sign for an MMO,” he said, citing Sony’s January-released “Pirates of the Burning Sea” as a recent example. “It will be the same for ‘Warhammer.’ Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”
- Mark Jacobs 8/29/08

Fast forward to today:

On Tuesday, March 10, we will be performing a final transfer of characters from several of the servers that have been, in the past, a source server (ie. we have offered transfers off of). Please read on for all the details, including a list of affected servers.

Failures do not become more epic than this. As Obama's presidential run was a lesson for all future presidential candidates, so will Mark Jacob's pre-launch WAR propaganda be for all future MMO developers.

Sadly, Mark is going to find out the hard way how right his original statement was.

No Such Thing as a Free Puppy: FREEEEEEDOM!!!

Ever heard that there is no such thing as a free puppy (NSTaaFP)? Sure, the puppy is free, but the food is not, veterinarian bills don't pay themselves, and that poop in the back yard isn't going to clean itself up. Nothing is ever free; there is always a price to pay.

With my real life churning at an incredible rate (baby on the way, new job, new rank in the military reserves, and a less than stellar economy), I am having to adjust my gaming habits. Gone are the days of shelling $30+ monthly for multiple MMO accounts and having dozens of hours to play weekly. Arrived are the days of 30 minute gaming sessions and better-things-to-spend-my-money-on-than-games.

Fear not, for I will NEVER give up online gaming. What I am giving up are overpriced, bloated, and value-depressed gaming habits. An MMO subscription may be a bargain, but that same $0.50 per hour of gameplay is a lot more valuable put into chewing gum most of the time. Plus, in the long run, a good non-subscription game is going to prove far more value-profitable for my time spent.

That is not to say that a good subscription-based MMO isn't worth the money, but the B-rate subscription MMOs with half-ass launches and lackluster gameplay are now off the table for me. I can get the same crappy gameplay from free games that force no commitment upon me. Hell, I may even warm up to the idea of micro-transaction games.

Also, this probably means any game costing $50+ better be damn good if it wants my money (and they better not require hardware upgrades). When I can buy games like Team Fortress 2 for $20 ($10 when its on sale!), game developers will never again convince me to spend $50 for a game if there is any chance the game will falter. However, I hold the right to waffle on that statement as I am susceptible to hype (bad Heartless_, bad).

I am damn well sure that I am not upgrading my hardware for any game. The beauty of most free to play games is that they shoot for wide audiences and run on practically anything. Fortunately, some "real game developers" are getting the clue. For example: Valve does a great job with their Half Life engines, which run well on most up to date PCs. Epic Games does not with their Unreal engines, and some four year old games are still impossible to run on your average gaming PC today.

Here is my short list of Free to Play games I am going to hit up:

1. Quake Live
2. Maple Story
3. Battlefield Heroes

Any more suggestions? Hit up the comments.

Mythic, are city sieges supposed to be fun?

I had the chance to participate in a couple city sieges over the last few days in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning on the Badlands server. Destruction has been rampaging through the streets of Altdorf, Order's capital city, for two nights straight now. And, unfortunately this is true for what seems to be the majority of servers. Poor Order bastards, red-headed step faction of WAR.

My main question for Mythic: are these sieges supposed to be fun? Because, for me at least, they are about as much fun as pulling my finger nails out with pliers.

1. There are way too many people per instance. Lag, bullshit area-of-effect dominantion, and a don't-do-anything-but-follow-the-zerg-or-die mentality all add up to a giant pile of garbage.

2. There is no sensible direction to take within the siege. Sure, there are "objectives", but can players reasonably expect to complete objectives with 75 zergling wonders barreling down on them anytime they get a pop up telling them a control point flipped?

3. To reiterate part of point numero uno, CLASS BALANCE FUCKING SUCKS BETWEEN ORDER AND DESTRUCTION. Mythic, give Order the same I WIN AOE disables and disorients, or remove them from the game.

I'm stopping here. I could go on, but I won't. WAR is a joke and I almost thought I was beginning to like it.

PS. Order Badlands - Kick Destruction's ass! Its obvious why the majority of big-time guilds chose Destruction (EZ mode).

Darkfall Launches

It's the LOL heard around the world: Darkfall has gone LIVE!

On a side note: a new Star Wars: The Old Republic web comic!

FPS Gaming Goodness: Quake Live and Team Fortress 2 Scout Update

The Quake Live beta has started and I can be found getting fragged repeatedly as heartlessgamer. Just to note: there are queues to get logged into the beta website, so get in line now if you want to get your frag on!

Actually the queues have subsided to just a couple of minutes now, but last night they were swollen with tens of thousands of people trying to log on to the new service. Apart from being over-subscribed and the verification emails taking a while to turn up, the browser-launched Quake 3 is looking good. The front end system, with its rankings and insta-matching systems, appears remarkably solid and easy to navigate. Why not go and have a look? It’s completely free, after all.

Next on the schedule for FPS fans: Team Fortress 2 has released the Scout Update.

Baseball pre-season begins. And the Scout Update goes live. After the vote to see in which order the unlocks should be added, the order is announced. It’s Force-A-Nature first, then The Sandman, then finally the Bonk Energy Drink. You can read all the details of all the updates with this handy link.

Also to note: Team Fortress 2 is on sale for a mere $10 until this Friday. Get it while its hot. Oh, and apparently games work just like taxes, lower them and more revenue is made. Or I mean to say: lower game prices and more revenue is made.

The holiday sales lead to interesting numbers. A 10% reduction lead to 35% increase in amount of money which came in (i.e. Not just sales). 25% lead to a 245% increase. 50% lead to 320% increase. And 75% lead to 1470%. Which is an interesting one to interpret in a few ways.

A great one-two punch. A free, web-based FPS that plays great on almost any PC. And a game developer delivering digital downloads at a reasonable price making money hand over fist. Take that you stupid, overpaid fucking twats running 90% of the game development industry.

Full-time

Some 500,000+ people may have lost a job recently, but there are a lucky few out there that have gotten a job lately. I just happen to be one of those lucky few. I am moving from my contract position into a full-time position with my company. It is a great feeling. I beat out 35 other candidates, for a position that normally only sees a handful of applicants, and it eventually came down to a written skills test to determine the winner.

And as a nice reward, I may just finally get two monitors for my work PC!

Warhammer Official Forums are OPEN!

A lot of squigs died in the opening of these forums:

To log onto the official forum's beta simply go to http://forums.warhammeronline.com and sign in using your WAR product account name (the same one used to log into the game) and password. You will then be asked to create a user name and provide a valid email address. Please note, registration for the Official Forums Beta will not be open until the PTS is open.

What I Learned from Left 4 Dead

Best Left 4 Dead Comic Ever.

Left 4 Dead: Fixing Black Textures/Missing Textures/Video Problems

Recently, Left 4 Dead has gone dark on me. In my search for solutions, I stumbled across the following for nVidia card owners:

If you are using Riva Tuner, please follow these directions:

1. Launch Riva Tuner
2. Click the "Customize" button next to "ForceWare Detected".
3. Click the Direct3D/DirectDraw button
4. Set the "Surface Format Settings" to "for DirectX8- Applications"
5. Check the "Enable FOURCC DXT..DXT5 surfaces" box
6. Select "OK" and you will be prompted to restart your computer

For step-by-step with pictures and a guide for ATI video card owners, click here.

Favre Retires, and This Time It Must Be True

I know I'm late, but I had some other business to attend to on the day Favre re-retired.

Favre Retires, and This Time It Must Be True.

Quarterback Brett Favre has told the Jets he is retiring from the N.F.L. after 18 seasons, according to his agent and the team. On Wednesday morning, Favre’s Web site linked to an article on ESPN.com, which first reported that he had decided to retire.

“I had a great conversation with Brett this morning,” Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets, said in a statement released by the team. “Considering that he came from a totally different environment and joined our team during training camp, his performance last season was extraordinary.”

All I can say is that Favre had a rough end to the season, both physically and in the media. I'm still a Favre fan at heart.

The Greatest Improvement to World of Warcraft

Now that the lead designer on World of Warcraft is officially stepping down, I thought it would be a great time to point out World of Warcraft's single best improvement since launch: Dual Spec.

Dual Spec, part of WoW's new patch, allows characters to maintain two talent specs at a time and switch freely between the two. Having played a Shaman or Paladin for my entire WoW career, I can't count the number of times I wanted to change specs for a dungeon run or a guild event, but didn't do so because the cost in gold was outrageous.

I missed a lot of events in WoW because I refused to swap to a healing spec on my Shaman or Paladin. I even had the gear needed for each spec on my characters, but it just wasn't worth it to pay to swap and thirty minutes later watch my group disintegrate because the Warrior we picked up wasn't defense spec.

Dual Spec is fundamentally game changing, in a way that nothing else in a WoW patch has ever been. It truly brings the player to the forefront, and not the spec. The beauty is beyond just letting hybrid classes fulfill their various roles at any time. The pure classes benefit greatly as well, able to try off specs and pure specs at the drop of a hat.

I honestly can't state how great of an improvement this is for WoW. Unfortunately, Dual Spec is a couple years too late for me.

Hmmmm...

All,

We are pleased to announce the following promotions within the Heartless Reproductive Team (HRT).

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless have both been promoted to parents.

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless spearheaded the PUP-E team in May of 2007, and shortly thereafter were promoted to pet owners. This team is responsible for raising and educating one dog, including all care and support that is involved. Currently the team is involved with such endeavors as teaching sit, stay, come, fetch, and NO! Mrs. Heartless and Mr. Heartless focus on providing for the team, project management and coordination, and working to provide an environment in which to succeed.

During this past year, December in fact, they had briefly decided to not upgrade the team’s peripherals to version 2.0 having been quite satisfied with the 1.0 version received through PUP-E. Maintaining PUP-E was easy and they were looking forward to simply seeing that through until it was phased out.

However in early December fate stepped in on the project planning, as it often does, and provided an expected addendum to the previously gathered requirements. Both Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless, choosing not to use any Change Management software at all, encountered a situation in which the bios was flashed on the motherboard and the firmware thusly affected upgrading the team to version 2.0.

And so, after years of project planning, at times going over budget, rewriting requirements and attending endless “meetings”; it is time to announce that the family is officially expecting a new addition later this year.

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless are to be commended on their efforts thus far and we look forward to this new and exciting version 2.0 of the Heartless family.

Monpy Tython

Star Wars: The Old Republic is still looking OLD! I present: The Making of Tython.



After watching the video linked above, please read the following.

Is it just me, or does every new video for SW:ToR make the game look absolutely boring? Bioware better have some wiz-bang combat previews coming up or I am officially jumping off the train for this one.

Breaking Iron: An Ironbreaker Blog

Just a scheduled programming note: I have started an Ironbreaker blog entitled Breaking Iron.

I am going to use it to muse about the class, patch notes, and playing tips. It should actually contain only useful information, where as this blog contains mostly mindless rants one.

Enjoy!

FIX the Damn Game!

Let January 29th, 2009 go down in history as the day Mythic decided to do something with this little thing called Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. More classes, a new scenario, live events, and an entire new zone! WARgasm!

Actually, all of the announcements weren't that exciting. Mythic missed the mark, again, and once again, Mark Jacobs had to respond to cries of "WTF are you doing Myhic! FIX the damn game first!".

MJB eventually came around to his senses and got down to talking about the things that are important for WAR (like fixing the pile of crap of a game that we are currently playing instead of just senselessly hyping new features that no one is going to care about if the game doesn't run better than a fat chick sucking a golf ball through a hose).

If you ask me, the letter to the Folks would have made one hell of a better Press Release than some marketing tripe about new classes, zones, and live events.

Oh well, I'll give you another shot Mythic. I don't know why, but Paul Barnett still amuses me slightly (or at least keeps me entertained and makes me believe community still might count for something in MMOs).