melkathi

I'd like to, but I just don't have the time for another MMO. Hmm "another MMO" ? A lof of people on the Defiance forum would ask you since when Defiance counts as an MMO I think I'll try to make an attempt at an objective write up. So here goes: DEFIANCE as seen by an internet teddy bear: Gameplay: Defiance is a 3rd person shooter. In that, many compare it to games such as Borderlands. The player character has been fitted with an EGO implant, the nanotec AI that allows for the use of special abilities (and constitutes the attempt to explain tutorials and other system messages with in-game lore). Gaining experience and leveling up reflects not a change in the character, but the ability to use the capabilities of the EGO implant. Thus levels are called EGO Rating, with a current maximum of 5000. Reaching higher ratings unlocks EGO upgrade points which can be used to unlock and upgrade EGO abilities and perks. There are four abilities to choose from: Cloack, Overcharge (a damage boost), Blurr (a speed and melee boost) and Decoy. Eventually a player can unlock all four and each has five ranks, making them more powerful and xtending their duration. Perks are passive abilities with three ranks each. They provide improvements such as increased reload speed, reduced damage when shot in the back, increased criticals when crouching etc. Based on their EGO rating a player can have between 1 to 10 (I think) perks equiped at one time. The loadout screen is where things are equiped. Ina given loadout a player can have two weapons, one grenade, one shield, one vehicle, one power and a number of perks (as mentioned based on the EGO). With a higher rating up to five different loadout tabs unlock, making it fairly easy to swap from one combination to another on the fly. Weapons can also be upgraded, through four upgrade slots.On top of that some weapons can unlock "synergy" bonuses by adding specific mods of a set. As weapons are used, they gain experience (or the player gets experience using the weapon). Each weapon can be lveled up once, unlocking another ability on it (+ reload speed, accuracy etc). As players gain experience with weapons, their own weapon skills improve with the specific type of weapon. Player skill with weapons reaches a max of 20, giving things like 3% rate of fire etc at level up. Exp for the skill can only be gained though if the specific weapon itself hasn't been leveled up yet. As a result players will dicard a leveled up assault rifle for example for a fresh assault rifle to continue leveling the weapon skill. Missions and stuff: A main story arc will take the player through the whole gameworld. As the story pogresses, smaller side missions unlock as well. It has been mentioned by players that they have raced through the main story in a short time reachign an EGO rating of around 400. I, playing casual and doing a lot of stuff on the side, took far longer: about a month and EGO rating around 1700+ Some missions take place in instanced areas, but many are in the open world, allowing for encounters with other players ont he same mission. Progress ina mission area counts for everyone currently in that area - so if you need to rescue five miners, it doesn't matter if you are the one who interacts with them or some random other person. Events happening at specific locations will continue to be plyable after the mission is completed - a farm attacked by raiders during a mission will get attacked by raiders again the next time you go there, even though you have completed the mission. Still, specific locations will stay altered based on player actions. Thus a roadblock may not eist for a player further along the story while exisiting for others. Beside missions there are Challenges. Hotshot Challenges equip the player with a specific weapon and have them kill waves of enemies until they run out of bullets and/or the time is up. Time Trials are racing challenges, where players try to drive a course in set time. Emergenices I find more interesting. They are similar to Open Missions or Public Quests in other MMOs. The can happen in numerous locations throughout the gameworld and are part of what makes the world come alive. At one location Echelon mercenaries may be fighting hellbugs, at another raiders may be kidnapping people. Most locations that spawn emergencies will spawn a random one from a pool appropriate to the area. Contracts unlock after a certain EGO rating. They are the daily and weekly missions of the game. Defeat 15 raider blasters at farms. Defeat 40 skitterlings in Marin. Complete the Explosives 101 Co-Op instance. Things like that. Multiplayer: PvE: Open World: Arkfalls are the main thing that can gather a crowd. There are two types of Arkfalls, major and minor. They happen based on a random timer throughout the gameworld. Minor arkfalls have some arkdebris drop from the sky and players and npcs fight over who gets the salavege. Major arkfalls have many minor arkfalls happen simultaneously and, once all those are won, a final boss fight begins. While some tactics may be required, nothing is so complicated as not allowing a bunch of random strangers to complete it. Especially as EGO will happily comment on what you need to do ("Shoot the glands underneath the Hellion's arms!" or "That skitterling's bite opened a weak spot on the crystal!"). Two weeks ago Sieges were added and while they have been temporarily removed again, new sieges should be added in July. During a siege players defend specific locations from hordes of enemies. Instanced group content: There are a number of Co-op maps (I think 6 at the moment). As most parts of Defiance, they are not too difficult and can be completed with a random group, though certain bonus objectives (such as defeating a specific boss in under 3 minutes) may require a pre-made team that can cooperate properly. PvP: PvP is not exactly balanced. A fully modded synergy weapon can far outclass some random rare weapon. The bonuses, even small, that a player gets from their weapon skills add up and so do the not so minor bonuses from perks. Add to that that certain weapons are just overpowered to begin with and exploiters exist and PvP can quickly turn into an exercise in frustration. It's current state is one which has me saying that anyone who would be interested in the game primarily for PvP should consider steering clear of Defiance. There are two types of PvP: battlegrounds and shadow war. Battlegrounds are the usual death matches and capture and hold scenarios (for now), while shadow wars spawn capture objectives in the actual game world and have large teams of players compete for them. As they require many players to queue for them, Shadow Wars are fairly rare. Travel: Players very quickly earn their first vehicle, allowing them to speed across the game world. Fast Travel to specific locations is also free of charge, meaning players can be anywhere quite quickly without having to waste too much time just getting from point A to point B. Bottom Line: Without anything to truly require deep strategy with long planning, ventrilo/teampseak and specifc builds, while also allowing players to move fairly quickly, this is basically a casual game. It is properly based played in short sessions for relaxation. log in, doa mission or challenge. Do a couple of contracts. While doing those notice an Arkfall happening nearby and head there like everyone else. While moving from one objective to another do the odd emergency on your way. People who may like this game: Anyone who likes to just fool around in a third person shooter. People with e helper syndrom like myself, who when they see a farmer being attacked by raiders just have to run over and save him. People who like to play in large groups without having to stress over doing everything right. People who this game just isn't made for: Anyone looking for a truly challenging experience. Anyone who enjoys MMOs for raids and similar organised "end-game" experience. PvPers who enjoy balanced, skill based fights. Lady Crimson - this game doesn't have feline pets. That's all I could think of for now. Edit: oh and yeah. I bought it 30% off

Hehe. That looks familiar. I have been known to do that too: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/542926462784235366/62E9E0CF2804A770B4F6D054DC86FAB3A14CE4E5/ hmm link acting strange... trying again: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=66753242

Demon Stone and Dragon Shard are garbage, but that's still a great deal. Well, I thought it was telling enough that for all the others there are acronyms and for those two there aren't

I found Darksiders to be stupid. Simple as that. The over the top muscle bound dude witha big sword running around trying extra hard to be cool. I felt as if I was in a ManOWar song, while no longer being a teenager and thus fully capable of realising how embarassingly ridiculopus everything is. I think I lasted 20 minutes before I uninstalled. Bioshock is very atmospheric. Though I think the best part of the game is the first minute, before you have any weapons, while you are still completly scared. After that... eh... I love Andrew Ryan's welcome speech.

Does anyone collect Steam Collectible Trading Cards? I got a spare Wolfgang (Don't Starve) and Royal Summons (Faery Solitaire) to trade

Not just Torchlight Free. Also: Definitive Dungeons & Dragons 80% off: PST + BG 1-2 + IWD 1-2 + NWN 1-2 + ToEE + Demonstone and Dragonshard (from 105.90 euros to 21.10 euros) Wide A. Wake Bundle 90% off Alan Wake and Alan Wake's American Nightmare Among other sales: TW2 50% off And other 500 games on sale as well

Playing a bit of Defiance again. This week's mini-episodic-content foreshadows stuff for the next episode of the TV show, so I'm happy (btw, if anyone ever considers for some reason to try the game, gimme a chance to refer you as a friend )

I finished it a couple of days before the patch went out. And my bugs fixed themselves as well... Taking a break before the second playthrough.

A month and a week

I'll just throw a wiki-link at you since it can explain better than I: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemalism

Care to elaborate?

Yeah. I had found that link. But I expect anyone who is seriously taking part in this discussion to have read that

I loved the keep. Or better put, I loved the idea of the keep. The XP and money though were crazy. Luckily I had completed the main quest before palying the DLC, so I already was overpowered and it didn't cheapen my gaming experience

Root cause seems pretty straight forward, even though Erdogan plays the "foreign agitators" card very happily (funny how he is at the same time accused of only daring the excessive violence because of his close ties to the US and EU governments foreign support can go either way after all...). The modern turkish state had a clear distinction between state and church, based on Kemal Ataturk's principles. Under Erdogan, a lot of that separation has been rubbed away. Enough for many to start percieving Turkey as a muslim state. Kemal had banned women from covering up with headscarfs, veils or whatever religion asks them to. That was perhaps too extreme. Erdogan is pushing the country in the opposite direction. The proposed projects for Gezi Park / Taksim Square are symbols of the intended islamisation. For me the question is less how the protesters are supported by foreign interests. I am more appaled at the fact that our western governments aren't supporting them

Same reason everyone wears those ridiculous masks from that silly movie.

Can't provide you a link. Saw it on the news. Apparently it was part of the longer statement by Sezer that also included the six suicides and the terrible conditions the police are kept under? RT showed an interview with an anonymous policeman. Can't dig that up though. Indeed, apparently Erdogan's voters are mostly from rural areas, farmers and lower class. What I think will threaten him more than he expected are things like having police stop funeal processions. I doubt Turkey is that different from the rest of the countries around here: beat them, kill them, do whatever you want, but you don't mess with dead people and funerals. Erdogan has not yet shown any indication that "restraint" is part of his vocabulary. Apparently there is now discent within the party as well. It will also be intersting to see how the courts handle this. The AKP under Erdogan has done everything in their power to replace kemalist judges with ones of a more muslim orientation. Same goes for the army. Yet at least in the army, even the new officers will have gone through kemalists schools and training, so that can come 'round and bite him.

He has stated that he is considering to call in the army if things don't quiet down. With the unions joining the protest this week, things don't look to be doing that though. And the police union is unhappy as well, with six suicides and apparently a thousand resignations.

You are a brave man, expressing your condolences on this forum. Some of the regulars find such actions highly distasteful or even offensive

I think you are in the parts that get better again. I found the game fun in the first part, getting stale when you got to the generic fantasy elf and human stuff and with the siege it becomes fun again as you mess with the winter court and how the court jester became king. Did you enjoy the DLC?

I don't think I ever read an interview that turned me so off a game and a developer in such a short time.

Yup. I only read it in chunks as well. If you haven't finished it, it gets worse... Quoted from the interview: When you die on the battlefield, you don’t really die immediately. You’re hurt on the ground and cannot move until one of your friends comes and heals you. Though, like in a real battlefield, you have a chance to be executed by the enemy as well. We have that feature and we’re going to provide players with a lot of lore-friendly race-specific executions for free, but we’ll also have hundreds of different microtransaction-based executions. Just imagine: you spent two hundred dollars on the game. You won four campaigns, and you’re one of the top Space Marine players in your chapter in a huge battle, and suddenly you fail to pay attention and you end up wounded on the ground, and then you see a puny free to play Ork that just started playing the game running towards you and he executes you in a very humiliating way (because Orks are like that), for instance by choking you by sitting with his butt in your face with the teabagging execution he purchased for $1. He also records it, because we have an API to post things like these on Facebook and Youtube, humiliating you in front of everyone. So all the free players that see that video will want to buy all kinds of humiliating executions to troll the space marines as much as they can. With this we’ll even be able to monetize trolling.

Agreed on the GW2 World vs World. Just seems that he hasn't much of an idea of what online gaming is like. Though I'll not be trying the game. Encouraging trolling/griefing by making teabagging etc microtransactions? I am not the target audience.

I find it a bit ridiculous to equate the behaviour of free players with that of Ork Boyz. Its kinda insulting actually. And the assumption that paying MMO gamers are well behaved, disciplined, mature people... yeah right...

I haz wun word to sayz about dat: 'ERE WE GO! 'ERE WE GO! 'ERE WE GO!

On anecdotes: An iranian friend at university, when we were asked to write papers on the human-rights-based approach to management, asked the professor who the paper would be read by, if there was the danger that it would be published and readable back home. He only wrote the paper after it was guaranteed that it would be handled confidentialy...