Showing posts with label computer game. Show all posts

Showing posts with label computer game. Show all posts

Warhammer Online - Bottomline

on Friday, 5 December 2008
WAR is fun to many of its players, yet WAR is also boring to quite a few. Some guesses about what kind of players who may not like WAR:
  • Players who don't like playing alone. Certain servers or periods of time have less players around, so for a large part of the PvE experience, you'll might be doing it alone. This applies to players who don't like to join strangers as well. The party search, public quests, scenarios, etc. are designed to make it easy to group with strangers. Even if you're in a guild, play times are different; sooner or later you'll run out of guildies of the same level to play together (when you're still far from max level 40). If you can't bear to level alone and prefer to only play with people you know, especially if you don't enjoy discovering and reading lore or hunting for Tome of Knowledge unlocks, you definitely won't like this game.
  • Players who get frustrated by randomness. In Open RvR or scenarios, the warband composition on both sides are entirely random. Due to the careers not being played equally, you'll sometimes find yourself in a situation where there's a distinct lack of healers or tanks. If you don't like losing because you're in an unbalanced or disorganized group, then you might not like WAR's style of PvP. Also, the measure of contributions for public quests and keep sieges appears, for now, to be quite random as well. If you go in expecting an appropriate reward for your contributions, you're just gonna disappoint yourself. Play for the sake of playing, and not for better loot and you'll do fine.
  • Players who love non-combat skills. In many MMOs, like World of Warcraft, there's a separate set of skills and an "economy" for training "crafting" skills and for acquiring materials for those skills. In WAR, the crafting skills are very simplistic and somewhat unpolished. There's really no depth to it. Don't expect any sophistication with crafting and you'll be happy.
  • Players who don't want to pay for an unfinished game. As of right now, even with version 1.0.6 and, I suspect, 1.1, this game is far from polished. Graphics clipping, graphical delays, activation delays, crashes to desktop, login timeout issues, scenario queueing issues, population balance issues, promised content, etc. are significant negatives. The key thing to bear in mind is that MMOs are always under development; just that some are released with more polish. Even World of Warcraft had their own issues when it was released. If you're very picky about such things as bugs and minor glitches, you might want to wait a little. The more people who decide to wait though, may indirectly affect how well the game gets polished.
  • Players who rush to the end-game. Personally, I think I play at a moderate pace. Not too fast and not too slow. Just enjoying it as it comes and trying to see and unlock everything there is in one place before moving on. Some players simply love rushing through the game, as if not levelling up at least once per play session is a blasphemy. For these people, they'll probably run out of things to do rather quickly. Because for them, it's all about maxing levels and getting loot. These "hardcore" or "powergamers" tend to get bored the earliest. I'm not there yet (halfway at level 21 on my main character), but I've been reading complaints from level 40s that there's not much left for them to do. Don't agree with their complaints but then again, I can't relate to their play style, so this is certainly something to consider.
Anything else? I donno. If you don't fall into any of the above, I think you'll love the game... if you like RPGs, online games, and can bear the subscription cost :P personally, you won't really feel the pinch. Just skip one expensive meal a month and you'll be fine, well.. if you're in the working class that is. Even if you do fall into one of the above groups, try it, you might still like it. I guarantee it'll at least be a distraction for at least a few months as you level up. See in the game!

WAAAGH!!!

More RvR Keep Sieges:

Warhammer Online

on Wednesday, 3 December 2008
The latest patch of 1.0.6 to Warhammer Online is massive, containing balance fixes, bug fixes, general improvements, as well as the addition of two new classes: the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard, which were previously cut from release due to time constraints.

So far, I've been enjoying the game tremendously (yea, the subscription fee is a pain, but bearable). My man character is a Witch Hunter. While Guild Wars still holds a special spot for me, this is definitely something that will tide me over until Guild Wars 2 comes out (at least, that's the plan, who knows, I'm already getting addicted, heh).

What I love about it is that the PvE side is not boring (especially if you love really rich background stories and lore). What's even better is when you get to RvR (Realm versus Realm). Search for videos on Youtube, there's already an incredibly large number.

What I really really miss from Guild Wars (and where EA Mythic can improve) is instantaneous map travel, shared character storage, and more beautiful graphics. Cutting down travel time, better item sharing between characters of the same account, and better art will definitely improve an already impressive game.

And for players around the UTC+8 timezone, there are Malaysian guilds (with a smattering of other nationalities) on the Ironclaw server. For Order, check out Vosian (me in this guild). For Destruction, check out Celestial Order (my Guild Wars guild).

For Warhammer resources, check out WarDB, TheWarWiki, HammerWiki, and the Warhammer portal on GamePressure.

Trailer 1:


Trailer 2:


Tier 4 Keep Siege RvR:

Online Games Galore

on Wednesday, 11 July 2007
It seems that there's a whole slew of online games that got me piqued have been released and will soon be released these days.

Ever since I chose Guild Wars over D&D Online, I've been pretty watchful of new massively-multiplayer online games (MMOG). I have not regretted my choice, despite D&D Online shaping up to be something that seems to be pretty impressive (doubtless due to me being a D&D fan). Guild Wars is still keeping me stuck to it, no less thanks to the impending release of Guild Wars: Eye of the North (the first true expansion) at the end of this coming August and Guild Wars 2 around 2009 - 2010.

And to think I haven't actually tried World of Warcraft yet... I really wanted to but after registering for the trial, the huge download put me off. But I have seen friends playing it before and I can certainly understand the addiction there. Something I'd rather not get into.

Of late, I've tried the beta of the newly-released Sword of the New World (called Granada Espada in Korea), and while the graphics is certainly very impressive, the gameplay falls quite short of other recently-released and soon-to-be-released games.

I keep getting tempted to try all those new and impressive games but being pampered with the business model adopted for Guild Wars (not monthly access fees!), I'm slightly abhorrent of having to actually pay monthly. Games like Lord of the Rings Online is certainly at the top of my tempted-to-play list. Other upcoming and definitely promising MMOGs like Age of Conan (a unique and involved combat system), Hellgate: London (FPS), Fury (PvP CORPG), Tabula Rasa (futuristic action RPG), Aion (RvR), Warhammer Online (you don't know Warhammer?!), Vanguard (traditional style), Gods & Heroes (squad-based), and Dungeon Runners (free-to-play business model) all look soooo delicious. Too bad I'd probably have only enough time and money to just play one or two or them at most. Life is about choices indeed, heh. I wonder if I'll get around to previewing each of them...

Guild Wars 2

on Tuesday, 27 March 2007
ArenaNet has announced the upcoming Guild Wars: Eye of the North, Guild War's first expansion (note: not standalone). Information regarding Guild Wars 2 were also announced. Exclusive interviews:

Much more details can be found in the PC Gamer May Issue #161, which has an exclusive article on the upcoming plans for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. A summary and lively discussion can be found here.

I'd rather not summarise all that I've read (I haven't got my hands on the magazine yet though) but I'm both excited and sad at the same time. Excited because the new promises ArenaNet is making all sound wonderful. Sad that I'm unable to transfer stuff over. But at least they're designing a feature in the upcoming GW: Eye of the North (GWEN! GW players would know the significance of that ;) will make sure that veterans get recognised for the time they spent in Guild Wars. I hope they get more details out soon. I'm dying to know more!

Audition

on Monday, 19 March 2007
Seeing that I'm kinda taking a break from Guild Wars, I actually started playing other games. Why did I break from Guild Wars? No Internet access for over a week. Why? Because lightning fried my modem, my router, and the network card socket on my motherboard... poor oh wallet of mine.

Anyway, about the only good thing about that is that I actually started playing other games :p Aside from continuing the campaign in Dragonshard that I started over a year ago and abandoned, and doing a little practicing on DotA, I actually registered for and tried out Audition.

My sister was pretty addicted to it so I got curious. Boy was it addictive. It's a dancing MMORPG where you compete with others in sort of dancing stage. How you dance is basically by hitting the direction keys in the sequence shown on the screen and being able to finish on the correct beat. So it's a game where finger-eye coordination is extremely important. After playing it for several hours (!), my fingers were pretty tired. Apparently, it's not as boring as I thought as I watched my sister play. Not a whole lot of play styles and content, but still pretty addictive. The forum for it is here.

Aside from not having much content, keyboard longevity is affected, not to mention finger-aches. The number of songs available isn't really that large. I keep hearing the same songs over and over on random mode. The patching software sucks. Each patch averages around 30-40 MBs! And they expect you to download all available patches in one go. Something fails while you downloading the last one of the set? Too bad, you have to start all over.

The game is being distributed and maintained by AsiaSoft. They utilize a sort passport system that gives you a master account for all AsiaSoft games (you still need to create individual game accounts). That's another of my peeves with it. Just to create my Audition account, I've suddenly increased the things I need to remember by 4 - the password to the passport account, an authentication PIN number to that account, a password to a playing account for AsiaSoft games, and a password for my Audition account... Crazy. It's worse than my banking accounts.

Guild Wars Nightfall World Preview Event

on Friday, 15 September 2006
This is turning into a Guild Wars news blog... oh well.

The World Preview Event is starting on the weekend of September 22nd to the 24th. For that period, anyone can log on and get a preview play for Guild Wars Nightfall, the 3rd chapter in the series. I wonder which of the two new profession (Dervish and Paragon) that I'll try out first... hmmm... I invite EVERYONE who has not played Guild Wars to give it a try. The client software is free to download.

For those who don't know, Guild Wars is rather unique in the world of MMORPG in that it does not have any monthly subscription fees. Its business model is such that the developers (ArenaNet) aim to make new content releases every half-year. These releases have come to be commonly known as chapters. Some still refer to them as expansions, but they're aren't really expansion, since the normal meaning of expansion usually implies that the original is needed. Each Guild Wars chapter is completely standalone. You do not need all of them to play. You buy whichever chapter, and you get all the content in the core set plus the content of the chapter you bought. How wonderful is that? Plus, you're not excluded from playing with other people who have bought all. As long as you have access to a particular content or area, you can play with anyone else with access to that as well.

It's a trick? You still paying the same? Nope. Chapter 2 was released late. Chapter 3 appears to be scheduled on time. Assuming they keep to 6-month cycles, every half-year, you pay around... say RM200. It's actually around RM160 - RM180 for the standard editions, but for the sake of easier calculation, let's round up. For those with monthly subscriptions, including popular MMORPGs like World of Warcraft requires you to both buy the box and pay subscription. Let's just standardise that these also cost RM200 per box. And you pay RM50 per month (for some, this is actually cheap). Cost progression...

MonthGWSubscription
1200250
2200300
3200350
4200400
5200450
6200500
7400550
8400600
9400650
10400700
11400750
12400800


See the huge difference after 1 year of gaming? And this is only assuming that the subscription-based MMORPG does not release any new expansion packs. Most of these expansion packs will cost more money. And these are usually required purchases or you won't get to play with those who upgraded.

Why do I love Guild Wars? Maybe I'll use that as a subject for my next post. ^-^

PS: The prerelease event for Nightfall is in Cititel Mid Valley (Malaysia) just 2 days from now at 1pm.

Updated Pricing for Nightfall

on Thursday, 14 September 2006
Looks like there's an update for the pricing. Guild Wars Nightfall standard edition (SE) will cost RM149. The pre-release bonus pack will cost RM40. Getting both will be RM174 (RM15 rebate on the bonus pack). The price for the Collector's Edition (CE) is still under revision, but given the changes due to tax, I'd say getting the CE plus the bonus pack is gonna cost more than RM250... hmm... still undecided which to get. I didn't buy the CE for the first two chapters, so maybe I shouldn't start now.

And remember guys, it's 1pm on the 17th of September, at the Pinnacle Lounge in Cititel Hotel, Mid Valley. My guild, the Goda Vos [GV] and the other large Malaysian guild, the Celestial Order [CO] will likely turn out in force to show support.

Tagged:

Guild Wars Nightfall Pricing

on Monday, 11 September 2006
New updates on the prerelease event thread on lowyat's forum. The gist of it (some not 100% confirmed):
  • Nightfall Bonus Pack = RM30
  • Nightfall Standard Edition = RM139
  • Nightfall Collector's Edition = RM220
  • Nightfall Standard Edition + Bonus Pack = RM 155
  • Nightfall Collector's Edition + Bonus Pack = RM??? (around RM235 maybe?)

As mentioned previously, the event starts with a registration session from 11am onwards. The actual event starts at noon. The first 50 registered will get a goodie bag each.

Nightfall Prerelease Bonus Pack

on Sunday, 10 September 2006
The prerelease for Guild Wars Nightfall will be on September 15th. There's gonna be an event at Cititel Mid Valley (Malaysia) on the 17th of September, starting at 11am. The original news posting is here at the lowyat forum (it's gets updated periodically). There's gonna events, prizes, door gifts, and bonus packs and game boxes available for sale.

According the official website for Guild Wars. The prerelease pack will provide a trial key, exclusive items for the new professions, and, most importantly, one additional character slot (which by itself already costs USD 9.99 in the in-game store). Other stuffs include concept art, screenshots, strategy guide, quick reference card, wallpapers, and music tracks.

I think alot of GV members will show up.

Guild Wars Nightfall

on Friday, 25 August 2006
Long time no post. ^-^

Guild Wars Nightfall, the third chapter of Guild Wars now has an official release date: October 27. WHAT?! That's like 2 months away! It's too damn early! Slow down. I still need more time to explore more of Guild Wars Factions (chapter 2)... sigh. So many games, so little time... I've practically abandoned all the other offline games now. Should I get the pre-release bonus pack? Tempted to. It'll probably cost RM25 or so. Should I get Collector's Edition (which I didn't get for the first 2 chapters)? It'll likely cost over RM200. Or just skip this chapter and wait for chapter 4 (since there's still alot more to do in the first two for me)? Hmm... decisions decisions... heh.

See also here and here for alot of images. Some of the screenshots looks really really beautiful, possibly better than Prophecies and Factions, in a refreshing sort of way. Love them! I am soooo tempted to buy it.

Guild Wars Music Video

on Wednesday, 14 June 2006
For all Guild Wars fans out there, this is one music video you don't want to miss! By the Fire Of Spirit guild and The Kryta Bomber.

Guild Wars Fan Movie

on Thursday, 25 May 2006
This should only interest Guild Wars fans but potential recruits can take a look too. Here's the link to the forum post for The Adventures of Miya and Malatide 2. It's a really creative work of passionate players. Here's the direct link to download it (~140MB); and the links for episode 1 (~66MB) and the X-mas special (~10MB).

I'm playing Guild Wars!

on Friday, 14 April 2006
Yup, I'm playing Guild Wars. And it's been a heck of a fun time so far. Love it. I started playing at end of March, right after their preview event on the up coming Chapter 2, Guild Wars: Factions. Been meaning to post about it and add in some screenshots. But I've been stumped on how best to go about it. I've reduced the shots to slightly more than 1 MB each. Maybe I should just upload them all into Flickr. Hmm... I am loathed to reducing the size even further (the details! the details!) so... maybe I should.

Guild Wars does not charge any subscription fees, unlike most other MMORPGs, which is simply wonderful. You don't get that feeling of wasting money when you're not playing, compared to other subscription-based online games where you pay a fixed amount each month. So how do they make money? By alternating the release of new content and a new "expansion" every 6 months. Guild Wars: Factions is the so-called "expansion", although it really is a standalone game. You can play with both, or just one of them, and having access to the appropriate content. This makes it possible for players that own different chapters to still be able to play together. There are already naysayers on how long Arena.net can keep up their cycle of releases. I think it's possible and still too early to say it won't work. Work has already begun on the next two releases even before the upcoming Factions.

Anyone considered playing but didn't? You won't regret it, trust me (except maybe the usual sleep deprivation problem and the social costs, hehe). There's quite a few Malaysian players in there. Check my GW bookmarks for useful links.

Another DDO Review

on Tuesday, 7 March 2006
Sigh. Look at this preview. Doesn't sound so optimistic for DDO. Even worse when the user comments mostly rant about the game. Sure, there are positive reviews, but I think the general conclusion is that it's not really a breakthrough. Just another MMORPG that adopts Guild Wars idea of instanced dungeons. Problem is, it's also charging a monthly subscription and has much less content and poorer graphics. Darn. Maybe I'll just wait for the Guild Wars expansion, Factions, and try it out with the prerelease invitation key a friend was kind enough to send my way.

EDIT 20060308-1757: It's funnny why review articles like this and this gives a very good rating, yet player comments are almost contradictory. Is it because the players who really like the game are too busy playing and have no time to rebute these nay-sayers? From all accounts, it's a very group-oriented game, almost exactly like PnP D&D. I wonder if all those nay-sayers are simply too used to the typical and numerous level-grinding MMOs available. But then again, the relatively small amount of content, plus the fact that some players are able to max out their level in a week or so does make the game quite repetitive. It might still be worth a try, perhaps much more so when more content have been released.

The First DDO Review

on Thursday, 2 March 2006
The first review of Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO) is out! And the review is excellent! I'm really really definitely getting it.

It's still not in Malaysia yet of course, at RM 189 (at the Software Boutique), it's much cheaper than World of Warcraft and Guild Wars when they came out. Still, as my friend pointed out, there's still the matter of a monthly bill. Oh well, I'm still trying to convince myself not to get it and buy the next expansion of Guild Wars (coming out next month or so) for the simple fact that there's no subscription fee involved. But... but... I'm a D&D fan, how can not play DDO? To buy... or not to buy. That, is the question. Heh.

Original Games

on Wednesday, 7 September 2005
Here I am looking for original games again. I've already bought a couple, but I plan on buying the original ones or games I really like, now that I can afford them once in a while. Problem is, it's really hard to find a good one.

I recently bought a Baldur's Gate 2 Collection box. It was a bit of a rip-off at RM169 and only containing 5 CDs. If they had included the manual and the map, it would've been fine. I wonder if the shop itself the one doing the packaging. Damn it. Having the manual and its assorted accessories is part of the reason for collecting original games.

Has anyone seen Neverwinter Nights and its expansions (two of them) being sold anywhere? It's really hard to find. The store in Sunway Pyramid says they don't carry it anymore. Sigh. Should I buy it from BioWare's store? I'd like to, but I hate our Malaysian customs, as digital media is not something they normally allow, which is why sites like Amazon don't ship to Malaysia. Sucks.

Anyone bought from PC Game before? I don't know, but it feels fishy. I'm just paranoid I guess, about a commercial website that has English problems. But then again, what local website doesn't have English problems? Even MPH's webstore does. But anyway, that site doesn't carry Neverwinter Nights anymore. It only carries new games. But I wouldn't have bought from there anyway. Doesn't have much of a customer confidence or customer feedback mechanisms.

Dungeons and Dragons!

on Tuesday, 24 August 2004
Know what's better than my dream job of working as a computer games developer? A computer games developer developing games for Dungeons & Dragons!!!

After reading about the continued development on D&D Online, I wish I could be a part of that team. Such a lucky bunch of people. I really do believe that being really really busy at something you really really love (and getting paid for it) is a wonderful thing. The best one can ask for in a career.

In case you've been in some isolated camp away from urban civilised areas for the last couple of decades and have not heard of Dungeons & Dragons, I'll give a quick intro. But then, if you didn't, you probably wouldn't be reading this would you now? DnD is a role-playing game (it's the role-playing game (RPG). It's the father of RPG. RPGs are where you create a character and begin role-playing him or her in adventures designed and narrated by the Dungeon Master (a
fellow human who's in charge of how the game progresses). It's hard to explain in a paragraph., especially when I'm doing this during work :P I meant to type this several days ago too.

Check out the DnD quick links I have on the sidebar. It'll all open in a new window.

One more thing: D&D Miniatures.

I think it's better than Magic The Gathering, which is getting becoming too commercialised with all must-have rare and very rare cards out there. I'm seiously considering get some start packs, even if it's just to collect the miniatures. They simply look so good compared to other miniature games. I wonder if there's any active player group in Subang... Maybe I'll find the time to play... sigh. Guess not.

Buy ori? Where?!

on Friday, 30 July 2004
Just the other day, I got the urge to buy an original game (Warcraft III, it's an urge that's lessening though), but I had trouble even locating it, much less buying it.

KLCC? Sure, some games there, but not much, Diablo II, Baldur's Gate II Collection, Icewind Dale Collection, a whole bunch of the Sims expansions... but no Warcraft III. Will they get new stock? Don't know. Mid Valley? Can't even see one selling a boxed PC game. Pyramid? Very few selections, mostly old games. 1 Utama? Haven't checked there yet. I think Subang Carrefour has a shop that carries some.... hmmm... should check.

The point is, sometimes it's not that people don't want to buy original software. It's pretty hard to even find a shop that sells a good variety. Want to buy Acrobat Reader? Uh... where? Photoshop? That's a tough one. Microsoft stuff? You're crazy to fork out that much $$$ ^-^

And then several days ago... or was it weeks... anway, I went surfing Amazon.com. Woo! Look at all the stuff that I want! And it's cheap, even considering the shipping costs! But as I proceeded to check out... nope, they don't ship software, books, or electronics to Malaysia, or to Asia Pacific for that matter. Darn. And I tried to check out alot of stuff :) Must be tax laws and policies and such. Sigh. Are Malaysian gamers destined to play only pirated games and use pirated software? I'm of the opinion that one really has to have very strong and rigid principles (like a colleague I know actually, but he doesn't play much games) to have the patience to actually wait for the title to actually get into Malaysia and then begin the hunt for it. I live in the capital and think original games are scarce. Imagine those living in smaller towns. And all this without mentioning how expensive it is to buy an ori game.