RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Mamoulian War]

Couch MP was the reason, why I enjoyed the consoles so much when they arrived in Slovakia, even though I was always HC PC gamer, but nowadays, the couch MP is dissapearing even from consoles. The reason why Wii sold like cupcakes, was reintroduction of couch multiplayer, but somehow big publishers completely ignored it, and the online became the norm again... what a wasted opportunity...

[Katphood]

There have been a few multiplayer games that I enjoy but the last time I really got hooked to one was with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihDjGvRiutk

 

which makes me wonder how good Rising Storm 2 will be:

Edited October 24, 2016 by Katphood

[Azdeus]

I mostly dislike MP, including co-op often enough, because there's a whole bunch of people who depend on me sitting at a keyboard for x minutes in a row. Like when I'm playing a SP title, I just pause it and bugger off to pee or make a tea, talk to my wife or pet a rat. Playing MP game tho?

"No, bladder, we're staying here for the next 15 minutes still."

"No, honey, wait until I'm finished with this match and then I can talk to you."

"No, rattie, wait until OUCH god damnit here, take a treat and bugger off."

 

I quite enjoy couch MP tho.

 

1. Be hardcore, wear diapers.

2. Be hardercore, say no to relationships.

3. Tell the rat to find it's on treats, show him who's hardcorest!

 

Been playing Overwatch, that's more than enough to satisfy my mp needs. The only reason why I stick with it is because of RL friends, otherwise I hardly would have the energy to bother with it. There's way too much salt.

 

I just wish that Cyberpunk 2077 would arrive soon.

[Fenixp]

3. Tell the rat to find it's on treats, show him who's hardcorest!

They will.

 

That's the problem.

 

Edit: I mean, they'll just eat the sofa when hungry, I'm pretty sure they're the hardcorest.

Edited October 24, 2016 by Fenixp

[Blodhemn]

Yeah but it had a bot mode. I don't know any numbers about Battlefield but I remember reading that Unreal Tournament's bot mode was played more than the online game too, and that game was even more online focused. Since Battlefield added single player, I assume the number has skewed. Why else add single player at all if you're doing fine with just the multiplayer? Why don't more multiplayer only games become succesful? Other than Overwatch, I believe every multiplayer only game that wasn't free to play in the last couple of years was a bust, right? I can't remember any real successes (I firmly believe the disappearance of bots has a lot to do with this). Nobody played Evolve until it went Free to Play and that game was hyped as hell.

 

To answer your WoW question: It depends on the route you take. The game encourages questing and for a new player with no heirlooms or tricks that's probably going to take you days rather than hours - I'd estimate 4 to 7 full 24 hour days worth of playtime. I leveled a toon from level 1 to level 100 right before Legion launched in about 12 hours chainrunning dungeons in full heirlooms. My quickest max level character was the free level 100 boost that came with my Legion pre-order (I normally don't pre-order but I was going to play this whether it was good or not, help me I'm addicted), the existence of which has probably helped with the massive level grind for a lot of people. Of course making a new player level 100 right away and throwing all these abilities at them when they never explain how to even play game is a bad idea, but really this game has enormous problems in its new player experience anyway so fair enough.

DICE simply tacked on a single player campaign probably as much for an experiment as anything, or maybe some higher ups told them "Hey, this game has no single player? Make one. We needs that CoD pie piece.". Even so, I think your numbers are way off. Yeah, many people used to play bots, but that was when servers were garbage and online MP had yet to catch on as of today's scope. It's a completely different animal.

[Bartimaeus]

But even with how easy it is now, an estimated 8% of the playerbase cleared Blackhand during WoD on any raid difficulty including LFR - which you can win by pressing a queue and going afk - according to some numbers MMO-Champion published last year. Comparatively, about 60% killed the first boss of that instance - the majority of WoW players cared so little about raiding that they can't be bothered to afk until the end of a raid instance

 

We should go back to the EverQuest (the original) days where raids took often literally half a day to properly setup and complete, never mind the time that went into planning them and making sure that everyone (60+ people!) can play on that specific day...and never mind the eventuality of somebody doing something stupid and causing everyone to wipe. Kids these days just don't have the proper appreciation for how easy it is now...

Edited October 24, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Word. The kids these days who think that classic WoW was so hardcore and laugh at how casual it has become. They don't realize that the initial and continued success of WoW was simply because it was the most casual MMO on the market.

 

Farming materials for the old 40 man raids? Sure, make my day. Took some doing, was boring, but outside of having to make your flasks in Scholomance you could at least do it on your own.

 

Try having to group to farm experience and crafting materials. And then having to play NPC on the market to actually sell to other players. Oh, and dropping your equipment when you die four hours into a musty cave and having to run back to get it through all the respawns.

 

Although to be honest nothing really beats pre-split Ultima Online. Hordes of gankers killing you at every turn and actually taking all your stuff because you dropped everything when you died, and having to visit your in-game house at least once a week so it doesn't waste away. Heh, had to make key copies if you went on vacation and hope that the guy you gave them to reliably goes to your house, doesn't lose the key, or has it stolen - or just loots all your stuff himself.

Good old times.

[Lexx]

Although to be honest nothing really beats pre-split Ultima Online. Hordes of gankers killing you at every turn and actually taking all your stuff because you dropped everything when you died, and having to visit your in-game house at least once a week so it doesn't waste away. Heh, had to make key copies if you went on vacation and hope that the guy you gave them to reliably goes to your house, doesn't lose the key, or has it stolen - or just loots all your stuff himself.

Good old times.

 

Our FOnline 2238 gave you the same experience.

[Chilloutman]

 

Although to be honest nothing really beats pre-split Ultima Online. Hordes of gankers killing you at every turn and actually taking all your stuff because you dropped everything when you died, and having to visit your in-game house at least once a week so it doesn't waste away. Heh, had to make key copies if you went on vacation and hope that the guy you gave them to reliably goes to your house, doesn't lose the key, or has it stolen - or just loots all your stuff himself.

Good old times.

 

Our FOnline 2238 gave you the same experience.

 

And for that sir I commend you!

[marelooke]

Actually, they had to add a raid mode that you can queue for with the push of a button to justify their continuing to make them, because not enough people actually raided to justify the cost of making raids. Back in 2013 there was a Blizzard post explaining why that mode exists, and it include this quote (emphasis mine): "We don’t want to restrict raiding again to <1% of the player base" implying that what hardcore gamers consider the meat of the game was, at least at some point in the game's lifespan, played by only less than 1% of the playerbase.

 

People underestimate the amount of casual players who will buy a game simply for the single player experience. I'm sure 90% of the people who buy Battlefield do so for the crappy single player experience.

 

That was probably true during "vanilla" or for some raids in TBC, though I doubt it was true for, say, Karazahn and certainly not for any of the Wrath of the Lich King raids (which were still pre-raid finder). At least on our realm PUGs used to clear the previous "generation" of raids during WotLK (eg. we ran PUGs for Naxxramas/Eye of Eternity(Malygos)/Sartharion with alts while clearing Ulduar and started PUGging the first few bosses in Ulduar while working on heroic Ulduar). That, imho, was fine: hardcore raiders got to see the new content, and got it first, the rest just got to it later. It was already better than in TBC where most people indeed never got to see the inside of Black Temple.

 

After Ulduar Blizzard imho just got lazy, instead of designing different fights for hard mode they just upped damage/hp on bosses and called it "heroic mode", moreover most raiders went through what is basically the same fight three times (raid finder -> normal -> heroic). Whether these were hard or not isn't even the point, it just got boring doing the same fights over and over (much more so than ever before) and you didn't even get any awesome loot to show off for it (a recolouring of the same items everyone else got hardly counts). If they'd continued on the Ulduar path then I'm sure hardcore raiding in WoW wouldn't be dead (exactly none of the raid guilds on my realm survived the introduction of the raid finder for long).

 

If I just want to quest and wander around I just resub to EverQuest 2 tbh, that game is far superior in the actual RPG department to WoW.

 

Well, this words is the reason, why I have left WoW in WotLK and never came back. They made raiding so easy, that our extremely casual guild have cleared Naxxramas on our first raid week. It is OK to make the game more accessible, but making it so easy that you can raid it blindfoldly is stupid.

 

Our pseudo-hardcore guild just steamrolled Naxxramas in two raid evenings or so (we even nearly killed the first boss with only 10 as our raid leader hadn't figured out the switch between 10 and 25man modes...note that our guild was "special" in the sense that nobody was allowed to look at videos of fights before the guild had cleared it for the first time, in stark contrast to how most guilds operated), that said, some of the heroic modes were real fun in early WotLK (until after Ulduar, see above), I greatly enjoyed Sarth3D on 25man.

Edited October 25, 2016 by marelooke

[Raithe]

Hm, Greenman Gaming is having its Halloween sale at the moment. The likes of Shadows of Mordor for around £4 for those who haven't got it.

[Blarghagh]

 

Actually, they had to add a raid mode that you can queue for with the push of a button to justify their continuing to make them, because not enough people actually raided to justify the cost of making raids. Back in 2013 there was a Blizzard post explaining why that mode exists, and it include this quote (emphasis mine): "We don’t want to restrict raiding again to

 

People underestimate the amount of casual players who will buy a game simply for the single player experience. I'm sure 90% of the people who buy Battlefield do so for the crappy single player experience.

That was probably true during "vanilla" or for some raids in TBC, though I doubt it was true for, say, Karazahn and certainly not for any of the Wrath of the Lich King raids (which were still pre-raid finder). At least on our realm PUGs used to clear the previous "generation" of raids during WotLK (eg. we ran PUGs for Naxxramas/Eye of Eternity(Malygos)/Sartharion with alts while clearing Ulduar and started PUGging the first few bosses in Ulduar while working on heroic Ulduar). That, imho, was fine: hardcore raiders got to see the new content, and got it first, the rest just got to it later. It was already better than in TBC where most people indeed never got to see the inside of Black Temple.

 

After Ulduar Blizzard imho just got lazy, instead of designing different fights for hard mode they just upped damage/hp on bosses and called it "heroic mode", moreover most raiders went through what is basically the same fight three times (raid finder -> normal -> heroic). Whether these were hard or not isn't even the point, it just got boring doing the same fights over and over (much more so than ever before) and you didn't even get any awesome loot to show off for it (a recolouring of the same items everyone else got hardly counts). If they'd continued on the Ulduar path then I'm sure hardcore raiding in WoW wouldn't be dead (exactly none of the raid guilds on my realm survived the introduction of the raid finder for long).

 

If I just want to quest and wander around I just resub to EverQuest 2 tbh, that game is far superior in the actual RPG department to WoW.

 

Well, this words is the reason, why I have left WoW in WotLK and never came back. They made raiding so easy, that our extremely casual guild have cleared Naxxramas on our first raid week. It is OK to make the game more accessible, but making it so easy that you can raid it blindfoldly is stupid.

Our pseudo-hardcore guild just steamrolled Naxxramas in two raid evenings or so (we even nearly killed the first boss with only 10 as our raid leader hadn't figured out the switch between 10 and 25man modes...note that our guild was "special" in the sense that nobody was allowed to look at videos of fights before the guild had cleared it for the first time, in stark contrast to how most guilds operated), that said, some of the heroic modes were real fun in early WotLK (until after Ulduar, see above), I greatly enjoyed Sarth3D on 25man.

 

You're right, the less than

 

As for just upping the hp and damage on bosses, right now in Legion I enjoy that the fight mechanics are progressive over difficulties. Mythic has more mechanics than heroic which has more than normal and so forth. Still a problem with having to run the same fight over multiple difficulties, but it's more interesting than just upping the damage. LFR is mostly redundant - daily world quests offer the same gear level and there are no long quest chains you can complete on that difficulty so it's become the tourist mode it was meant to be, and normal isn't that hard so most casual guilds can easily clear it. I just feel like they could tune up heroic and get rid of mythic, by the time most guilds get to mythic they're sick of the instance and the next tier is about to come out. Plus my guild has trouble filling slots for heroic now because most of us are having much more fun in Greater Rif- I mean Mythic Keystone Dungeons.

 

EDIT: Personally I think Wrath had the right idea, but feel fairly safe in saying that up until now Legion's been the best expansion since Wrath. I skipped Pandaland though and apparently that was better than Cata and WoD for people who weren't alienated by the Pandaland theme before it started, so I'm not 100% sure. The only problem I have with Legion is that they screwed the gear system a little by adding too many randomness layers on it, but the actual content you do for that vendor trash gear is pretty fun.

Edited October 25, 2016 by TrueNeutral

[Gfted1]

Rockstar clears out “illegitimately gained” GTA Online cash.

[Malcador]

http://www.pcgamer.com/eve-online-scam-olivia/

 

Man, some EVE players are dedicated to the scam

[marelooke]

Undead DLC for Mordheim has been released, party!

[Spider]

 

As for just upping the hp and damage on bosses, right now in Legion I enjoy that the fight mechanics are progressive over difficulties. Mythic has more mechanics than heroic which has more than normal and so forth. Still a problem with having to run the same fight over multiple difficulties, but it's more interesting than just upping the damage. LFR is mostly redundant - daily world quests offer the same gear level and there are no long quest chains you can complete on that difficulty so it's become the tourist mode it was meant to be, and normal isn't that hard so most casual guilds can easily clear it. I just feel like they could tune up heroic and get rid of mythic, by the time most guilds get to mythic they're sick of the instance and the next tier is about to come out. Plus my guild has trouble filling slots for heroic now because most of us are having much more fun in Greater Rif- I mean Mythic Keystone Dungeons.

 

 

That's the thing though, you shouldn't run through all the difficulties. They're targeted at different audiences. There is no need to run normal before starting in heroic, you don't even need the gear from there. If you're a heroic raiding guild, start in heroic immediately. Although if you're a heroic raiding guild, normal is easy enough that you can probably blunt force through it in one evening.

[Blarghagh]

Hm, I hadn't considered it that way. We did clear through the entire Emerald Nightmare on Normal in a week as a guild that goes in blind (nobody is allowed to look at videos or guides for tactics, we want to figure them out together) and ever since we've been running it once every week in an hour and a half or so for the people who still need gearing up, so I'm guessing we might as well have skipped it. In truth though, most guilds I know run through the different difficulties in sequence, so how it's intended might not be how it ended up working, which happens to Blizzard a lot (i.e. the current Legendaries not causing "wow, an unexpected Legendary dropped I'm so excited" as it was intended but "aw goddammit I still don't have my expected legendary yet/aw it's not the right one I'm so disappointed").

Edited October 26, 2016 by TrueNeutral

[Spider]

Yeah, I feel you about the legendary issue.

 

We've previously done the whole normal into heroic thing, but we had a stated goal to go mythic this time around, so we started in heroic not to waste time. And heroic was pretty easy as well, at least compared to the WoD raids.

 

I just feel you got to take some responsibility for your own burnout. If you get bored running the same content over and over, just skip the easier modes and focus on where the fun is. I don't do LFR virtually at all, except maybe a run here and there on alts to clear a quest. It just isn't worth it for me. With the change in normal philosophy that came in late parts of WoD (removing mechanics compared to HC, making it very casual friendly) normal kinda started to feel like a waste as well.

 

It's worse when there are set bonuses involved though, then both LFR and normal might be something I feel like I "need" to do.

[Blarghagh]

Yeah, I agree about being responsible for your own burnout. I've read a lot of complaints about there being too much to do and how people can't be expected to max out farming artifact power, doing world quests, running mythic+ dungeons, raiding so many nights bla bla bla etc. etc. every week and how that's Blizzard's fault. But I feel like the point is you CAN'T be expected to do those things so you have to chose the activities you find more worthwhile. I've never seen a game community so salty over having too much content.

 

We'll see how set bonuses work out. The one's that were datamined to be coming with the Nighthold in a couple months were all fairly minor - great if you have it, but not worth taking the ilvl hit over it. Secondary stats that come with ilvl are way too powerful right now.

[marelooke]

 

As for just upping the hp and damage on bosses, right now in Legion I enjoy that the fight mechanics are progressive over difficulties. Mythic has more mechanics than heroic which has more than normal and so forth. Still a problem with having to run the same fight over multiple difficulties, but it's more interesting than just upping the damage. LFR is mostly redundant - daily world quests offer the same gear level and there are no long quest chains you can complete on that difficulty so it's become the tourist mode it was meant to be, and normal isn't that hard so most casual guilds can easily clear it. I just feel like they could tune up heroic and get rid of mythic, by the time most guilds get to mythic they're sick of the instance and the next tier is about to come out. Plus my guild has trouble filling slots for heroic now because most of us are having much more fun in Greater Rif- I mean Mythic Keystone Dungeons.

 

 

That's the thing though, you shouldn't run through all the difficulties. They're targeted at different audiences. There is no need to run normal before starting in heroic, you don't even need the gear from there. If you're a heroic raiding guild, start in heroic immediately. Although if you're a heroic raiding guild, normal is easy enough that you can probably blunt force through it in one evening.

 

 

The don't think that was the case when I quit (did a check, quit at the start of the expansion that upped the level cap to 100). I think at that point running heroic without normal gear would de-facto mean you'd fail the first DPS-check boss you encountered. If this has changed then that is a very good thing indeed.

 

Yeah, I agree about being responsible for your own burnout. I've read a lot of complaints about there being too much to do and how people can't be expected to max out farming artifact power, doing world quests, running mythic+ dungeons, raiding so many nights bla bla bla etc. etc. every week and how that's Blizzard's fault. But I feel like the point is you CAN'T be expected to do those things so you have to chose the activities you find more worthwhile. I've never seen a game community so salty over having too much content.

 

We'll see how set bonuses work out. The one's that were datamined to be coming with the Nighthold in a couple months were all fairly minor - great if you have it, but not worth taking the ilvl hit over it. Secondary stats that come with ilvl are way too powerful right now.

 

I am now slightly tempted to re-activate my account and see what has changed. Though any form of serious raiding would probably be out as I just can't fit that in my schedule anymore...

[Malcador]

Pushing on in WoW. Can't say I enjoy the stuff with Illidan, watch him sacrifice....others for the greater good yet he is martyr or something. The naaru telling us we need to be redeemed is also good comedy.

 

Don't have enough buddies playing to do Mythics. Means we have to spam LFG like old times

[Katphood]

Can't wait!

 

Some guy wrote something interesting in the comment section at Eurogamer.net which blew my mind:

 

It's also worth noting that while Brutal Doom 64 looks like a pretty cool remake-type mod, there's also Doom64 EX, a proper port of the N64 original to PC, done by Night Dive's engine-porting guru guy, Kaiser. The same person who brought us Turok HD.

 

Gotta find the perfect time to play both Brutal DOOM 64 and Turok HD. It's not just nostalgia but also a ton of fun.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Katphood

[Undecaf]

Bethesda's new "anti-consumer review policy" seems to be stirring some pots in the interwebz.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Undecaf

[Fenixp]

Bethesda's new "anti-consumer review policy" seems to be stirring some pots in the interwebz.

Do you blame them? I was prepared to pre-order Dishonored 2 to get the 20% discount, but with Bethesda purposefully withholding information, just... Nope. Ain't gonna happen. And I'm not dropping 60 EUR on the game either. So good job, Bethesda.

[Undecaf]

Wasn't going to buy Bethesda's games at release or on full price anyway. It's rare that I'd buy any game at full price on release these days.