Keyrock

You all have phones, don't you?

Slowly getting better slightly less crappy at Artifact playing draft mode. It's really unlike any card game I've played previous. The 3 lane mechanic changes everything. Deployment is extremely important in this game, sometimes more important than the decisions you make when playing cards. At the beginning of the game you deploy 3 heroes (the flop), one in each lane. You get to decide which heroes will be in the flop but they get placed in a random lane. On turn 2 you deploy another hero (the turn) and on turn 3 another (the river). You do get to decide which lane the heroes deployed on turn 2 and later go in. The strategy starts with deciding what 3 heroes should be in the flop and which hero is the turn and which is the river. A lot of factors go into this, including (but not limited to) the survivability of the hero, the nature of their special ability (is it passive or active, if active how long is the cooldown?), assuming they have one (not all heroes do), the hero's color, what their signature card is. Squishier heroes tend to be better deployed on the turn or the river, when you can control which lane they will deploy into, giving you a better chance of putting them somewhere they will not get instantly killed in, but that's not always the case. A hero dying, particularly in the early turns, isn't the end of the world. In fact, it can sometimes be advantageous since heroes respawn after being dead for one full turn (in a sense 2 turns if they are killed during upkeep, making upkeep kills super powerful) and then you can deploy them in whatever lane you want. Heroes represent more than just meat shields and damage. While you share a single hand of cards across all 3 lanes, each lane has its own mana and is played as its own separate turn within a turn (although there are a few, very few, abilities and spells that can affect other lanes or even all lanes) and you can only cast a spell in that lane if you have an active hero of that color in said lane. So, for example, if you are playing a red/green deck (dual color decks are the most common in the game, as they are in MTG) but you only have a red hero in the left lane, you can only cast red spells in that lane, you cannot cast any green spells. So you need that in mind when you plan ahead. If you are planning to cast a green spell in the right lane, make sure you get a green hero into that lane. One of the big mistakes I've picked up on that I tended to make when I started out, and still do, to a lesser degree, now is giving up on a lane too soon. For the most part, you are looking to win 2 lanes, so eventually you will tend to abandon 1 lane and concentrate your resources on the other 2. However, it can be deceptive early on sometimes as to which lanes will have a better chance of going your way later on and a lane you abandoned may turn out to be a lane you should have fought for. Knowing when to abandon a lane is a very key decision and it is a difficult one. Another thing I'm slowly learning is utilizing initiative. Generally, the first person to pass in a lane gains initiative in the next lane. However, there are also cards that can steal initiative. I often overlooked these cards, but I'm realizing how powerful these cards can be. Initiative isn't as important early on (in some cases you'd even rather not have it so that you can react to your opponent's plays) but it can be critical in the late stages of the game and the difference between victory an defeat. There's a lot to consider at all times in this game, so many layers. I can confidently say it's the most complex card game I've ever played.

Okay, the Packers are definitely done. I can breathe a sigh of relief. It won't be Aaron Rodgers ripping my heart out of my chest Kali Ma style this year. It will be someone else. PS: Sorry Barty & Mannock PPS: Not sorry

They have interactive maps like that for all the X games. BTW, I watched a bit of a Twitch stream of X4 and the character models are still ugly as sin and move like robots. Same ol' Egosoft.

You can finish the story in these games in roughly 30 hours, but the story is kind of throwaway, with some HILARIOUSLY bad voice acting and character animations. (Egosoft make cool ships, stations, etc, but they can't model or animate a humanoid to save their lives) I usually just get the story out of the way to unlock all the sectors, it's not exactly compelling. The meat of the game is messing around in this giant universe sandbox and being whoever you want (pirate, merchant, fleet commander, etc.). Like Fenixp wrote, if you don't care about the story, and there isn't really anything there to care about then just get X3: Terran War Pack, it has X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude. Play either one of those. Word of caution, the X games have a pretty steep learning curve and they are slow. It's not all action all the time, there's a lot of just flying to different sectors, exploring, buying and selling goods, etc.

Yeah, m&kb works really well in X games. X:Rebirth was actually made, from the ground up, with gamepad in mind. It didn't even have proper flightstick support at launch. Everything was made to be controlled with a gamepad. They added flightstick support later. Like Fenixp, I would not recommend X:Rebirth, however. It was not good.

You can definitely map axes and functions to a gamepad and make it work but you will need to sit near a keyboard because a gamepad doesn't have nearly enough buttons to accommodate all the functions you will use regularly.

You all have phones, don't you?

The fact that this could potentially be a lo fi sci fi space western RPG has me all types of interested.

That was an impressive defensive performance by muh Boys and Dak did exactly what he needed to do in that type of game, make zero mistakes. We're now won 4 straight and are in control of our own destiny. If we beat Philly next week we'll have a stranglehold on the division. Oh God, they've lured me back in. Supabaw! Supabaw!

X4 releases tomorrow. As a longtime fan of the series I am both excited and scared. I'm definitely going to wait a bit to find out if this is closer to the awesome sandboxes of X2 and the X3 games or the bitter disappointment that was X: Rebirth. I'm hoping it's the former. I want to once again set up my Teladi merchant empire and make profitsss that will eventually fund my massive fleet that will rule the galaxy with an iron fist.

I'm playing a bunch of casual draft in Artifact. I have some deck building experience from my MTG days and some of that does carry over to Artifact (some doesn't), but the main thing is just going to be playing enough that I memorize mana costs of all (or most) cards and what cards people tend to play in what decks. Right now I'm mainly thinking "right, they still have a lot of mana so they can potentially cast powerful stuff". I'll start getting better when I can think "right, they have 5 mana left, so I need to watch out for spell X and spell Y, but I don't need to worry about spell Z because they don't have the mana for it".

That eggplant costume speaks both of your fiscal wisdom and great fashion sense.

Honestly, I was just looking for an excuse to post the shame nun.

I forgot all about Deep Down. Is that still a thing that is happening?

Okay, I lied, I opened up a couple of my booster packs. I couldn't help myself. I got Drow Ranger in my first pack! Drow Ranger is arguably the best hero in the game right now, going by what the people that have been playing it for months have been saying. When I looked on the marketplace Axe (considered by most to be the second or third best hero) was the most expensive card being sold, Drow wasn't even for sale, likely because nobody is willing to part with one of their Drow cards. Booster packs are obviously loot boxes, perhaps the original loot boxes, and very obviously gambling (I'm guessing Artifact is not available in Belgium?). I'd be lying if I said opening the packs wasn't exciting, though. Luckily, I know I have the willpoer to not just buy a bunch more packs after I finish opening all the ones that came with my initial purchase, even if I really want a Prellex and a Kanna and I don't get either in my remaining packs (I haven't so far).

Artifact The imps are adorable and super well animated. I am buying an imp plushie just as soon as they become available.

Artifact. It's a blast to play. For those unaware, this is Richard Garfield & Valve's new DotA themed collectible card game. It mimics DotA by using some of DotA's heroes, abilities, and items and the setup of having 5 heroes on each team spread among 3 lanes. Beyond that, it's a completely different game. The idea is to destroy 2 of your opponent's towers, or a tower and an ancient, before they do the same to you. Taken on it's own, the battle happening in each lane isn't particularly complex, what gives the game it's depth and complexity is that you are essentially playing 3 games at once, with each lane being its own game withing a game, and a larger overall metagame, since, while most abilities can only be used within a single lane, there are global abilities, cross-lane abilities, and abilities that can transfer heroes from one lane to another. Generally speaking, the idea is to win 2 of the 3 lanes. Alternatively, you can go for the ancient in a lane that you've already destroyed the tower, but the ancient has twice the health of a tower, so it tends to be time consuming. Anyway, there are strategies and complexities to this game that I won't even begin to grasp for quite some time. From some of the people that have been playing since the alpha, it takes some 30 to 50 hours before you even begin getting decent at the game, which is what I expected. As for the elephant in the room, the monetization. The game is $20 and that gets you 2 starter decks, 10 booster packs (12 cards each, 1 guaranteed rare in each pack), and 5 tickets (I don't know what these do). Booster packs are $2. Also there is a marketplace where you can buy, sell, or trade individual cards. So yeah, they charge you up front AND there are microtransactions in the game, something I've spoken out about before, and I'm not about to give Valve a free pass here. I will say, in Valve's defense, that this is the exact same way that physical CCGs work and at least it's $20, not $60. Also, you can just play draft and you never need to buy cards or card packs ever (beyond your original $20 purchase of the game itself). I haven't opened any of my booster packs yet and probably won't for quite some time as I have no intention of playing constructed until I've played draft for quite some time and have some idea of what makes a good deck and what my preferred play style is. You can earn pack by playing draft too, but I can't tell you how long that takes yet. Still, Valve IS double dipping here, which sucks. Anyway, once I win The Artifact International, my winnings will pay for my initial purchase and then some anyway.

Let's try... DOOM It works!

I generally stick with Sennheiser for my headphones needs, they never disappoint in the audio quality category. All my stuff is wired, though, so I can't really make a specific recommendation to you.

The problem with microtransactions existing in a game that allow players to skip some or all of the grind is that there will always be the question, was the grind designed to be excessive as a way to encourage the player to spend money to skip it? Did microtransactions influence the game design?

Glen shreddin' on a freakin' 12-string.

Absolutely, but this time don't price it over $300 at launch (traditionally all handhelds priced over this mark have failed) and don't saddle it with ridiculous, overpriced, proprietary memory cards. The Vita was a great machine, Sony just murdered it at launch with some terrible decisions.