marelooke

Now is the perfect time to poach talent from Carbine Studios! How many MMOs are even still going? That were started years ago? Define "going" (and "years ago", come to think of it ), there's quite a few old ones that are still around, looked this up when someone claimed WoW was the oldest still running MMO (Haha. No.). Many are on life support though, or are being horribly mismanaged (everything that used to be run by SOE, for example). Some MMOs are older than you'd think as well. "Relevant" (as in: the ones I expect to ring bells with at least some people) ones that are still going and started up to 10 years ago: Ultima Online: 1997 EverQuest: 1999 PlaneShift: 2000 Anarchy Online: 2001 RuneScape: 2001 Final Fantasy XI: 2002 Ragnarok Online: 2002 EVE Online: 2003 Lineage 2: 2003 MapleStory: 2003 EverQuest 2: 2004 Vendetta Online: 2004 World of Warcraft: 2004 Guild Wars: 2005 (servers still up, no more updates though) Silkroad Online: 2005 Dungeons & Dragons Online: 2006 The Lord of the Rings Online: 2007 Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures: 2008 Full list here. I don't think it's 100% up-to-date as some of the websites of the older lesser known ones (like Terra, which is not to be confused with Tera) seem dead which, presumably, means the game is as well.

Well, haven't gotten to that stage yet, but I've always played Fire mage (for the first time ever levelling was such a chore I switched to Frost for that) and from what I'm reading the same fate awaits. Something to look forward to...

Well, a Guild Wars 2 guildie got me back into WoW (oh, the irony) and wow, do I not like what I see. Judging by the praise Legion got I must've managed to "give WoW another chance" each time Blizzard releases one of their worst expansions ever (last time I gave up during Warlords of Draenor...). The start of the latest expansion almost required a paper bag (Really, Garrosh 2.0? Good grief, can we get some nuance for the Horde players for a change?), the quest writing in general has been decent though (enjoy traipsing around Zandalar), but that's about where the positives end. Class specializations have been gutted and might as well not exist anymore given how cross specialization skills have pretty much been axed (which hit some specializations really really hard: see fire mage). Add to that that mobs are back to being huge damage sponges (like in Warlords of Draenor, Legion was way way better in that regard fwiw) and leveling as a Fire mage is just masochism. The "skill" "tree" is just stupid. They just removed base class skills to create the illusion of choice and when everything's said and done everyone just uses the same build anyway. There's a lot of negative feedback about the Azerite gear, haven't got to max level yet so don't really have an opinion there but the one thing I can say about it is that there's exactly 0 explanation about it in the game and that most of the guides about it are incomplete as well. As someone who stopped playing before the entire "Mythic dungeons" were a thing this is my conclusion so far comparing to TBC dungeons (based on running legion heroics while levelling): Normal = Easy Heroic = Normal Mythic = Heroic Well, I'll get to max level and do some LFR stuff to see how the raids are. Given the huge amount of negatives I can't really justify trying to get into a guild to try higher tier raids. Unless Blizzard makes some massive changes I doubt my sub will last longer than 2 months.

Gave it a shot as well, mostly because the supposedly good housing system. Didn't much mind the graphics but the story was so cringeworthy (even by MMO standards) that I really couldn't find any motivation to trod on. The game that saw content removed from Guild Wars 2. Good riddance. Wait what? What content and how? NCSoft afaiu only "publishes" GW2, but ArenaNet is pretty independent otherwise. Oh, related news: GW2 also pulled their "lootboxes" in Belgium (hell, Belgian players couldn't even buy "premium currency" for a while). Guess those things weren't as innocent as they always claimed In Divinities Reach the Western Section of the city was supposed to be where refugees from the Asian inspired Cantha were stationed. At launch it was just a sinkhole and was later turned into what it is now during the Queens Jubilee Living Story Season 1. It was removed because NcSoft believed it would take away from their upcoming MMO Wildstar, which had Asian Themes. No idea where you heard that nonsense, they had negative feedback from Asians because of the melting pot nature of the district and that's why it was cut. As for - I assume - the black lion chests, I'd pull them too if I felt like they might get me in trouble, regardless of whether they're, uh "healthy" for customers or not. It just makes sense I think. Yups, that's also what I heard about that Cantha district. As for the lootboxes, the Mount Licenses are affected. Hope they find another, less predatory way, to make money as GW2 is like the only MMO I can still enjoy. (if I don't count Warframe as a MMO)

Gave it a shot as well, mostly because the supposedly good housing system. Didn't much mind the graphics but the story was so cringeworthy (even by MMO standards) that I really couldn't find any motivation to trod on. The game that saw content removed from Guild Wars 2. Good riddance. Wait what? What content and how? NCSoft afaiu only "publishes" GW2, but ArenaNet is pretty independent otherwise. Oh, related news: GW2 also pulled their "lootboxes" in Belgium (hell, Belgian players couldn't even buy "premium currency" for a while). Guess those things weren't as innocent as they always claimed

Got mine a few days ago as well, looks real nice. Guess I am now finally allowed to play the game!

Oooh, ouch. So conclusion: either lootboxes induce gambling, or, alternatively, they prey on the weak. If one needed any more evidence that these companies are just downright evil then here you go. I wonder what the effects of this are going to be in Australia? How likely is the government to act on this, and to what extent? I know Australia is already...famous...for its censorship so I guess this might be really bad news for EA and ilk? I also wonder whether knowingly exploiting people's vices is something that these companies (and the people involved) could get prosecuted for? I mean, these people reserved their tickets to hell when they sold their souls (or whatever the equivalent is in their respective religions), so that ain't something we gotta worry about "up here", but stopping them from doing further harm in this life would definitely be nice.

I thought he was going to retire? At this point I'd just consider that a regular launch, given how the general attitude in the industry seems to be "release now, patch later". A studio would need a very good track record for me to even consider playing on day one (and that even goes for expansions in most MMOs as far as I'm concerned. Eg. I lately have only been playing the previous Living World episode in GW2 when the latest one is released) Which actually makes me wonder how many people just don't pre-order because they assume the game will be a broken mess at launch and not just out of opposition to the pre-order incentive circus...

How it will end up being handled will depend on how the (mainstream) press handles it, if they bring this, and keep this, in the spotlight then lootboxes in their current form are done for. This is clearly affecting children, especially in Belgium (like in most of Europe, I imagine) where FIFA is enormously popular as football ("soccer" for you US-ies) is easily the most popular sport (on that note: this explains why 2K isn't quite as up-in-arms, basketball isn't even remotely as popular over here). What happens (in BE, at least) will depend on how it will be classified, if it ends up tossed in with casino games then that means there is an age restriction of 21+, which, combined with how FIFA is enormously popular with the youth would, I imagine, be a very big cut out of EA sales. How the EU will handle it is anyone's guess, but all this noise definitely will put it on the radar of politicians and the general public, a combination that doesn't generally bode well for companies utilizing business practices they rather not have scrutinized... If nothing else I'd bet on tighter regulation and more public awareness. Best case is of course a plain ban on these practices, but that might be a bit optimistic.

Reminds me of Deep Down, with some Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls mixed in. Edit: Throw in some Monster Hunter too. The graphics immediately gave me a really big Dragon's Dogma vibe. Here's to hoping the combat is closer to Dragon's Dogma than to Dark Souls.

Guess the gambling commission doesn't know what gambling is. I'm not quite sure what they think they will achieve (aside from damaging whatever was left of their reputation). If they lose, they lose. If they win, they lose because the law will just get changed to close whatever messed up interpretation loophole they come up with given how our Minister of Justice has already spoken out against lootboxes. And back-pedalling on things that affect children. Yeah, not a good career move as a politician, not even in an otherwise apathetic country like Belgium. If they manage to tick off the minister enough this might just be the spark we need to get this put front-center on the agenda in the EU and then hopefully explicitly banned across the EU. Heh, one can dream.

I liked how the Elf factions basically re-lived their memories over and over. Despite that they weren't particularly interesting, unfortunately. The other factions (insofar I remember them) were generic as hell, unfortunately.

Boss design, unfortunately, isn't one of ArenaNet's strong suits... The final bosses of each Episode/expansion are usually...terrible. As an added bonus most of the bosses in Path of Fire in general are just terrible...

Heh, GameSpot gave the DOS2 console version a 10/10, that's pretty neat given how it's basically a niche game and I always had my doubts about bringing these kinds of games to consoles. I mean, I heard the DOS console port was pretty good, but it's still nice to see this kind of enthusiasm from a mainstream review site. I also liked Kingdoms of Amalur, though I have yet to finish it. Another one of the (rather long by now) list of games I started but never finished. Afaik 38Studios was also working on a rather promising MMO project (which iiuc is what bankrupted the studio), so maybe we'll be seeing something there as well? I definitely wouldn't mind a new MMORPG that focuses on those last three letters and doesn't shy away from some systems complexity.

It's an Asian grindfest with absurd cash shop prices, good graphics, absolutely no character customization to speak of unless you pony up real cash. And apparently they've recently added pay-to-win elements. So really, the usual, as far as Asian MMOs are concerned. It had some "innovative" systems with trading and trade routes and the way the market worked etc (nothing EVE didn't already have though, hence the air quotes). And a supposedly innovative combat system (I failed to see what made that part innovative, but hey, that's probably just me). But after having tried it I can't understand why a Western audience would like it, consequently I didn't get very far in so the lack of anything to do as far as PvE endgame is concerned never even started to be an issue for me. Then again the majority of the Western MMO market consists of shallow World of Warcraft clones. Occasionally one picks up a feature WoW cut because WoW itself really started out as a stripped down EverQuest clone aimed at a more casual audience. So anything that tries something different and a tad more complex than Western MMO builders dare to include (like the trading in BDO) tends to stand out, and features that EverQuest 2 had like a decade ago are hailed as innovative (housing in Wildstar, too bad the rest of that game was "meh") because no Western MMO has the guts to tackle that complexity.

Because they are being acquired by a Korean MMO maker? Reason enough for me to be pessimistic. Then there's that acquisitions almost always mess with company identity as management moves around and social dynamics within the company shift as a result. And with them, more often than not, the actual focus of the company.

I was looking forward to it, but locking the challenge tombs behind a Season Pass (or the "Croft Edition") taking the price up to over 80 Euros has moved the game into the "buy when steeply discounted" category. My backlog is big enough that I can wait, even for a game I was looking forward to. Anyway, still mucking about in Fallout 4: Project Valkyrie (or rather "Outcasts and Outlaws", which integrates with Project Valkyrie). Ran into my first big issue with the mod: a prison sequence where they strip all your gear. When I found my gear a whole bunch of my stuff ended up being missing. *sigh* ended up having to make sure I emptied out my inventory and left any and all weapons I renamed behind just to make sure nothing would go missing. Annoying. Started playing Guild Wars 2 a bit more actively as well. Almost got world completion done for the second time, this time on my Chronomancer (aka, my first Mesmers, and yes, I have 2 max level Mesmer, I like Mesmers). Despite all the new content being good I end up still preferring the "old world" areas. The fact that all the latest expansion stuff run like utter garbage might have something to do with it though. Also, Mesmer being lousy DPS makes the constant flood of enemies with insane aggro and leash ranges a horrible chore. My new guild has also started raiding a bit more seriously so hoping I can finally tank Dhuum and get that one knocked of ye ole bucked list soonish as well... Well, one could just chose to ignore all the downloadables since you can't really know whether it will be worthwhile. Besides, the new way of selling a AAA game on sale is to heavily discount the base game only, hoping for microtransactions and DLCs to recover the loss. They always want you to be able to spend more and they figure once you are invested you will. I'd guess the DLCs will hover around the 5-10 Euro mark and there will be no option for an all in one GOTY edition, not heavily discounted anyway. Oh, I am a flawed human being, but impatience thankfully isn't one of my flaws. Steam games (and their DLC) tend to go on sale eventually. Origin is a lot more annoying in that respect, EA tends to stick to the tactic you describe pretty consistently and waiting for a "GOTY" version is usually more reasonable than waiting for DLC to go on sale on that platform (often the discount on the GOTY makes it slightly cheaper than buying the discounted DLC so they can do you over once more). Thankfully it's been a long while since there's been a game on there I really want.

But what is the story? We want that Destiny crowd...artifacts or some such that we can charge money for lootboxes or some such. And here I thought all those whales coming in Warframe lately already were that destiny crowd... So who exactly does EA still want to grab? I mean, at least Digital Extremes doesn't have a longstanding reputation for bending over their customers...

If they do something about the mini-games (I would suggest "Delete") I might be able to look past the timed conversations. If they do neither the likelihood I get any farther in than in the original is pretty much non-existent.

Well they do have a point about players being not used to this kind of interaction I can't have been the only one who paged back through the thread thinking this was a parody on something I missed, right? Right...? Folks......?!

I was looking forward to it, but locking the challenge tombs behind a Season Pass (or the "Croft Edition") taking the price up to over 80 Euros has moved the game into the "buy when steeply discounted" category. My backlog is big enough that I can wait, even for a game I was looking forward to. Anyway, still mucking about in Fallout 4: Project Valkyrie (or rather "Outcasts and Outlaws", which integrates with Project Valkyrie). Ran into my first big issue with the mod: a prison sequence where they strip all your gear. When I found my gear a whole bunch of my stuff ended up being missing. *sigh* ended up having to make sure I emptied out my inventory and left any and all weapons I renamed behind just to make sure nothing would go missing. Annoying. Started playing Guild Wars 2 a bit more actively as well. Almost got world completion done for the second time, this time on my Chronomancer (aka, my first Mesmers, and yes, I have 2 max level Mesmer, I like Mesmers). Despite all the new content being good I end up still preferring the "old world" areas. The fact that all the latest expansion stuff run like utter garbage might have something to do with it though. Also, Mesmer being lousy DPS makes the constant flood of enemies with insane aggro and leash ranges a horrible chore. My new guild has also started raiding a bit more seriously so hoping I can finally tank Dhuum and get that one knocked of ye ole bucked list soonish as well...

Hiking through the Glowing Sea, Queen Jenna style. The Glowing Sea is the place for selfies, clearly. Didn't touch ENBs for forever in FO4 but I think I've been missing out Oh dear, and I have barely begun decorating, I think I might have a problem. How to kill your framerate, pt1 How to kill your framerate, pt2 Whelp, just going to sit here and watch

You didn't play Fallout 4? Speaking of which, that's the other game I'm still "playing" (more like mucking about with mods). Tried to do a Vault build in the open landscape. The 10FPS I'm getting around that area tells me I'm pushing the engine to the breaking point... Main reason I started another playthrough is Project Valkyrie, which is a mod that changes faction interaction and storylines by giving you a lot more options on how how to deal with everyone (including a few new factions). You're even supposedly able to make everyone live together happily ever after. Technically I haven't had any issues with the mod yet. There's some storytelling niggles though which appear in big part related to them not wanting to restrict player freedom, usually related to my PC talking about people or events she can't know about at that point. But given how I don't think anyone will run this on a first playthrough I wouldn't qualify it as a big deal. The new characters (and there are quite a few) are also voice acted and have so far all been of good quality.

Playing Space Hulk - Deathwing, the WH40K Vermintide. Game certainly isn't perfect but it definitely doesn't seem as bad as it's (still) being made out to me. Then again, I haven't touched the multiplayer yet (just completed campaign chapter 8 ) so who knows. But the single player bots are passable, they certainly have given me less issues than those in Vermintide 1. I also like the somewhat slower pacing when compared to Vermintide. But I have to say for the amount of armor the Deathwing are wearing they're kinda really squishy. The UI also leaves something to be desired, I seem to be getting armor upgrades from the Campaign missions but I have no clue where to go to equip them... (maybe it's automatic?) Probably should Google that, but yeah, if basic stuff like that is hard to figure out you have a UX problem I'd think EDIT: that was not supposed to be a smiley...

Started Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Trying to like the game but kind of failing in that department. While the premise seemed appealing enough the story hasn't really gripped me. The fact that a bunch of lore is hidden behind collectibles annoys the hell out of me as well. Combat is "meh", more frustrating than fun and mostly gets in the way imho. This kind of action-y combat isn't really my shtick and I really have no patience anymore in "mastering" it. The fact that you have to sit through the damn death animation every single time and that the game gives you absolutely no information at all about how the combat works only serves to make matters worse as trial and error (or Google) are your only ways of figuring things out. The fact that the titular Senua moves pretty slowly makes figuring out the many environmental puzzles a chore as well. All of the above doesn't really leave much, really. I might try and push past the first boss (I picked Valravn, who has been kicking my ass btw) to see if the story picks up but I fear that I'd need to get past the second one as well before things start picking up and in that case I'm not sure if I can be bothered.