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My Take on Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls

Those who know me may remember how strongly I said that while “always online” was a Diablo 3 “feature”, I’d not buy it.

Well, I cave in and finally bought the game and its expansion, in a process that took roughly 2 days[1] due “security”.

The Good Parts

Since I’ll mirror a lot of criticism D3 pulled in the last years, I’ll start by the good points:

It’s pretty.

Well, that’s it. It is on the most beautiful looking hack’n’slash games I ever played. Enemies appear to be part of the environment, while still looking like something not-environment. Hard to understand? Think this: There is one enemy that looks like a tree and, while it doesn’t move, it looks exactly like the other trees; but when it starts moving, it looks like a real enemy.

It’s gorgeous and well designed graphically. I can’t find a single problem with that.

The Bad Parts

The whole problem with D3 is everything else.

It’s a Matter of Scenary

While the game is beautiful, it severely lacks ambience. Grim Dawn (which I gave my took on it before), while looking good but not as beautiful, made me grip my mouse with so much force my thumb is still hurting. D3 music is lackluster and the sounds are not really “fuck, I’m not going there”. The whole atmosphere of D3 lacks a sense of urgency and “oh my god, the world is ending.”

Let me keep comparing D3 with Grim Dawn: In Grim Dawn, humans are in the brink of extinction, being crushed in the middle of two powerful races that see humans simply as tools. When you beat the first boss of the game, the whole village of survivors can’t believe you did something like that — the idea of beating one of the powerful beings into submission is simply impossible and you did the impossible. In Diablo 3, killing bosses is mentioned as a matter-of-fact, like buying groceries or writing a blog post[2]. Heck, the very first fight you see one of the NPCs mention that he never saw someone fight like that. At the very beginning you are put in the shoes of the most powerful beings in the whole planet — which is exactly what Tyrael says in the end of the expansion.

Challenge Denied

The other problem with D3 is the “baby’s first hack’n’slash” mentality in skills and attributes. “Congratulations son, you got a level. Daddy will now give you a skill, ok? But daddy will give you a skill, not a skill point, ’cause you may break it.” and “Oh no son, those knobs are too hard to you, let daddy select which attributes you need next” are the most annoying facets of this mentally. While in Diablo 2 you could turn a class completely around, like a necromancer based on poison that requires a lot of strength, you absolutely can’t do anything like that in D3. Each class has a design and you can’t in any way, shape or form push them outside their design. Sure, sure, it makes easier to balance a game like this, but this causes another problem: lack of incentive to go forward.

For example, the poisonmancer (that’s how players called the necromancer-with-strength build) example above: you’re required to spent points in strength — an attribute that makes absolutely no sense for a class like the necromancer — because you’ll going melee with monsters and your poison dagger and you need the highest defensive gear possible, which can only be used if you have enough strength. So you keep that armour in your bags because it gives 100 more defence and you need only 3 more points in strength to use and you go around and around trying to kill everything just to gain XP to get those 3 damn points and… you get the picture. It’s the process of that last damn step in getting better to get even better that pushed you forward. And it usually involved in the need to push for just another level to get the 3 more points in intellect so that skill wouldn’t suck all your mana and then you get yet another piece of gear and so on…

(And I reckon this is basically the “carrot on a stick” mentality that Blizzard bought to World of Warcraft, and you can see that it works.)

Without the worry of picking skills or even designing your character the way you want, where the challenge was left? Well, Blizzard seems to have learned a thing or two with their costumers and decided that the best way of dealing with stuff is zerging: instead of going face to face against 1-6 enemies, you usually face 20 or 30 in a single combat. So… yeah, here is the thing to make you feel proud: you defeated 25 monsters without dying — in a game designed to throw 20 to 30 monsters in your face.

This problem is further shown in the start of the 5th act — part of the expansion — when you have to face single enemies at each corner: it is terribly dull and boring but hey, you were trained since the very start of the game that you’d face waves of mobs, in an almost-non-stop combat and you would think that maybe switching to single target skills would be better, but then again, you’ll just be waiting for waves of mobs soon and you never change your skills.

The zerging is also created another problem: while the skills are designed to fill small roles — single target damage, AoE damage, support, resource generation — you end up with always taking at least on one AoE to deal with those 20 to 30 monsters, one support skill for mitigating the damage from those 20 to 30 monsters, one resource generation to keep dealing with those 20 to 30 monsters and some assorted bunch of AoE when you have a lot of resources and your main AoE skill is in cooldown. This absolutely kills any chance of building anything else. Yes, build diversity would come from your decision to make a strong single-target character, or a support character, or even an AoE build, but due the design of encounters — which are also a shadow of the daddy-picks-your-skills design — you end up with very little variation of builds.

So, to sum up: You have no choice on skills or how to distribute your points, which gives you no challenge to look ahead (“get the damn 3 points in strength to use this armor”, “get enough skill points to open that mitigation skill”), so the game throws zerging to provide some challenge to you, which stifles build variation. Can you see that the whole problem with the game is the decision of hand holding design?

Anti Yamato Gun Design

There is a little anecdote about Space Battleship Yamato: If they have such powerful canons, why don’t they start firing them right out of the bat? Well, the reason is simply because they take too long to recharge and consume too much resources to fire. So starting with them out of the bat would mean that if there was a bigger challenge up ahead, they would not be ready for it.

Most games add a “yamato gun” skill: something with a long cooldown that requires a lot of resources which you’d use as a last resource because there may be something up ahead that may require more firepower.

D3 takes this completely away. The big resource, big damage skill daddy gave you earlier? Do not worry, it will get out of cooldown in less than 30 seconds and will take only 3 hits of your resource generation skill. So you never save it. With a monk, I keep using the most impressive skill (Seven Sided Strike), which does a lot of damage in a single target, just to kill annoying enemies that I could simply run to and kill with a single hit, but hey, super skill will get out of cooldown in less than 15 seconds and I just need to punch someone in the face again to gain enough resources for it, so fuck it, I’ll use it. In no moment whatsoever I had to run away from a boss to regain enough resources or wait for a cooldown.

Play Online With Yourself

Oh yeah, I’ll have to speak about the “always online” requirement. Oh yeah, I’ll repeat what everyone else said, so you’re free to skip this part of you’re already tired of this.

Still here? Good.

I can’t remember a game that plays with network as bad as D3. Even Guild Wars 2, which is a MMO, can handle lag spikes better than D3. More than once I was put there, damaging air, walking around with no mobs attacking me and then, suddenly, a huge pile of numbers flying off with random results — sometimes I killed the whole bunch of enemies, sometimes I was just dead. Even GW2 will try to figure out what’s going on for a while, using previous information, reducing the impact of the lag spike.

Not only that, but for a couple of weekends, Blizzard login servers have been been hammered by something and were really slow (this was a notice they put in the launcher). So the problem is not simply how my ISP, my modem, my wireless router and their connections work: The problem can be on Blizzard site and who the hell are you to tell them that they need to upgrade their connection?

But not to fret, I bet Mr Jay Wilson will pay from his own pocket to replace my house wiring — or even Blizzard wiring, or their ISP wiring. Actually, Jay Wilson, being such a nice guy, will replace the wiring everywhere to prove that internet problems don’t fly anymore.

Conclusion

Although I have given D3 just a single positive problem, I can’t say that the game is bad. It is not. The absolute summary of D3 is: It is pretty damn nice generic ARPG.

The problem with D3 is “what it could be”. Watching D3 in its state is like knowing this kid that can draw amazing paintings and, finding him years later, he dropped the paints and became a lawyer because his parents say so. You saw the potential years ago and now it seemed that it went all to waste.

The new ARPGs that appeared when D2 left without a successor prove that: Grim Dawn, Path of the Exile, even Torchlight proved that you can make a “smart man ARPG”. The sad fact is that Blizzard saw this ressurgence and decided to go the other way around: Instead of making you think, they took everything away and made a “ARPG for dummies”, with so much hand-holding that even their ideas of customization when down the drain.

Oh, and the fact that D3 is, today, one of the most expensive ARPGs around doesn’t help even a little bit.

[1] The whole process was convoluted as hell: First, I had to buy Diablo 3 for BRL 79.90 (there was this “amazing” promotion to buy both D3 and RoS for “only” 169.80 instead of 179.80, in which I believe was made by the guy responsible for the class balance). So first I bought D3 via “DineroMail”, a process that took 5 hours to be approved. Then, burned by the long delay, I tried to fill my Blizzard account with enough money to buy directly, thinking that since Blizzard talks directly to my card operator, I’d have to wait less. The whole process took 15 hours, then.

[2] … which brings another point: Why were the D3 designers so obsessed with Leoric? I mean, fuck it, I had to deal with him in Diablo 1, had to hear his stories — and kill him again — in Diablo 2 and now at least 50% of the first act goes around him again? I mean, seriously? I got it already that he got crazy when corrupted by Diablo, you don’t need to repeat it already for the damn third time! If I was curious on what happened to Leoric — or even who the hell was Leoric, for that matter — I could, I don’t know, search the internet, since the damn “always online” forces me to have one, right?

My Take on Banished

There are several games that take you on the role of some immortal mayor/governor/president/emperor in the quest to create the greatest city ever (Civilization, SimCity and Anno being the greater exponents of this line). Even iOS games like Townsmen put you in that role.

In all those games, you have to focus on resources: You need to “capture” that iron mine in order to build iron weapons; you need workers to get the iron from the mine and bring it to your town to build said weapons; you need some farm to keep your workers alive so they can mine your iron and so on.

But none of those really focus on workers. Workers are nothing more than some easy-to-get resource, in which you usually build a house and wait till workers popup. And they keep going till someone kills them.

That’s not what Banished do. Banished focus solely in the workers and their lifetimes.

The interface is as spartan as you could get — pretty much what your new followers have now. On easy, you fortunately start with a barn to store goods, a stockpile of goods and houses for all your families; on medium, no houses and just a cart with food. And I still didn’t had the guts to try it on hard.

In this situation, you need to start providing some facilities for your people: Houses if you’re on hard, then some food generating facility, then some route of clothing or tools creation, then some roads to connect all those, then maybe some trading facility…

So far, it looks pretty much like any other town-creation game, right?

Well, here’s the twist: Building more houses does not mean more workers. When you put a house, you actually create a place for a family: a man and a woman (and hey, that’s the game saying what’s a family, not me — although I’ve seen families with just a man and his son). And, after a while, a family will have a child.

Children are little resource suckers that take food and produce absolutely nothing. But you need them ’cause, at some point, the mother and the father will get too old and just die.

And that’s the cycle you have to manage: Create houses, manage families, wait till they have kids, wait till the kids are old enough to work, wait till they create new families, wait till the old people die, try to move young adults to do the jobs of the dead…

Oh, not only that, but when you create some resource-creation facility, it just don’t simply sparkle to life and start producing resources: You need to allocate your adults to produce said resources.

“Laborer” is pretty much a person that doesn’t have a job, so they keep moving around, transferring resources from barns and stockpiles to houses (yes, houses have their little stockpile of food and wood and clothing, so people don’t need to keep walking back and forth — unless they are at work and feel hungry, in which they will do all the way from work to their houses to get fed), transferring resources from resource-creation facilities to barns and stockpiles and so on. Once a specialized worked dies (either of old age, crushed by a rock, mauled by a warthog, giving birth or some natural disaster) a laborer will take their place.

So there is this constant “I need more children so later I’ll have more workers, but I need workers now to keep the children fed and train them and OH GOD, WHY DON’T YOU GROW FASTER, YOU LITTLE RESOURCE-SUCKING-FUCKERS?!?” and “Gawd dammit, another worked died”. The balance between keeping laborers for when someone dies, trying to keep your workers alive, fed and warm, so they can produce resources to make more workers is very very very thin and keeps the constant “Ok, just a few more minutes so I get enough workers for this and then I’m going to bed” that goes for hours and hours.

Although the game sucks you into it — in a good way — there are some things that really aren’t helpful.

For example: Remember when I said that you have to wait for families to have children, wait till children grow up and then wait till they create their own families? Well, that’s the first problem: The constant waiting makes the game feel so sloooow it becomes kinda boring if you play in normal speed. I am, on easy, playing constantly at 10x the normal speed (fortunately, the game have a speed control). This is partly what sucks you in, and partly what will annoy the fuck of you (but, then again, if they removed the cycle, the whole game would lose its appeal).

The other problem is the spartanness of the interface. Sure it allows seeing a lot around so you know where would be a good place to build a farm or an orchard or were simply send your laborers to collect stone, but it makes harder to see how many resources you already have, for that quick “Damn, my firewood resources is slowly going down, maybe I need more woodcutters”, if you have too many laborers and can move them to more specialized work and even when people die, which mean you’ll have, maybe, to move some specialized worker back to laboring, in case someone else dies. That’s why most of the screenshots here have those 3 windows open all the time: without them, it’s pretty hard to keep track of all of this. Sure, you have the option to open those windows, but the fact that you have to open them irks me a bit.

On the other hand, you can’t call the game ugly (maybe not “pretty”, but seriously not ugly).

With all that, do I recommend Banished? If you like games about building stuff that give a different focus than other games and keep you on the edge of your chair (well, at least, till everything runs smoothly, you have a shitload of food, a shitload of tools, a shitload of warm clothes and a shitload of laborers), it certainly it is a good game.

My Take on Grim Dawn

Before the end of the (previous) year, Crate Entertainment decided to give early access to all backers of Grim Dawn. Well, it just happened that I was a backer — although not an “early access backer” — on their Kickstarter, so I had the chance to play it.

Just beware that everything I say here is based on their alpha, which have access only to the first Act and not the whole game. So I bunch of things couldn’t be accessed yet[1] and some things may change till the final release.

What’s Grim Dawn, anyway?

Grim Dawn is yet another ARPG, much like Diablo and Path of the Exile. The engine is a full 3D engine, which allows you to rotate the screen in any angle — although keeping the classic isometric view.

The story is somewhat intriguing, although not at all too different from other ARPGs: A race called “Aetherials” enters “our” realm and start turning humans into zombies, which puts the human race in the brink of extinction (I just read the Wikipedia page and it seems that the extinction was not brought by the Aetherials alone, but actually from a fight of the Aetherials and the Chthonians, the first trying to turn humans into an army and the later trying to kill all humans before that but I don’t remember reading anything about Chthonians in the whole first act, although I skipped most of the reading till the very end.)

Your character was saved in the last minute from a hanging due being possessed by one Aetherials. The whole story seems that it will float around the fact that you are now “infected” with aetherial material, which grants you some special abilities — opening rifts, for example, which can be related to “town portals” in other games, except require no special skill or item, require no mana and, be used as many times as you want and allow you to pick any other portal around (so not just to town, but to any other point you already know).

The whole environment is quite interesting too: instead of going full fantasy, Grim Dawn seems to be centered in a not distant past, as you can use fire weapons — pistols, rifles and shotguns — along weapons you’d find in any other ARPG — crossbows, swords, daggers, clubs, maces — not to mention the gear, with some heavy armor floating around leather jackets and such.

Getting your feet wet

When you start Grim Dawn, you’ll see your last played character, an option to jump to the next one or, if you have none, you’ll get straight to the character creation screen, which is as spartan as it can get.

It was my first surprise: No class/profession selection? No customization at all? Just “name” and “male or female” options?

Actually, yes, that’s it. It seems Crate took everything that was not really necessary for an ARPG and went down to the very bare bones of an ARPG. It’s so down to the bones that there are only three attributes to use: Physique, for health and armor usage; Cunning for attack speed; and Spirit, for your mana bar and mana regen.

Speaking of mana regen, some time after attacking or being attacked, you’ll receive a fast health regen. I’m kinda divided about it: First, it gives you some chance to recover health without resorting to massive health potion chugging — although the potion itself have a cooldown and, fortunately, gives health at once instead of simply giving you “regeneration” — or some other gimmick like health orbs dropping from time to time, but, at the same time, the simple fact that you can simply start running around your enemy, without giving it the chance of attack you and without attacking, will give you a massive regeneration feels so… gimmicky.

Becoming one

Even if you start with a clean slate, at level 2 you can pick a class, which will dictate your skills and abilities. There are 4 classes you can take then, which can be easily related to the “usual” ARPG classes:

The Soldier is, basically, the classic warrior:

The Demolitionist, although with a name like that, is basically the ranger/archer stereotype, without the pet and with a preference for fire weapons:

Occultists take the position the mage stereotype position in classic ARPGS:

And, finally, the Nightblade takes the assassin/rogue place:

I just need to stop here and point that there is nothing telling or even stopping you from using weird class/weapon combinations: You want to make a pistol solder? No problem, the game will not stop you from doing it so. The only barrier is that some skills — which I’ll show next — will require some specific weapons (for example, the soldier have a skill that requires a shield, the nightblade have skills that require dual wielding melee weapons and so on).

Going up

Once you pick your class, you’re presented your skill tree. And seriously, Grim Dawn rivals Path of the Exile in the “this will require some thinking” tree.

You have actually two intertwined trees: The basic one, at the bottom, indicates your class proficiency — the higher, the more skills are available to you, increasing your basic stats at the same time[2]. At every level, you gain only 3 points, which you must allocate in those two trees — which is the part that makes it something you may need to think ahead: You can make a very meek character with very strong skills or an incredible build character with weak skills.

Balancing the trees is, obviously, the way to go, but how do you balance it is the part you’ll have to look for a while before just clicking away.

Oh, and if you think that’s easy enough, at level 10 you get the chance of getting a secondary profession:

And the second tree is not at all tied to the first class: Adding points to the second tree will earn as many attributes as the early levels — so you’re gaining attributes for a level 2 character instead of a level 10 character, but you need to put those points to open skills!

Going above the baseline

There are upgrades, like any other ARPG. The difference here is that there are no slots in any piece of gear: Everything has the ability to carry an upgrade beyond those in the gear itself.

Once an item receives an upgrade, it can only be upgraded with the same piece — you can’t mix two different upgrading elements in the same piece of gear. On the other hand, “upgrading” an upgrade component will complete its set, which can grant better results — pretty much what would happen if you complete a set of gear in other ARPGs, but with upgrades.

Gear sets are also available, although in my play time I only found two pieces of one set.

Going around

As I mentioned before, because you have been infected by the aetherials, you can summon personal rifts at any time, although only one rift can be open at the same time. Beside those, you can also find stable rifts all around, filling the “waypoint”… erm… “stereotype”?

And, as I said, one you open a personal rift, you can go anywhere:

Oh, and, in case you didn’t notice, the world is massive. I’d say that one map (from waypoint to waypoint) is actually larger than Path of the Exile maps.

The final tidbits

Obviously, there are other things in Grim Dawn that every ARPG have. Weapon swaps, health and mana potions and Vendors, for example:

In the case of the vendors, you’ll notice that items can have 3 different colors: Yellow means it’s a magical item (there are three other “quality” colors: red for set items, blue for named items and green for magical with better stats); Red means you don’t have the necessary attributes to wield that item; and Gray points that you don’t have enough money to buy the item.

The idea is good, but sometimes it falls to its knees: If you don’t have the coin and the attributes to buy something, the colors mix in and you can’t say if you can’t buy it simply because you need a few more attribute points or you need attribute points and coin. Yes yes, in the end, it means that you can’t use the damn thing, but it still annoys me, somehow.

Grim Dawm have a full economy with “iron coins” being used on sell and purchase, which I personally think it’s uninspired when compared to the barter system in Path of the Exile. On the other hand, it makes things easier, I guess. Also, as a side note, the whole time I played the game, the vendors never had something better than what I already had. Either that or I’m really bad at stats.

There are also factions, although I didn’t notice any difference in game play with it.

There are also destructible objects, which can contain loot:

One of the downsides I found is that the minimap encompasses the whole visible zone, without any visible zoom indicator, which completely removes the “fog of unknownness”. The only way to see where you still have to explore is through the full map.

And finally, when you’re low on health, the whole screen will get darker and the borders will point out that you’re in a really bad shape.

Conclusion

At this point you’re probably asking yourself “So what?”. And I admit, there are very few interesting things in this piece of my opinion besides the skill tree. That’s because the most interesting thing in the game can’t be shown by images alone.

It’s its atmosphere.

Seriously, the visuals are darker with an amazing track which in very few times reminded me of the old Diablo games[3] which will keep you on tense the whole time: My right thumb is hurting by putting too much pressure on my mouse.

And the environment is really dark sometimes, which will reduce your vision to barely anything and will force you to navigate using only the minimap. And the maps are smartly designed to have some wet spots which will break your concentration by changing the noises and visuals.

And, to be honest, the story picks up really fast, to the point that after a while I decided to finally stop and read what was going on ’cause things were doing turns all the time.

Although I sunk more than 10 hours in the first act alone (8 with a single character, which was the only one I could finish the first act), I still think there are some points the game could improve:

First, voice acting. I admit that maybe this is asking too much, but I didn’t feel too interested the whole thing because there were too many walls of text. The story picks up and you start reading, but maybe I’d feel more into the story if I had someone to hear.

Second, the mini maps really needs some zoom and the “fog of unknown” zone needs to be smaller. If I need to explore around, I’d at least like to know if I’m not running around in circles.

Third, the maps could use some random generationness. I mean, 4 different characters and the maps were all the same. That makes me wonder if there is any replayability once you complete the whole campaign (well, besides multiplayer, that is).

All those are minor, in my opinion. The game is interesting enough, the skill tree is enough to keep (or, at least, to keep me) playing for a long time just to level up and open all those skills, the story seems incredible well written, even if you may skip most of it due the lack of voice.

At this point, with the latest build (released on the last day of 2013, nonetheless) I’m really not regretting backing Crate on this endevour, even if the final release seems to be a bit late — but honestly, with the quality shown so far, I guess no backer can be pissed if they still want to do some clean ups.

[1] Fun fact: After you complete the first act, the NPC which will probably grant you access to the second act zone only says something around the lines of “This is the end of the alpha version. In the future, you’ll be able to access the whole game”, which your character replies with “I can’t wait!”

[2] I didn’t notice any change in the attribute gain by class (like one could expect that the soldier would gain more physique per level than an occultist), but I could be wrong here.

[3] Compared to, say, Torchlight 1 and 2, which are pretty much the same musical tone, but that’s because Diablo 1 and 2 and both Torchlight games had the same composer.

My Take on Marvel Heroes

I signed for the beta test of Marvel Heroes a long time ago, so long that I completely forgot about it. When I received an email confirming that I was in the closed beta, I surely thought I could give it a go. While creating my account, I saw that I had to "sign" a NDA. Although I hate the idea of such thing (and I did complain a lot on Twitter about it), I decided to follow it as it should.

But, yesterday, the news that the NDA had been liftedhit the web, which means I can give my impressions of the game.

What's "Marvel Heroes", anyway?

For those unaware, Marvel Heroes is an MMOARPG. It's basically a Diablo game where you can find other people roaming around on the maps.

There are closed sections, much like dungeons in other MMORPGs, in which you (or your group) have your own instance.

Before Getting There

Before you get into the game, you have to deal with the launcher. The launcher was showing the beta even timers in my local timezone. No need to keep converting timezones back and forth, which was something that really impressed me.

The launcher also uses the same "streaming" feature WoW uses: You can join the game as soon as you have the map downloaded. So even before I had the first zone map, I could already join the game and play around.

On the other hand, the launcher and intro for the game shows one of my greatest gripes with the current generation of games: lots and lots of intros. So you have the launcher, and you have to pick "Launch" to finally get into the game. After that, you see the Marvel Heroes splash screen while the game loads; then, when the game finally launchers (which takes about 20 seconds on my really slow 5400 RPM disc) you're greeted with the Marvel intro (pretty much the intro we see in every Marvel movie these days); then you have the Unreal Engine intro; then you have the Gazilion intro (the company behind the game); then you have the Marvel Heroes intro; then you finally have the option to log in (which still requires you to type your password, without an option to remember it). Does it show only one time? Nope, every single timeyou launch the game you have to continuously skip those intros before you can finally play the game.

Sure, sure, you can at least skip all those, but it doesn't mean it's satisfying having to continuously click so you can finally play the game.

The only issue I had the launcher -- which I truly believe it's a beta issue -- is that on every launch it tried to download and install DirectX 9. It doesn't seem to check if it's installed or not, it simply calls the DX9 installer on the background before letting you launch the game. Again, it seems a simple beta issue and not really a game breaker.

It's Your First Time

As soon as you log in, the game let you chose your hero. There is a couple of the "lesser" heroes: Daredevil, Storm, Thing, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye. I'm calling "lesser" 'cause, even if they are interesting heroes, which curious stories and powers, they are not in the mainstream media this points. Other heroes can be unlocked with a special currency -- which, at this point, I don't know if it's something you can only buy with real money or convert some in-game currency "credits" to this.

And then there is the "Founder" program. It's basically a "give us money NOW and we promise some cool stuff later". It's common these days, but I really don't like it. The reason is simple: You have a less stellar cast as default; if you decide to fork $20, you can get one of the starter packs, which comes with a single hero and some skins (plus in game currency and other stuff). The problem here is that, again, the Starter Pack doesn't come with the heroes in mainstream media these days: Black Panther, Black Widow, Cable, Colossus, Cyclops, Human Torch, Jean Grey, Ms. Marvel, Punisher and Rocket Raccoon (which seems to be thrown there due the fact that there is an upcoming "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie). For the heroes that are now all around, you'll have to go down with $60, which seems a bit too high in my opinion, but then you can get Wolverine, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Spiderman, some of those together, some of those in their own packs with all the skins. Some packs even include heroes from other packs -- for example, Iron Man appears in 3 different packs, including one that have only Ironman and all his skins -- and there is no information what would happen if you buy a pack with an hero that you already unlocked. Do you get the money as in-game current? More skins? Nothing?

On top of those, there is the "Ultimate Pack" with all heroes and skins, in the absurd price of $200. I mean, seriously? $200 for 22 characters?

Ok, ok, maybe it's not that absurd if the game is worth that much. I'll get there.

The issue I found the store is that the in game store does not check if you already bought the character before letting you buy the skins. Beta testers got some currency for testing purposes and I happily used it all in skins 'cause I had the initial impression that I was, actually, unlocking the character andthe skin at the same time. Again, beta things.

Getting Down to It

So you pick a character and then you're throw in the tutorial level. And I say "tutorial" very loosely here, as there is very little tutorialling: You're basically throw in a very narrow corridor level, very little options of which path to take and you simply click your way around.

Clicking seems to have taken a lot of consideration in the game: 2 hours of gameplay and I barely can use my right hand for anything, due the amount of clicking I did. Yes, I know Diablo 1 was pretty much this, but Diablo 2 fixed this with a more fluid gameplay. Sure, you could still spam-click to victory, but if you played smart, it was just a matter of two or three clicks most of the time and then click-and-hold. Clicking and holding, in Marvel Heroes, is basically broken: In one of the boss fights, when I tried to click and hold, my character started attacking and then simply stood there, looking the boss in the face, doing absolutely nothing; another time, a mob decided to run away, in which my hero run to the position I clicked and then stop following the mob.

Mob variety is, to be completely honest, atrocious. You basically see only 2 types of enemies all the time. Some are melee, some are using guns, some are using energy weapons but they all share the same 2 skins. And after the tutorial, they will spawn like you suddenly walked inside a beehive just a few minutes before the bees start their way back.

But let me return to the tutorial to talk about what happens after it: you move to the Avenger's Tower, which is the first player hub you'll find. There, you finally get a glimpse of the "MMO" part of the game: lots and lots of people going around. There, you'll find vendors, crafting "vendor" and some special characters to talk with.

After running around, you'll get the first real mission. If you waited for the game to download or the background streaming got the map, you'll be able to move to the larger zone. And I think this is, again, where the "MMO" part shows up: Instead of being a huge instance for yourself, you see other people moving around, doing missions and trying to find their targets.

As I mentioned, you have "instantiated" zones, like dungeons, which your main mission is around. So you don't need to worry about someone sniping your target or having to wait till the boss spawns again: It's your zone and nobody else can get there to mess with your target (unless they are in your party, that is).

The problem here is the extremes the world and the instances go: While the instances are, mostly, corridors with very little choice, the world is incredible large with very little direction about it. So you simply walk around, trying to move to a place where an arrow with a "?" in it will point to one of your missions. And this gets really frustrating 'cause, as I said before, you will have 2 types of enemies in the screen. So you aimlessly walk around, fight the same stuff over and over again, till you finally stumble upon your target. I found it hard to find it fun: It's boring, it's tiring, it's too damn close to a grind and it's annoying that you never know where to go. Diablo 2 used some clever map designs to appear huge while still giving you some direction (mostly, you had a main "path" to give you a direction); Marvel Heroes provides very little direction in the world, which basically is a large square with some obstacles around, which also looks the same: Are you in metropolitan area? Prepare to see lots and lots of buildings, cars, bus stops and trash, all "throw" around. Are you in the night club zone? Lots and lots of club entrances, with bouncers in the front, all looking exactly like the other. If there was, at least, some indication of something bigger in some point -- like, for example, indications of a highway in the distance, and some quest that mentioned a highway -- you could at least have a sense of direction. But not here, you could be pretty much going towards the highway or towards the red light district, with very little indication around of doing it so.

While trying to have a purpose on life and with the hopes that you will, somehow, find the damn villain hideout, you may find some small events and some large events. Small events are, basically, events that you complete alone, like saving some guy from tugs. The problem with those is that you have no idea you're in the middle of one till you complete it: You get some "XP orbs" and, in the middle of the XP notices going up, you get the message that you completed some event. There is absolutely no indication at all that there is an event nearby or that you're in one -- or, better yet, what you need to do to complete it.

Large events require groups to complete and you'll get stomped to death if you try to solo them (or so it seems). Events like those include fighting Venon and Rhino. Those fights are pretty close to instance bosses: They have some red indicators of places you don't want to be and you use your powers to fight them. The problem is that most fights are, basically, "stay out of red things". And, sometimes, not even that. In one Venon fight, I simply gave up trying to come with something smart and decided to keep my left mouse button pressed on top of the boss, using my shield ability when out of cooldown and drinking health potions when they were also out of cooldown. I won, but with no feeling of accomplishment whatsoever.

Staying out of red stuff may also be hard sometimes. In the Rhino fight, he'll do a charge in one direction which will basically kill your health pool in one shot. Fortunately, he will show which direction he'll charge with some red arrows in the ground... which you hopefully will be able to see if there is only 3 people. More than that and the sparkling effects going around will completely hide it and you'll have no idea which direction Rhino will charge and kill you if you're not paying attention. Yes, it's a problem with every MMO these days but just because every MMO have this problem it doesn't mean it's ok, specially in a new title with a new perspective.

You can resurrect other players, but there is no reward in doing it so -- and, again, no explanation about it whatsoever. They simply appear with a purple skull over their heads and that's it. If you click, you'll start a resurrect process, which shows as a progress bar; once you fill this progress bar, the other player may chose to accept the resurrection or return to the previous waypoint. If you're hit mid resurrection, the progress bar will stop and you'll have to start over.

Being resurrected is... weird. When you lose all your health, a popup will appear in the middle of the screen -- basically, over your character -- and you have an option to return to the previous waypoint or wait 3 minutes till someone resurrects you. The problem is that, as I said, the popup appears in the middle of the screen, over your character, covering any action happening with you. And, if someone starts resurrecting you, you get no notification at all. So either you sit there, with your arms crossed for 3 minutes waiting for someone to res you or you bite the bullet and return to the last waypoint.

Vendors and Crafting

As I mentioned, there are vendors in the main base. You can also find those spread around the map, so you can get rid of those materials you have no use -- like, for example, some fantastic shield for Captain America, a character you don't have yet. Besides vendoring and getting credits, vendors can also sell you stuff and you can request a "refresh" on their wares, in case they have nothing interesting. On top of that, instead of selling stuff for credits, you can "give" the vendor an item, increasing their level. On my time playing, I didn't manage to make any vendor go above level 1 (but, then again, I tried to level 2 different vendors instead of focusing in just one; also, then again, I had my inventory completely full more than once during my gameplay).

There is also a crafting system but, at first glance, it seems someone said "this can't be a MMO without a crafting system" and someone cooked something in about 2 hours. Basically, mobs will drop some special crafting materials (like "Pym Particles") and you use those to craft potions or med-kits. As with vendors, you can also give items to the crafting person, in order to increase their level. That's probably when things get interesting, like being able to craft some massive armor for your character but, as I said, during my playtime, I didn't manage to bring any vendor to level 2, including the crafting vendor.

Also, I didn't found any way to "break" items I didn't want into basic materials.

Skins and Your Progression

Items can have 4 levels: White items are normal, green items have some better stats, blue items are better and purple items are legendary. Yup, pretty much the same level distinction every other MMO use.

If I had to describe one of the problems with the game progression, I'd use this phrase that appeared in the map chat:

[Person] Do any of you Wolverines want a blue mask?

This is the problem with the "we sell skins" mentality: Because you profit will come from selling skins, you can't simply give skins/appearance straight away. So all Wolverines, which are using the default skin, will all look the same, no matter if they are a level 100 with all purple items or a level 1 wearing no items at all. And this can be frustrating as hell for most people.

Diablo 2 solved the skin problem (which Diablo 1 also had, in a very small scale) by showing, on top of your character, an "icon" version of the item: Do your helm looks like a skull? So your character will look like he has a skull as helmet. You could see when your character was wielding a sword or a staff. But Marvel Heroes? Every hero have their own weapon and they will always wield the same weapon.

Not much for being that unique snowflake, isn't it?

What You See Is What You Get

Besides the problem with the resurrection popup, the interface is too damn busy: You have a health orb, a "spirit" orb, two buttons near each one of those -- one for your left mouse button and another for your right mouse button -- and 6 other buttons in between, using the main area of the bottom of your screen. Three small buttons appear in the left side and another 3 on the right. A minimap appears on the top right corner. And some controls appear on the top left corner. And, around the orbs, trails appear, to give that "this is a printed circuit" feel.

Maybe it's hard to describe without a proper screenshot, but you can guess that the screen is busy as hell. A lot of those controls could be hidden into the main toolbar, the "circuit" thing could be removed, to give a more "focus on the game, not its interface".

Conclusion

I can't say the game is bad, but I can surely say it's not great. Basically, I played for 2-3 hours this weekend and I can say I had enough of it. Sure, sure, it's beta and such, but it seems there is a lot to work before the real launch at June 4th: The maps really need to be redone, to give that distinct direction Diablo had instead of being large grids with some trash thrown around; the bosses need to be revised to not simply be "the boss stay there, he'll do something with a red circle/arrow around, move around"; animations need to be reviewed to be more fluid. And, somehow, your progress need to be shown so you don't look like every freaking Wolverine in the map.

So, answering the question I dropped somewhere: Is $200 worth in this game? And my answer is: At this time, in this beta, the answer is very clear "No". If I could buy 3 heroes -- ANY 3 heroes --, maybe each with 1 or 2 skins, for $20, I'd say "go for it, it's an ok diablo". But with hero restrictions in packs and mainstream heroes going for about $60... it's hard to say "enjoy it", unless you're a super Marvel fan or have a hipster taste and only enjoy heroes that are out of the mainstream media.

PS: If I find the motivation, I'll install FRAPS and try to capture some screenshots. PPS: Here are the notes I wrote while playing the game:

Animations seem a bit slow

After beating green globin, no idea what to do (too used with the waypoint thingy)

Why can I use "a" if I got my first new skill?

Leveling seems a bit slow. Starting game is really boring wit just left+right click.

Can't walk through the door to talk to Fury. Had to click on it.

Store: do not allow buying skins without having e hero unlocked before.

Managed to "drag" a barrel around, when trying to throw it in a chasm.

Scripted parts unaware of everything going on (got a message about "in the right place" for Electro after beating him)

No idea I was doing quests/events till I got a bunch of xp orbs and saw a quick message about it.

Strong contrast between corridor sections and open world sections. Feels like two completely different games.

Tried to install directx again next day.

Map discovery not saving during sessions.

Jersey docks is barely playable. One more person in the screen and the game craps itself into the single digit FPS.

Splash, marvel intro, unreal intro, gazillions intro, marvel heroes intro

Voices, voices, voices.

"Any of you wolverines want a blue hood?"

Mob variety is a joke

Bosses are really uninteresting

About those:

2. That's one thing that pissed my off right out of the bat: There was this door, I walked to the door and nothing happened. I did the whole map again, trying to find out where the heck I could find Fury to complete the level. About 20 minutes in and I finally figured out that I had to clickthe door, not go through it. Again, it is a missing point in the tutorial level.

3. Another missing thing in the tutorial: Near the end of the level, I got a level and unlocked a new skill. Quickly thinking, I clicked the "A" skill button, much like I did with the left/right mouse buttons... erm... "buttons". Nothing happened. I got a message, way later in the game, that you had to drag the skill from the talent window to the skill bar. It's really weird that you have the same looking buttons behaving in complete different ways -- and no tutorial pointing that out.

13. I'll admit that my laptop is barely in the minimal configuration zone. Either there was some missing optimizations going there or the minimal specs needs to be bumped out before release.

15. This is something I didn't mention in the review: Your hero will, sometimes, talk to another hero nearby. For example, Daredevil will say "I don't like your methods, Punisher, but I'll admit they work" if there is a Punisher around or "Shut up Deadpool, just... Shut up!". It's interesting in the very first times, but after you keep bumping into Deadpool in the large map and your hero keep saying the same line over and over again, it gets really annoying. By the end of my 2 hour play, I wanted to punch Daredevil in the mouth, so he would stop saying that same lines.

Melancholy Reverie

Guild Wars received a new update as a prelude to the launch of Guild Wars 2: A series of quests called "Wayfarer's Reverie" that take you around the three campaigns and the expansion to points of interest. Yes, this is basically the way you'd do "Vistas" in Guild Wars 1.

So, in Eye of the North, you have to visit the dragon under Drakkar Lake, the mountain that is actually Kralkatorrik, the destroyers in the Charr zone... Honestly, I have the feeling that we'll see those in Guild Wars 2 again, in one form or another.

There were also points in Cantha and Elona, which will not see in Guild Wars 2 (at least, not at launch) but you also had to revisit some places in Tyria, like the old Ascalonian places, which I also think are connected to places we'll see in Guild Wars 2.

(The zone around Old Ascalon is obviously in the game, in the Charr zones, but I couldn't shake the feeling that making me go all the way to Lyssa statue in the Mineral Springs was only there to make me remember the Norn skill point where one Norn is enjoying a hot tub in the middle of snow. I'm fairly sure I'm wrong about its location too, though.)

But one thing I couldn't shake was the feeling of how long things have come when I reached Lornar's Pass. For those who don't know it, it's a zone that connects part of the high level zones with the low level ones (you can pick a route following the main storyline, which will lead you to the easy part or you can go south and face enemies that are 2 to 4 levels higher than you.)

The thing is: I immediately remembered when my first character, an Elemenstalist reached the place. It was a time when we didn't have PvXwiki, the only type of companion you could have were henchmen and I had absolutely no idea about builds. It was a pain to keep going, with those level 22 and 24 mobs simply destroying any attempt to progress in the zone. Eventually, I paid a runner (someone with the right skills to cross the land in super-speed without taking too much damage) to reach another point -- which really didn't help me with my main questline.

And, this weekend, I was plowing through that zone, with a Paragon which I understand exactly how it works -- thanks to a help from PvX, obviously -- and with heroes that I customized to the best of their abilities. Things were so easy I was actually running to the packs of level 24 mobs just to get some drops.

(I also bought the topic to the guild. A lot of similar stories arose, with people mentioning their "Lornar's Passes".)

Long roads. We crossed them. But we simply forgot about them.

#tumblrize #guild wars #melancholy #memories #wayfarer's reverie

My Take On Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend 3

Can you smell it? Yes, it's the smell of finally achieving something in a limited beta test.

The Seraph-Issue Armor, by race

So, the whole plan was to take pictures of the same armor with 4 races (everything except human). The results:

Charr:

Norn:

Asura:

Sylvari:

Just to make sure, I'll tell you that those pictures were taken with the new build-in equipment preview and that the Seraph-Issued armor is only the chest and legs parts (headgear, gloves and boots are not part of the "set"). Also, the current implementation of the equipment preview is not taking in consideration your armor colors from looking at gear that it's on your bank (why it was in my bank in a second). When I put the gear, it finally picked up the personal colors, although it was not in the preview anymore.

But why the the gear was in my bank, anyway? Well, that's the part where I tell you what I did this weekend.

Seraph Begins

At first I rolled a Charr (only because it's the first in the list). After reaching something like level 13, I decided to take my path towards Kessex Hills going through Queensdale, doing whatever events or renown hearts there were in the way. Once I reached Fort Salma, I noticed that there wasn't an armorsmith vendor and to actually buy the gear, I'd have to complete some renown hearts and turn then into karma vendors. Now that wouldn't be hard, except mobs around are all level 20-23 and that would probably mean being plowed no matter what I did. So back to Plains of Ashford.

Everything Is Better With Crazy People

Once back to Ashford, I went going my things, jumping between renown hearts and personal story, with a gathering there and a dynamic event here, when I suddenly found myself in the middle of this group of people. The guy leading the pack was one Redditor (Acid Dream Laser Beam ftw). But then thing is: while the place had mobs around level 13-15, this guy was level 5; the rest of the group had a level 9 with them (and they were probably moving forward only due the pack size). Since I was doing fine with my Guardian, I decided to follow along, with the thing in mind to not let this guy die.

And there I went, with a group that was being out-leveled everywhere and trying my best to keep everyone alive (oh mace, how I love you for that). In the end, it was just me and this guy (now at level 9) just trying to complete the map. Needless to say, I got pretty close to level 20, which was enough to go back to Kessex Hills. And I still had a whole day to try to get said gear.

Did You Saw That?

One of the new things you get this time are "vistas". Those are new elements that you need to complete to complete a map and you earn a little XP every time you find those.

Vistas are books floating usually on top of high ground which will give you some XP and you'll usually have to deal with some sort of jumping puzzle to reach them. Remember when I said I was having problems finding the jumping puzzles in the previous betas? Well, that kinda tells you "Hey! There is a jumping puzzle here. Go find it!"

Also, there was this really obvious jumping puzzle in the Sylvari zone, although without a vista at the top:

Whoa, You're Going to Get Us Killed!

I didn't realize this till I thought I had enough, but leveling was incredible faster this time. If you remember, by playing BWE1 and BWE2, I reached level 28. Now, if you realize, in a little bit more than a day (Saturday the whole day and Friday night), I was only 8 levels behind. If they scaled the XP rewards up for people to experience more content this time with Asuras and Sylvari, if it's their final adjustment in XP gains or if that happened due me running around with a group, that's a different story.

Keep in mind that I kept jumping between Sylvary, Asura and Charr when bored and took naps whenever I feel like (which on weekends is pretty common). One person focusing on a single character the whole weekend probably reached level 30 easily.

It's Crafting Time!

Still lagging a few levels, I decided to take a break and play with crafting and check how the leveling goes. Fact is, up to that point, I was gathering everything I could and breaking down every single piece of gear that I couldn't use or was replaced. I had more than one full stack of Copper Ore and, thus, it felt it was the right time to abuse this.

The first discipline I got was weaponsmith, since I already had plans on getting better gear anyway. There wasn't any change since the last BWE, but what I was interested was the level you earn. And you get a little XP every time you level up your discipline and only when leveling the discipline. Earning crafting XP to level your discipline will not earn a single bit of character XP.

Also, I noticed that even when every crafting possibility is grey already, if you find a new combination, you'll still earn crafting XP. For example, if the Healing Green Inscription, Bronze Mace Head and Small Green Haft are all grey already (meaning you won't get any experience from making them), by making a Healing Bronze Mace you will still earn crafting XP. So it seems everything fall back into finding all possible combinations of everything to earn those 10 levels by reaching level 400 in a discipline.

But, since I only reached level 70 as weaponsmith and level 20-something in leatherworking (for the bags), I only got 2 levels. But, for what I wanted, that was enough.

Full Circle

And back to Kessex Hills, I finally had enough levels to complete the hearts. The first piece I got was the legs, which required level 23. "No problem", I thought. "I only have to find where I can find the chest piece and I'm all good".

Realizing the chest of a set shouldn't be far away, I decided to check the renown heart nearby. Lo and behold, completing the renown heart just outside Fort Salma opened the required vendor. "Fuck yeah", I though, just before seeing it had a "Binds of use". Well, fuck. Now I'd have to level my Sylvari and Asura to level 23 too! And that's when it hit me that I could just drop said gear in the bank and use the preview.

Phew, that was long.

Bonus!

With about one hour till I had to go to sleep to work next day, I decided to check the cultural heavy armors. I took screenshots of all 4 races, cut them for easy showing and... Someone posted this link with all armors in all races. Oh well, have fun there.

Other Tidbits

Apart from the feeling that performance went bad in this BWE compared to previous one, I didn't find any glaring bugs or felt things were incredible unbalanced (although the Flame Shaman still is a pain in the backside).

#tumblrize #armor #asura #beta #charr #guild wars 2 #norn #seraph issued #sylvari #weekend

Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson Talk About Guild Wars 2 End Game

Today, Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson did what seems to be the first talk with the players about some topics of Guild Wars 2 in what I think they are calling "Ten Talk" (but hey, my English is not that awesome, so I can be completely wrong here). Today they were talking about "end game content".

Now, we all know that there are no raids or required constant farming to be able to play the game at its fullest. So, what was left? Like, after you finished your personal story, so what will you do after that?

They don't want you to play a completely different game at level 80. They don't want to force you into dungeons.

One of the end game content is Orr -- which, by the way, is the only level 80 zone. In Orr, you won't find any renown hearts, just some friendly NPCs and some very large meta-events. Getting to Orr will require an attack that resembles pretty much "Storming the Normandy": There will be Golems being fired at the beach and submarines and boats.

Also, moving around Orr won't be an easy task. Because Zhaitan corrupted the whole city, the old gods temples and statues will reduce the players ability to move in the map, causing roots and/or preventing the use of the healing skill. To move more freely and without issues, players can take over the temples and defend it, allowing free passage to the dungeon at the end of the map.

Orr will also have the most complex dynamic events in the game -- the zone will have twice more dynamic events than any other zone in the game. The reason is that there are "branching" events: Instead of moving like a pendulum, going from the fail state to the success state and back (with player interaction, obviously), completing some events (or some step of it, from what I understood of what Colin was saying), it will actually start more than a single new event. So Orr will, ultimately, become a "web of events" triggering things all around the place. This "branching" will be introduced around the other zones, so players will feel comfortable with them once reaching Orr, Colin said.

Now about end game rewards, players will have the dungeons and specific looking gear from all sources of content. One thing mentioned is that even at level 80, you still earn XP and when you would "level up", you still earn a skill point (but no level). At some point, you'll have more skill points than needed to unlock all your skills and, as a "sink" (my words, neither Colin or Eric said anything like that), there will be a vendor near the mystic forge -- the sunspear who brought the Djinn who now powers the mystic forge -- who will sell special materials which you will use in the forge to get things like exotic weapons, high level gear, fun consumables and transmutable materials. Oh, and legendary weapons.

Those legendary weapons will require some items sold by this NPC and some materials which any player can get around the game -- but some can't be sold by any players, you'll need to get those yourself. Eric was adamant in mentioning that those legendaries provide absolute no advantage, they just look cool and Colin completed saying that those were the "Prestige gear". Amongst the legendary weapons you can get, there is a short bow that fire arrows with a tailing rainbow, a hammer that looks like it have a ball of liquid metal that spreads to your character and makes you look like either the Terminator (as Eric said) or Iron man (as Colin said) and two great swords, one with looks like a piece of the day sky and another that looks like the night sky. You can then merge those two and have a single great sword that changes looks on the day/night cycle and, as Colin said, it's the hardest item to get in game, as you have to do it twice, once for each great sword.

As all legendaries will require skill points, the whole game by itself becomes the source for them. You can do a low level dungeon and, with the sidekicking and the dynamic leveling system, earn XP, which will then give you the necessary skill points. You can just wander around and you will earn XP by completing dynamic events. You can do WvW and earn XP. You can go around gathering materials and earn XP. You can level your crafting and earn XP. And all that will translate, sooner or later, into skill points that you can then use to make those really cool looking weapons.

And it won't be a matter of simply "find the event with most rewards". There will be a large team just adding new events and rotating them. The team could add a whole new low level dungeon and, with the sidekicking, you will still earn XP from it. So you won't need to roll a new character to get rewards from new content, whatever level it is (well, at least, after you reached level 80).

About dungeons, one weird thing that caught my ears was the fact that Colin mentioned that the game will have "dozens of dungeons" and then said that there are "8 story dungeons". Now, we know this, but my paranoid in me said that, even if Colin rounded 8 to 12, it seems that there are dungeons that are not tied to your personal story and, thus, there are more than 8 dungeons in the game. But, again, that's the paranoid in me bringing conspiracy theories to the table.

In a way, the whole "end game", in my opinion after this talk, is now much more of a "meta end game": There is no end game per se, the things you can do playing the game become the end game.

Answering questions, Colin said that making dynamic events are much more complicated than doing traditional quest, as you have to worry about how the event will restart, the clean up after the event completion (either success of failure), rules how the world changes after the event and then test. And that this is requiring a team that it is 5 times larger the they needed for Guild Wars 1. But both Colin and Eric agreed that the rewards of such system outweights its complications.

Still in the questions, Colin and Eric confirmed that holiday events are back. There are some twists as the holidays we know form Guild Wars 1 are from a human perspective and now you have 4 other races in the world -- which was a cool thing to mention, in my opinion. They mentioned that Wintersday is surely back and the Mad King is back, this time fully voice.

There were other questions (including one about the event branching, which I mentioned above), like which elite skil was the coolest (Eric mentioned Charzooka and the Engineer Supply Drops and Colin said the current one was the Thief Basilisk Venom with a trait to give such venom to other party members, allowing them to, in turns, completely froze a dungeon boss) and another question about bosses that we shouldn't miss (Eric brought the boss at the end of the Asura tutorial and Colin mentioned a Charr boss at the end of the Flame Citadel dungeon).

In general, it was a good, although short, talk. It gave a good insight on their design and goals for end game without revealing too much. And now we wait for more of those talks -- in which Colin isn't so nervous -- or the final release in August 28th.

PS: If you want to listen to talk yourself or simply miss Colin smile, you can watch the whole thing in the Guild Wars 2 Twitch.tv account. Don't worry about the messy sound at the beginning, it fixes itself before they say anything really important.

#tumblrize #branching events #colin johanson #Dynamic Events #end game #eric flannum #event webs #guild wars 2 #legendary weapons #orr

My Plans for Guild Wars 2 Beta Event 3

Only 8 days to go to the last Beta Weekend of Guild Wars 2 and there is only one thing I want to do:

Roll a male guardian of every race and do enough dynamic events to reach Kessex Hills and Fort Salma and buy the "Seraph Issued Armor". Why? Because that's the last armor I managed to get with my human Guardian and it's one of the armors that have a very distinct look. While other armors would have a single small piece that made it look different from the others, the Seraph Issued armor really stands by its own.

And, in case you're curious, that's how I looked (and yes, the armor is freaking weird):

#tumblrize #armor #beta #guild wars 2 #seraph issued #weekend

When Games Go Beyond Gaming

This post should go live waaay before this, around the time of the 2nd Guild Wars 2 Stress Test. But hey, who said I could come with some clever title for it?

Anyway, there are only two moments in my life where a game made me move back in my chair to get a clear picture of everything I was seeing.

The first one was in World of Warcraft, after Cataclysm. At the time, the only thing I wanted was the Loremaster title, which requires completing almost every single quest in the game. I was going around in the flooded Thousand Needles, in a boat with goblins and dwarfs. Your mission was to steal something in a bar (I can't really remember what it was) but it required some sort of distraction. Since the things between goblins and dwarfs weren't going so fine, all you needed to do was to smash a bottle in someone's head.

And there I was. In a bar in a boat in the middle of a huge lake, with cramped tables, all with mixed dwarfs and goblins and a single bottle sitting in one of them. You looted the bottle, opened you inventory, selected any other NPC, double clicked the bottle and... the whole bar starts fighting. The scene was so weird, so surreal and still so funny, I almost forgot I had to steal whatever I needed.

(In case you're curious, the name of the quest is Bar Fight!)

The second time was in Guild Wars 2 2nd Beta Weekend.

In my attempt to get some XP, I decided to go around completing the waypoints and interest points in Hoelbrak when I witnessed the following conversation between two NPCs:

Bann, a Norn hunter, approaches Shaman Ursel with a problem.

Bann: I was out in the Borealis Forest, not far from here, and I came across an enraged broodmother.

Bann: I tracked it for a while, I was in a dominant position, until it caught my scent and attacked.

Bann: When the fight was over, the broodmother and its offspring lay dead, scattered in the underbrush.

Shaman Ursel: So you won the battle.

Bann: It's true. My enemy is not the broodmother or her ravenous kits.

Bann: My enemy is the wound I suffered during the fight. It can't be healed. I can't hunt. I can't do anything.

Bann: I'm less than half what I was, and I don't know how to overcome it.

Shaman Ursel: I understand your challenge, and Bear has a lesson that'll give you comfort, it you're ready to learn it.

Bann: I'm ready.

Shaman Ursel: Bear teaches us the seasons. We have spring, winter, summer and autumn.

Shaman Ursel: In the spring, the bears awaken, find mates and form families. In summer, they teach their cubs to survive.

Shaman Ursel: In autumn, they hunt, and the forest belongs to them. In winter, THEY belong to the forest.

Shaman Ursel: In life, we also have seasons we must respect. Your season has changed, but you're no less part of the forest.

Bann: I think I understand.

Shaman Ursel: Don't try to walk autumn's path in winter. Bear has given you a new mantle to wear and new challenges to overcome.

Now, maybe it doesn't make a connecting with you right now, but it will, eventually. And the fact that such lesson is given by two NPCs that don't do anything more extraordinary while still following the theme in the game... that's completely mindblowing.

#tumblrize #bann #bar fight #bear #cataclyms #guild wars 2 #seasons #shaman ursel #world of warcraft

PvE Currency in PvP

This question popped frequently in /r/guildwars2: "Should people doing SPvP earn some XP?"

My instance on this was the more pragmatic possible: "I don't think they should mix a PvE 'currency' in a PvP environment."

If I wanted to expand, I'd go with a "There should be a careful balance in this. If there is enough XP in SPvP, people won't bother with the PvE and would only do PvP till they reached level 80, enable a bunch of skills and all traits and then roam through the low level zones wreaking havok (yes, you're downleveled, but the access to more powerful skills and all the traits do make a difference. On the other hand, if the XP is below the PvE experience, people will ask why it's there in the first place. So, without mixing those two, ArenaNet avoids a bunch of balancing problems."

But recently I went into some weird thoughts about PvE currency in PvP:

You can reach level 80 if you go max level with all crafting professions. It would be an alternate way for people in SPvP to level up without earning any XP directly. All you need was, say, a little gold reward with your glory rewards.

But not all crafting disciplines can be leveled with gold alone. Cooking, for example, require materials that can be gathered around -- which you can buy with gold in the Trading Post -- and materials that can only be bought with Karma. Now, seriously, would you expect someone to buy those materials with Karma and sell them in the Trading Post?

So, besides gold, SPvPers would require some Karma rewards.

This would keep the Trading Post busy and always with something to sell.

Of course, there is another solution: As you can, today, trade Gems to Gold (and vice-versa), there should be a way to trade Glory -- the PvP currency -- to Karma. Then, people would be able to buy stuff with Karma and sell them in the Trading Post, earning Gold and using it back to buy materials to craft stuff and then sell those in the Trading Post again, making the Trading Post useful and giving players a "sink" for Glory.

(Or, maybe, you can already buy bags/boxes with crafting materials with Glory and all this is simply an idea that makes absolutely no sense.)

#tumblrize #crafting #glory #gold #guild wars 2 #karma #leveling #materials #trading post

My Take On Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend 2

Last Sunday we had the end of the second beta weekend of Guild Wars 2. Everyone could still use the characters from the first beta weekend -- no wipe this time -- and with "OH, this is new!" feeling gone, I think it gave a clear view of what we can find in the game.

Something New, Something Old

So, what changed in this beta compared to previous one?

First, visually, the endurance bar now sits on the top of your health bubble, with a tick pointing how many dodges you can still do. So you can, pretty quick, see that you have enough endurance for another dodge or not. Where the endurance bar was, now is the boons and conditions bar, which previously were sitting on the top of your health bubble. With all those changes, the cast bar was also moved down, giving a bit more of visual space in the middle of the screen (although I can't say that the cast bar was too high to break any kind of immersion).

Also, boons and conditions now clearly show how many stacks you have and how long it will last, using a white outline around the icon.

The map also changed. Instead of the radar map you had in the previous beta, the map now is, basically, a window, which you can resize any way you want.

Also changed is the tiered skills and tiered traits. What does this mean, anyway?

Tiered skills works exactly like before, but instead of having access to all skills straight away, you have to pick at least 5 skills of Tier 1 to enable the Tier 2 skills and at least 5 Tier 2 skills to have access to the Tier 3 skills. There was a huge debate about this blocking people from creating characters the way they wanted, but I didn't see this a huge game-breaking. It's more like "Hey, try this skill before you try that other one". With my Warrior, I could clearly see that they had some 3-point-skills that were basically upgrades from 1-point-skills (for example, signets in the Tier 1, although having the same functionality of a Tier 2 skill, the stats were more in line with what most warriors will probably use -- which didn't totally ruled the Tier 1 out if you're trying a different build).

Tiered Traits also works almost like before, but now you have 3 tiers of traits: Adept, Master and Grandmaster, each allowing you to add 10 more points in the trait lines. To open each of those, you need to buy a book from your profession trainer. So, if you only buy the Adept book, you can only apply 10 points on each of your trait lines. Another change here is that some major traits require at least one tier. Yes, I can't explain this but basically, this means that some traits can only be selected if you have enough points in that trait line. For example, let's say that Protector's Impact, a Guardian trait, is a Master trait; this means that you can't pick it if you have only 10 points in Zeal, but you can use it as your Grandmaster major trait, if you have 30 points in Zeal.

Why they changed this? Basically, this was a way to prevent the abundancy of 30-10-10-10-10 builds, where people would pick one specialization and then apply 10 points on every other trait line and pick the most awesome major trait there. Personally, this didn't affect me 'cause I didn't level enough to have to worry about Master traits, even if I could manage to get the gold for the Master book (Adept book goes for around 21 silver, Master and Grandmaster books cost 1 gold) and because the only times I played with a build creator, I went with things like 30-15-15-10-0. I didn't even checked what major traits are available at Master and Grandmaster, so I'm holding my opinion if this is good or bad till we have a finalized trait list.

Dashed Plans

My initial plan for this BWE was to spend the whole time in PvP. Unfortunately, that didn't happen as expected.

First of all, I went into WvW, expecting that my experience as a level 20 would be much better than it was when I did at level 4. Well, it just happens that it didn't. Sure, you have the upscaling to 80, but I still felt too much underpowered compared to others.

One thing I thought it would help this time was the gold I got last time. So, first thing I did when I joined the Eternal Battlegrounds was to buy blueprints. Knowing how well the ham did last time, I bought 3 blueprints straight away, effectively using all the gold I had. Lo and behold, there was a bug that some people were getting a "Cannot Deploy Equipment" condition, with the single explanation of "..." (I'm not kidding, that was the explanation). There were some solution floating around -- basically, getting out of the WvW maps, going to your home instance, then going all the way back -- but seriously, no one would do that in the middle of a fight. The other option was to drop the blueprints in the ground for others without the condition to use -- a process that it isn't that simple: you had to open your inventory, double click the blueprint, which would change your skill bar to the blueprint bundle, close the inventory and then select the "drop bundle" icon. Annoying, but still doable during combat -- as long as you had someone without the condition in your team.

Rewards are still not great. Sure, I got more gold this time due to rewards being scaled to a level 20 instead of a level 4, but still wasn't that great.

One thing I learnt was that defending can be a huge source of income. One time I was alone defending a tower, doing whatever I could as a Guardian without any ranged weapons (it was my choice, and I totally regret it). So I would take the portal, smack some people a bit, drop some symbols, run back to the tower and, from the time to time, pick some supplies and fix the gate. Thing is, while you're defending, you enter a 2 minute event "Prevent attackers from capturing the point". So, if you're doing that and if the attackers can't capture the point, you earn a gold medal in the event. If they take 10 minutes to break the front-gate, congratulations! You just completed 5 events with a gold medal! So you can get a lot of crappy rewards, if you have the patience.

(Also, for the note, I did get out of the Reddit guild I was in the very beginning of BWE1 when the guild broke and thought it wasn't nice bothering the guild leaders again, so I roamed the last day of BWE1 going solo. I joined a guild -- received a random invite during one event -- but that guild was almost dead this BWE.)

It's All in the Wrist

Another thing that shook me away from PvP was my unfamiliarity with the game after a month. And that's when I saw the real power of the pre-purchase. But that will require a more deeper explanation.

So, my first day: I'm noticing things aren't going so well in WvW, so I decided to level a bit more. And if you were around me, you'd see a Guardian going around and jumping after one mob is dead and there are more around. Yes, as it happened in the first day of the previous beta, I was running around, selecting targets with Tab and then pressing Space, as if I was in Guild Wars 1. Dodge? None. But starter zones are easy-peasy, so I didn't mind too much.

Day 2: Now I'm not jumping anymore and I'm dodging, although everything is badly timed. Spamming skills like there is no tomorrow.

Day 3: I'm finally seeing the telegraphs and dodging in perfect timing. I'm slowly building a rotation of sort in my head: It seems a good idea to use the snare after I use the AoE, not the other way around. I can see which situations each skill is a good idea and those that aren't. I'm finally letting my middle finger go of the right mouse button and I'm using the cursor do inspect other people health mid fight to see if it's worth putting Symbol of Faith down. I'm using Judge's Intervetion to bring down groups (and occasionally annoy my foes in WvW). Just noticed I didn't use my Virtues. At all.

And why does this means a somewhat unfair chance for pre-purchasers: 3 day head start. When everyone else join the world, those (me included) will already have 90% of game mechanics nailed down. The sense of familiarity settled down and everything have a known face.

Press R to Level

During the post-WvW leveling, I was going everywhere trying to find dynamic events like a complete moron, trying to get the maximum XP of every encounter, I decided to sit back and just walk around and complete the maps.

What I actually found was that, by finding everything in the map, including the cities, you get a really good XP reward.

So yeah, pro-tip time: If you want to level faster, try to complete all the points of interest, heart events, waypoints and skill challenges.

Stand Awhile and Listen

One thing I must say is that, this time, the cutscenes really felt out of the place. In the previous beta, things weren't so bad, but this time... Ugh!

I remember people complaining about it and, if you remember, it didn't bother that much in the previous beta but this time, with all that familiarity with the game settling, it really felt out of place.

But thing is: ArenaNet already have a better system in place.

When I was leveling an Engineer, again in the Norn lands, there was a custscene about the Minotaur spirit being angry and you and Eir should investigate it. The cutscene cuts and you have Eir and Ferghen still discussing about why the Minotaur spirit would be upset. That was way more entertaining/interesting than the cutscenes 'cause it really felt like Eir was talking with Ferghen and not those two discussing with a third person in the far away.

Didn't Mario'd as Much as I should

I really thought about getting into those jumping puzzles, but I couldn't find any. It's probably easy to find those if you know where they are, but if you're expecting to stumble upon those challenges while walking around... though luck.

In a way, thinking about getting into the jump puzzles was more of an issue than something funny. Why? Because one would think that those two rocks near each other is a jump puzzle and stop doing whatever they were doing, in the hopes of finding something cool in the end.

On the other hand, I did try the WvW dungeon. Which, as any other jumping puzzle, is a pain to find. I only found the entrance 'cause I saw a video on how to find the entrance. And, even with that, I couldn't get much farther, as there are no obvious indications on where you should go (the WvW puzzle have a "start... HERE" indicator, but that's it).

I saw a video later one how to complete the WvW jump puzzle and the rewards were pretty damn impressive. But, again, finding those is not something you just come around.

Conclusion

Even if I sound a bit frustrated -- going around trying to find dynamic events to be able to do WvW effectively, not being able to find the jumping puzzles by myself -- I must say that, man, that was fun. In the very end, I think the most frustrating thing in the whole weekend was the feeling that I had a very short window to enjoy the game, so I kept pushing me to keep going even when my body and mind were falling apart and getting disconnected from each other. If it was a continuous beta, I think I would enjoy it a little bit more. But, then again, that's absolutely not the point of the beta, the point is to find bugs and report them (something I failed miserably by forgetting there is a report bug button inside the game and only got my head right after the forums were closed).

So... yeah, there are minor issues, some balancing issues still exist, I didn't notice any increase of FPS (but that was noted by ArenaNet: Not everyone would see an increase of performance yet), effects still need some tone down and, maybe, mobs in the starting zones need larger telegraphs so people get the idea of dodging straight away. But the game feels pretty good already, even if I didn't feel we had a huge jump in progress from BWE1 to BWE2.

#tumblrize #beta #guild wars 2 #weekend

Firefall Needs Some PvE Love Too

In the last few days, I was collecting information on Firefall, which I got a beta key recently. Because the beta servers are, currently, running 24/7, I could check the game in and out -- but then I got the Torchlight II key and things went downhill.

With the TL2 key in hands, I kinda let Firefall slip a bit. But I was, from time to time, putting thoughts together on how to explain Firefall, what it does right, what I think it doesn't fit or feels weird... and then Red5 drops this:

Basically, what they are saying is "the base is changing". With the base changing, I can't really say if things work or not. Surely, I'll write my take on it once the conversion is done -- 'cause, you know, Firefall beta test is now going 24/7 -- but I didn't hear a word about the PvE part of it.

Sure, I understand that the main focus of Firefall is PvP and the PvE is there as training ground. I didn't do any PvP yet in Firefall, to be honest -- not that "it's not my thing", as it was the only thing I was doing in WoW, but I'm the kind of guy that first have to understand how to play before jumping into PvP. People usually understand that you're a noob and some things you may not understand straight away -- at least, in the betas, good luck trying that in a LoL match -- but I really don't like to jump into a PvP match and end up with the feeling I didn't really help my team 'cause I didn't got the mechanics right. Sure, people will punch their desk and go on, but if I end up with the feeling that I didn't actually fit the shoes I chose, I ruined other people's game. Also, what kind of shoe I want to wear is something I want to find by myself instead of jumping into other people's game and trying to find it there[1].

Personal insecurities aside, I spent all my Firefall time so far in PvE. The story, as I remember watching, is that you start in Fortaleza after some weird thing that made all nature larger, but you keep fighting and expanding the "known world", and keep protecting it from being taken over again (and some sort of "human bad guys" group, which I only saw when I got in). That sounds like an awesome "thug-of-war" combat and, for those that are not that into PvP, it would give a larger meta-game to go after.

But, so far, PvE consists of a single daily quest: Thumper collecting. Thumper is a device added to the game to collect minerals, which currently you need to improve your gear (emphasis on "currently" 'cause it may change in the future). So you're playing a medic, you buy a blue print -- or find one, dropped by one of the mobs -- for a better gun and then you have to collect the materials to build said gun. That's where the thumper comes in. And, as I said, the only mission currently after you complete the tutorial quests that explain how combat, research and build works, it's all you can do: Collecting 400 of one mineral and that's it.

And the mob variation is absurdly small. On the top of my head, I can count 6 models (one of those which is pretty much a normal/player model with a different color), with some varying textures and sizes. And, that's all you see around. It gets really boring seeing the same thing over and over again. "Wait, didn't I just killed 20 of those already?"

Yes yes, I know, the focus is in PvP. I said that myself. That's where Red5 is focusing right now and what they want to complete first and then focus a bit in the grand scheme of PvE. I just think it shouldn't be forgotten 'cause even LoL in its matches against bots can be interesting if you want a quick pass time.

Side note: Beta is beta, that's not the current focus, my laptop is not, in any stretch, a gaming machine (heck, it's a MacBook Pro, for fucks sake), but in the matter of graphical engine, the engine is pretty slooooowww. In order to get something near 30 FPS, I had to put in the "extremely low" setting -- which could also be one of the reasons I didn't venture into PvP yet: How am I supposed to engage in fast combat when the game is so slow? Again, beta is beta, that's not the focus of the team yet, but it's a kinda a put off at the moment, 'cause you watch any video around and the game looks so beautiful and then, when I run it on my machine, in the low settings it looks so bland and boring.

[1] Who am I trying to kid? I'm usually the healer/support guy.

#tumblrize #beta #firefall #pve #reborn

My Take On Torchlight II, Stress Test Week

For a bit, I thought I didn't make into the Torchlight II Stress Test weekend (and I'm using the word very freely 'cause, although called "Weekend", it started on Friday and went all the way to Thursday). But then, Saturday early morning, I got the email with the key (and it was the first time I was kinda glad I had another insomnia attack). And there I went, even before the sun shine it first light, I was playing.

Also, beware that I may spoil some stuff, but this should be in the first 10% of the game -- and, by my calculations, this game is huge. But be happy, lots of screenshots in this one.

The Beta

So, what's in and out of this beta?

First, all classes are available. What classes? Don't worry, I'll get to that in detail soon.

Also, all pets are available. What pets? Don't worry, I'll get to that in detail soon.

You can level all the way to 21, but then you will stop getting XP. Fame also have a threshold. You can only see the first two tiers of skills -- although you won't get enough points to open all those in all three trees. All trees are available, by the way. And you can only complete the first 3 parts of Act 1 (where you'll receive a nice message about the end of the beta).

By the way, to reach the end of the beta, it probably took me about 10 hours in normal mode (two afternoons and one night). So yeah, the final game, with all acts, should be, again, huge.

Same Old, But With a Twist

The Style

The style didn't change much, compared to the first Torchlight.

It's a bit zoomed out, yes. Some will like, some won't. I had only one small problem with it: Due the low contrast between static and dynamic content, it's kinda hard to see enemies going around. More than once I thought it was done, time to collect my loot and found that there was still enemies around 'cause, instead of picking said items, my character was swinging his weapon. The fact that enemies follow the map style -- snow people in the snowy areas, brown/green monsters in the forest zones -- make this a bit more complicated. Sure, a snow yeti in a forest zone would make it easier to spot, but that won't make any sense.

If they are using the same engine, I must say that they improved the lightning and particles effect a lot. You can clearly see this inside the dungeons.

And the maps, man, they are huge now. Not only you have your town quests, you have random quests appearing everywhere, mostly leading you into a dungeon -- including a lantern that will take you to One-Eyed Willy ship in a cave (yes, it is a reference to Goonies).

In a nutshell, what Runic is doing is walking the same path they did when they were Blizzard North: This is much closer to Diablo II than anything else -- well, with the cartoony style on top and huge maps, but you get the idea.

Pets

Your faithful companions are back -- and now you have 8 options of pets instead of only 2.

And, with pets, the "send pet to sell the trash" also returns.

The change now is that now not only they can sell stuff, you can also put orders for them. Running low on identify scrolls? No problem, send you pet to sell all that trash and bring some scrolls back. Some potions. Pets also wear gear. ok, it's only 3 slots, but enough to make them more useful than simply extra casters -- which still exists, by the way.

Potions

Yes, potions are back. And here is a tip if you get the final game: Remove both potions from your skill bar. You will still need them, but you don't need them there and staying there will one deceive you. There are two shortcuts, Z and X, that will make you use the appropriate potion when necessary. Only a scratch? No problem, Z will take the smallest potion in your bag. Your huge mana pool is almost empty? Pressing X will get the biggest mana potion you're carrying.

Fishing

Fishing is also back, although I haven't extensively used (or the fishes, to be honest). There is a small change, though: Wild fish pools now have a number of possible casts. So no more sending your pet to sell your shit and have two minutes all by yourself fishing around -- which I did a lot in the first game and that's probably why I haven't played extensively this time.

You can also buy explosives and send the pool to the sky, getting everything at once, with the downside of reducing the number of fishes you'd normally get if you did it properly.

Chests

Shared chests are back, but now they got a little brother: Your character personal chest. So you end up with two chests, increasing the amount of trash you can save even further -- which is a good addition, nonetheless.

Unidentified Loot

Unidentified items are also back, but now you don't need to search for a scroll in your inventory and then find the item to be identified: Only right click the item and, if you have enough identify scrolls available, it will automagically identify it.

Streamlined to awesomeness, if you ask me.

Waypoints

Waypoints are back, but they don't appear every 5 levels deep into the dungeons. Actually, I don't think I ever found a waypoint inside a dungeon this time, but never mind that. Once you enter a new zone, you will find the waypoint that can take you back to the town or any other waypoint.

What changed this time? If you're playing with friends, you'll get an option to teleport directly to where they are.

The Town

The first Torchlight was centered around the town of Torchlight and it's infinite dungeon right under the graveyard. This time, though, you start in the middle of nowhere and then make your way to the first town. And there, magical things happen.

First thing you'll notice is that the city is kinda empty. There are two vendors, one for potions and scrolls and another for gear. There is the guy who can refund your skills points and that's basically it.

But thing is, as you progress through the level, you find other denizens which will move to the town and offer you special services, like the enchanter (up to level 1 enchantments) and the gem recover and gem removal twins. Being beta, that was the ones I could find, but one can expect that, in the full game, you'll have a lot more people coming and bringing more life to it.

(There are also the special appearance of a known personality of Torchlight 1, but I won't tell you who she is. Actually, the whole game seems to go around old known faces from the previous game.)

The Classes

Instead of the 3 classes you had in the original Torchlight, you now have 4 distinct classes.

The Engineer: Is the strong-man in the pack. It probably covers the barbarian class in the original.

The Embermage: Is the caster. It covers partially what the Alchemist did, but I got the feeling that it was more ranged than its older counterpart (the Alchemist had more melee-ranged skills but, then again, we only could see the first 2 tiers of skills).

The Outlander: It's the physical ranged class, encompassing what the Vanquisher did in the first game. It still have the preferably-range feel, but can go into melee without a problem.

The Beserker: It's another melee class, which I think covers the other half of the Alchemist. It's much more closer to the Druid in Diablo II than anything in Torchlight, though.

The new classes are not tied to any gender like the first game. You can have a female engineer or a male Outlander (or vice-versa). It's all up to you.

As the original Torchlight, all classes can wield any weapon: From claws to swords, from long swords to hammers, from pistols to Bazookas (and I'm not kidding here). All classes also have a Charge mechanic, whose effect change from class to class.

For the engineer, Charge make some spells more powerful: Your energy shield will absorb more damage, your special attack will do more damage; The Embermage gets a few seconds of mana free casting; At full, the Berserker gets some seconds of continual critical damages; and for the Outlander... well, that was the only class I didn't play in the beta, for no particular reason.

The problem with this mechanic is the same we have with any "charge up" mechanic: In most times, it will reach it's peak when the last guy dies, which completely wastes it. Sure, it's not a design problem, it's more of the random number Gods displeased with me or something, although this problem is greatly diminished with the Engineer 'cause it can use a partial charge bar: your energy shield won't be as thought, but it will reduce some damage, nonetheless; the skill that does more damage uses only one charge and a full bar have at least 6. Maybe some sort of partial Charge usage skill for every class would be a good idea here.

Skills

All trees, for all classes, now have a column with only passive skills.

What is interesting here is that it doesn't matter what the tree is for, the passives are useful no matter what. For example, if you pick an Engineer and specialize it in "Aegis", a tanky and damage absorption tree, you'll find a passive that increases your damage based on your shield. But, on "Construction", the tree for minion-based Engineers, you'll find a passive that increases your armor. And, on "Blitz", the pure damage Engineer tree, you'll find a passive to increase the rate you get Charge, which you can then use for your energy shield. This solves a small pet peeve of me, when on high level content in the first Torchlight I had absolutely nothing interesting to waste my skill points. Now, no matter what path I chose, I still can put points everywhere and have an effective build.

Combat

Combat needs its own section for one single reason: Everything is tied to way the weapons work and the clear and nice balance Runic put on it.

For example, every melee weapon, with the exception of claws, swing in arcs, damaging every enemy in front of it. The larger the weapon, the wider the arc and more damage split around -- but it does have a slower swing, as you'd expect. So, to maximize your DPS -- and survivability, as mobs that die faster are also the ones that do less damage -- you have to use your knockback abilities to pile them up and then attack.

Claws, as a mentioned, doesn't have an arc. They are specifically designed to hit single targets, but they also do a lot more damage (the ones I found could do about twice the damage of another "arc" weapon in the same level). So, when using claws, your tactic is actually to split enemies, then focus on each one individually -- or make them come in a "conga" line and deal with each one in succession.

The embermage, as the caster class, relies on, obviously, ranged magic, but you can clearly see there is a nice balance on the spells. The initial spell, a fire blast, fires rapidly and can pierce through enemies, but have a initial build up, which makes it not simply stop firing at will to save mana. A blizzard like spell, which hits everything in the screen (and you saw how large the screen is) have a somewhat hefty cooldown. A strong spell with no build up, rapid fire and lots of different damages types have a huge mana cost.

Speaking of enemies, it seems Runic took a route similar to Path of Exile about enemy numbers. One enemy? Pffft. Two enemies? Easy peasy. Three enemies? I'm invincible! Seven enemies? OH GOD, FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! And the game really pushes to always have seven or more enemies all over you. But, at the same time, when you have seven enemies all over you, it's the point when you see more loot falling around, which makes surviving those encounters a lot more rewarding -- even if it's a bunch of white items, you feel like you did accomplish something great, you fought, you survived and you got lots of stuff. Instant rewarding.

Another cool addition is was I call "random Arenas": You'll find some strange place where enemies will simply pop up and come attack you. Once you beat those guys, another wave of enemies will pop up and attack you, till you fight a huge enemy with drops a nice pool of loot.

It's really interesting when you find one of those and I wish there were more -- in my way to the end of the available content in the beta -- Up to part 3 of Act 1 -- I only found two or three of those.

Still into combat, let me tell you about traps. Yup, trapped chests are back and your character will warn you about them. But the thing is, traps are now neutral instead of being part of the "enemy" gang. This means that if you open a trapped chest and it spills poison around, anyone going through it will get poisoned, including enemies! And vases with bombs inside, if you walk away and let an enemy go over it, BLAM!, explosion damage to them!

Music

I know this will be a though thing to say, but I don't like Matt Uelmen music that much. Don't get me wrong, the guy is good and what he did for Diablo 1 and specially Diablo 2 is awesome. But when you play Torchlight 1, you have this nagging feeling that he was trying too hard to redo the same atmospheric music he did in Diablo 2. It was almost like Torchlight had no personality in itself.

But I'm glad to say that, although the base tones are still there, the music really pumps you up in boss fights. It is impressive. Everything else, I still got that "trying too hard to be Diablo 2" vibe.

Conclusion

The game is fun and rewarding, but the setting is a bit off putting, to be honest. The way it's hard to spot enemies sometimes makes it a bit annoying. But when you think how many deep mechanics are buried in Torchlight 2 and how those mix together, how large the game play seems to be, that you can mod it, that you can play when offline, that you can play either by lan with your friends or even online with Runic servers and that it will cost only U$ 20, it's almost like signing your stupid certificate if you like hack'n'slash games and not buy this one.

#tumblrize #my take on #torchlight ii

I Want to Be the Failure

After thinking a bit about the story roller coaster in Guild Wars 2, I can't stop thinking that maybe I want to be the failure, not the success.

Now, what I mean with "story roller coaster" is the fact that the game starts with a high note and then simply drops all and starts over again. Take, for example, the human story[1]: You wander off Divinity's Reach, you see a small town under attack by centaurs and then, without any previous knowledge on how to fight (you know the basic attack with your main hand, and that's it) you not only save some people, but you also repel an army of centaurs, destroy a huge elemental and escapes almost unharmed (well, you remains unconscious for 3 days, but that's it, no permanent damage or anything). Think about it: Without any huge knowledge of combat, you killed a bunch of centaurs that were terrorizing a small town and fought a huge elemental! And what you do next? You fight ruffians in a bar.

Sure, the elemental -- and the ice wurm and the spirit-controlling-a-huge-statue -- are part of the tutorial level, which should give an idea on how powerful you are and how strong the enemies you'll find will be.

But the problem is: You can't fail the destruction of the earth elemental; you can't fail killing the ice wurm; you can't get beaten by the spirit-in-the-statue. No matter how bad or good you do, you will forever, in the game, be the savior. And maybe, just maybe, there should be some sort of failure even in those events.

If we talk about the Norn tutorial, what if you get severely beaten by the ice wurm, so Eir had to step up and save your sorry ass? In that case, people won't call you "Slayer" all around, but "The one who failed the great hunt". All you had to do is make Eir say something like "I can see that the spirits still smile upon you, even after your failure. Maybe you're, indeed, someone who will make a great legend one day" -- and everything, from there on, would still follow the same path (except for the "slayer"/"the failure" change).

Eir had to step up 'cause you didn't fought as hard as you could; Thackery had to destroy the earth elemental himself 'cause you weren't up to it; Rytlock had to fight the statue of king Adelbern 'cause you were a sorry excuse of a Charr (and, who knows, Caithe had to fight the nightmare court latest plot 'cause you didn't had the roots to combat it). But all of them would see something different in you, or still believe in your because at least you went forward and fought the problem and they will give you chances to recover your legacy.

At the same time, I understand that, for something like this, ArenaNet would need to provide a more comprehensive tutorial, explaining dodge mechanics, how you can move and still attack, using skills at the right time... It would be more complex and, thus, taking longer instead of "fast road to glory" 'cause, you know, you don't want people to believe that failure is the only option. And, on top of that, I bet several lines of voice-over would have to be remade, just to cover things like the change from "slayer" to "failure".

Still, I'd like failure as an option for the tutorials.

[1] I'm using the human story 'cause it's the only one I can remember what happens after the tutorial.

#tumblrize #failure #guild wars 2 #personal story #success #tutorial

My Take on Lord of the Rings: War in the North

After completing Mass Effect 2 twice, I thought it was time to pick another game. On the top of my wishlist it was "Lord of the Rings: War in the North". I saw Jesse Cox, Wowcrendor and Trilian playing the whole campaign as multiplayer and it seemed fun. Just before pressing the "Buy" button, though, I saw that it had a metacritic rate of 66/100 and that got my worried.

Honestly, the game doesn't deserve 66/100. It's not a 90/100 like Skyrim, Mass Effect and many others, but it surely deserved a bit more than that.

In its very core, LotR:WitN is an action-RPG with two buttons: the left button does a fast attack and the right button is for strong attacks. You can dodge and the mobs have a 2-3 second telegraph which gives plenty of time to avoid it. Because pressing two buttons all the time is boring, they added a special quick-time-event to give increased damage, in the form of a small triangle on the top of the head of the enemy.

When you get that, you press the strong attack button and receive a small special bullet-time animation and extra XP.

While you level up, you can unlock special attacks on your "talent tree". The trees are different based on the character you chose, which is locked to race and gender. So you have the magical elf chick, the ranger male human and the tanky male dwarf -- and, although apparently they seem tied to certain aspects of a holy trinity, every class can be ranged and melee, if they have the appropriate resource: Elf needs mana, human needs arrows and dwarf needs bolts.

The tree open 3 more "melee" skills and 1 ranged. But you still will be, most of the time, clicking mouse button 1 and mouse button 2.

Also, the combat happens in zones with the game throwing waves of enemies over and over again. For the type of action-RPG, this is pretty interesting, at first.

Unfortunately, for a very fun combat system, they put a lot of crap around.

For example, the maps are pretty linear and you end up moving from one arena to the other. And in the very few places where you see a fork in the road, it only forks into two different paths -- and one leads to the end of the main quest and another to some sidequest. And you don't even have to think: Press "Q", see the little map pointing towards the main quest and take the other one.

And then you have the secrets.

The problem with secrets is that only one class can see them. For example, the dwarf will see walls that can be burst open; the elf will see walls guarded by sigils and the ranger can follow special tracks and find hidden caches. It's fun, I can't deny it, but as you can only play it as character at the time, you can't find all the secrets in one level. And by the videos I saw, some secrets are chained, like there is an elven sigil inside a dwarven secret.

You can change characters though, but only after you complete the level.

But changing is also weird: You are there, playing with one character, seeing your companions using special skills and such, sporting some cool looking gear and then you decide to play another class. Suddenly, you see yourself playing without any skills and absolutely no gear.

I can't really understand how to gear up companions. I completed the story with the elf and then kept going (the story restarts in higher difficulty) with the dwarf. And then I saw the elf running around in complete starting gear. All the awesome gear I collected in the first run was completely gone. So I thought "Every single piece of extra gear I get from now on, I'll give it to her". Thing is, half way through it I noticed she was wielding weapons I never gave to her. So, apparently, you have ansolutely no control over your companions gear. And giving gear to them is like storing stuff in black holes: You're never sure if what they are wearing/wielding at that point is better than what you want to give them and they never return the old gear (in case you need the gold).

And we have the story. It does a lot of retconning just to give the idea that your group is actually helping Frodo and the Fellowship in completing their quest -- the story everybody knows from the books and movies. And then there are some weird dialogs were you get information from said books and movies: There is a line of dialog where your character asks if Bilbo knows Frodo and the NPC goes into a full discourse about how they are related, and how Bilbo actually found the ring, and how everything went on Bilbo 111th birthday... Everything you already know from, again, the books and movies. But it doesn't add anything in the game story or plot, it is just there only to give some connection with... ok, I'll say it again: with said books and movies.

In a way, the game feels like a Michael Bay movie: It's entertaining, but don't expect anything brainy.

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Shelf updates, 2012-05-05

Not too late this time, but added to shelf: Lord of the Rings: War in the North.

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