September 2015 – Page 11

Heading for a Trap

September 16, 2015 by Belghast

Slightly Darker Side

One of the ways I have differed so far from my friends, is that I cannot seem to bring myself to do ONLY the class story line. As a result I am ridiculously over leveling the content, and last night I worked on finishing up Nar Shaddaa. I’ve been enamored with the concept of the vertical city since first experiencing it in Dark Forces. In SWTOR Nar Shaddaa is the darker and more disturbing cousin of Coruscant and provides a very similar leveling experience. You travel through hub sections of the city until you end up in Shadow Town and resolve the central conflict of the story and your class quest. As a Smuggler this setting feels extremely at home, and as you might expect I do in fact get into plenty of trouble with Bounty Hunters and Hutts. Generally speaking when I have played SWTOR in the past, I am extremely light side focused. In fact I generally have trouble not choosing the “blue” option on any quest dialog. As a Smuggler however… I am finding it a little easier to choose that “red” option.

I guess I am ultimately playing my version of Han Solo… the goodnatured lovable scoundrel. When lives of innocents are on the line, I always end up choosing the “right” option and get those light side points. However when I am in a situation where I serve to profit greatly by looking the other way… I find myself “playing the character” and finding it significantly easier to to take those dark side points… and console myself with a pile of credits. Similarly if I have been double crossed… or if someone is doing something truly heinous… I find it oh so satisfying to take that [Attack Them] option. Horrific Imperial Scientist gene splicing people? Nope! Blaster to the head with you! Try and talk my way out of a bounty hunter? Nope! Blaster to the head with you! My weakness seems to be damsels in distress however… because I know right now I am walking into a big trap but I am having to play it off like my character would. It will also likely end up giving me another opportunity for sweet sweet revenge… which I am sure I will be unable to resist taking dark side points for. Thankfully I have diplomacy as a Crew Skill… and even though it is likely at the end of a blaster… it helps to repair all those dark side points.

Cavalcade of Commendations

One of the good changes while not playing the game, is the fact that they standardized the planetary commendation system. Now when you complete anything you have the option of simply taking “basic commendations” instead of the planet specific ones, and at the same time they have increased the total number you get before fifty exponentially. This means that I am constantly swimming in a good supply of them, and I could probably constantly upgrade my moddable gear… but I am finding that I don’t really need to. Since I am using Treek as my tank and she came with a full set of mod gear, and I managed to piece together a workable set from the GTN and the pilot packs… it allows me to pretty much ignore every quest reward and just go for more commendations. Since I am quite overleveled I was 21 before leaving Coruscant, at which point I went to the fleet and kitted out both armor for myself and Treek in the best modifications I could find at the time. This rather easily carried me through until the end of Nar Shadda, at which point I dinged 30 and repeated the same process with level 29 gear. If I can continue this process of upgrading my gear “every other planet” I should be in really good shape to have a pile of commendations for other upgrades.

Last night I spent some of my pile of credits on making myself look cooler. At some point they added in dye slots to the gear, which allows you to “socket” a dye that comes in either single color or dual tone combinations. Most of the really cool combinations are exorbitantly expensive, but I found one I could live with that was black and grey for roughly 40,000 credits. Then I went searching for a really cool gun, and found this one that is originally a cartel item… that folks were selling fairly reasonably on the market. The gun you end up with at the end of the starter zone is functional but not that cool looking… so I was more than happy to cast aside “Flashy”. I dig the fact that it looks like the blaster rifles that some of the troopers have. It fits my shoot first, ask questions later style of playing the “Sawbones” healer. I have long said that “looking cool” makes your character feel cool, and I am pretty happy with my Chiss Smuggler. I am extremely happy that I re-rolled him ages ago as a Chiss instead of yet another human. I am starting to develop this “savior of the aliens” rep in my questing choices, which is kinda awesome since people keep pointing out the fact that I am another “alien scum”. Still having a surprising amount of fun playing through the Smuggler storyline that I ultimately missed at launch.

Travels in New Vegas

September 15, 2015 by Thalen

I've been a fan of the Fallout series pretty much from the beginning. I defeated the Master back in the day, took down President Richardson and the Enclave, and restored water to the Capital Wasteland. Despite my initial reservations about the change from isometric to first-person gameplay, Fallout 3 became one of my evergreen games that I tend to go back to over and over. So it's kind of strange that I've not played Fallout: New Vegas until now.

Part of the reason, I think, is my tendency to want to do things in order. It's the same thing that kept me from ever playing Oblivion because I hadn't played the previous two Elder Scrolls games. In this case there were still things in Fallout 3 I hadn't done, particularly in the north part of the Capital Wasteland, and DLC that I haven't touched at all. Despite that I decided that, especially with Fallout 4 on the way, it was time to head back west and see what the Vegas area is like.

Fallout: Now with giant dinosaurs.

In a lot of ways the changes from Fallout 3 to New Vegas remind me of the move from Fallout to Fallout 2. For example New Vegas uses a combination karma and reputation system much like Fallout 2 did. Now I have to consider my relationship with multiple settlements and factions in addition to my overall good or evil level. So far I've met the Powder Gangers (they hate me so much now), NCR (we're pals), and the Legion (oh my god these guys are awful). I know the Brotherhood of Steel is active in the area as well, and it doesn't sound like they and the NCR get on too well. It also sounds like they're the old school insular jackasses I remember from the old days rather than the happy shiny DC Brotherhood.

I am trusting this robot less and less as the game proceeds.

Increased complexity seems to be a recurring thing in New Vegas. Multiple types of ammo for each weapon instead of just one each, masses of crafting recipes for food, equipment and more instead of just a few weapon schematics. It was a little overwhelming at first. I still haven't really made use of any special ammunition, though I imagine it'll be pretty useful against stronger and heavily armored foes.

I'm also definitely beginning to get the feeling that this is the true sequel to the previous Fallout games. I've begun encountering nightkin super mutants, and have heard references to the Master from the original game. I'm pretty sure I've met the daughter of one of my companions from Fallout 2 as well. She certainly drinks like him.

Overall, about ten or so hours in I'm greatly enjoying New Vegas. Now if you'll excuse me there are some ghouls who want my help flying to the moon. I just want them to not be here, so I am on board with this plan.

Off the Deep End

September 15, 2015 by Grace

Gigantic squid creatures? Sold!

I have been filling the time before the next WildStar drop by dabbling in some other games. The one that has suddenly taken up the bulk of my play time the past few days is SubNautica. This game is in Steam early access right now. Usually I avoid games that aren’t released yet, but this one seemed perfect for me, is pretty far along, and seems to be getting regular updates, so I went for it.

SubNautica is a survival/exploration game, with the premise that you’ve crash landed on a water planet and need to manage your food, water, and oxygen while you explore. You start out with just a life pod and a few supplies, but eventually you can craft your own sea base and submarines.

Nighttime in the depths is very dark but also pretty.

The game is supposedly made to work with the Occulus Rift and I bet that would be amazing. The views are beautiful and the motion of swimming and piloting the various watercraft just feels right. I’m not sure how much there will be to do since the game isn’t finished, but I’ve put about 12 hours into it so far and haven’t found the edge of the world or even all the different types of resources or biomes yet. I did finally manage to build the large “Cyclops” submarine, and spent a silly amount of time exploring it and driving it around.

Yes I named my sub after a bioluminescent sea creature. Who wouldn’t?

If you don’t mind taking a chance on an early access game and want to explore an alien ocean and get murdered by alien sea life, you should definitely check it out!

Universal Patronage

September 15, 2015 by Belghast

Account Social Systems

One of the things I have been spoiled on by playing quite a few Blizzard games is the existence of Battle.net as a common backbone. When RealID was originally released, I have to admit it bothered me quite a bit. I don’t actually use my real name very much online, and it isn’t necessarily because I am trying to obfuscate who I am… but more that I come from an era in the internet when everyone was their “handle”. Someones handle is more distinct and meaningful for me… than telling me their real name and oddly enough I have a much easier time remembering it. For example… I know several dozen folks with the last name of Smith… but I only know one Scopique. As Blizz took a step back they created the Battle Tag system and since then I have been happily known as Belghast#1752 making it significantly easier to meet up with people regardless of what Blizzard game they happen to be playing. This has been the case with most modern game releases, that they have some underlying account based system that allows me to quickly meet up with my friends by giving them a single idea that relates to all of my characters.

The problem is… when this system is missing I really notice it. It has been a recent struggle while playing Star Wars the Old Republic and the various Trion Worlds games. Sure it is nice to have disconnected alts that you can go hide on… but I have been willing to give up this for the convenience of being easily available. The thing that I find confusing with both SWTOR and Trion is that in both cases they have an underlying system that they could rely on for communication purposes. For SWTOR you have Origin chat… which is pretty horrible, but could at least serve as some common connective tissue. In the same of Trion Worlds though you have a shared account structure that through the use of the Glyph client gives you access to all of the games on your account. All that really seems to be missing is a single “Glyph ID” and a chat infrastructure built around it. The best feature of Blizzard games right now is that you can take your friend list with you into any game you go. So while I am not playing World of Warcraft, I can still keep touch with my WoW playing friends while I am in Diablo or Heroes of the Storm. It would be so nice if I could do this same thing while playing Trove, Rift, ArcheAge or eventually Devilian. Please make this a thing Trion Worlds!

Universal Patronage

While I am asking things of Trion Worlds this morning… I thought I would go ahead and throw in another thing. One of the features of the old Sony Online Entertainment games that I really enjoyed was the concept of the “All Access Pass”. Where you could pay one premium account price and get subscription level access to all of their games. I think back in the day it was something like $25 per month for an All Access account, instead of the individual $15 a month for each game. I loved this concept because it allowed me to pop back and forth freely between their games when I was in the mood to actively play them. The problem there is that for SOE and now Daybreak games… they are all titles that I play in spurts. However since the launch of Rift there has never been a time when I was not at least sometimes playing this game. While I may not play it seriously most of the time, I still keep poking my head in it. Similarly I am really enjoying the current state of ArcheAge, and I love poking my head into Trove. With the addition of Devilian to their lineup… it seems that I am ending up with a situation much like that of SOE where there are lots of different games that I wouldn’t mind playing.

The problem being that I simply cannot justify Patron access to ALL of them. So I have to pick and choose which game I want to activate at a given time. However if there was some sort of universal patron account that allowed me to pay one fee and gain patron access to all of their games… I would absolutely do it in a heartbeat. In the long run I think it would be a net win, since I doubt there are many people out there who are actively maintaining multiple patron subscriptions. You get a little bit per month out of the folks who were already subbing, to give them access to your entire library of games. This also allows you to do cross promotions between them, allowing the achievements in one game to maybe grant you something nifty in another game. This is again one of the strengths of Blizzards stable of games is that they are all interconnected at least to some extent. I feel the same sort of loyalty towards Trion Worlds as others do towards Blizzard, and I just think it would be awesome for something of this sort to happen. I realize Trion is a weird case in the fact that ArcheAge and Devilian for example are not developed in house… but my hope is that there is enough control on the back end systems to be able to implement a sort of universal patronage account.

Gigantic Codes

I have been sitting on an email that I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do with it. Gigantic is finally leaving its Alpha process and entering Closed Beta, and with it they are loosening the restrictions a bit and handing out friend codes to a lot of the folks who have been in the closed process for awhile now. There are some constraints on these however and I think it is important to mention that. Right now Gigantic is exclusive to Windows 10 and Xbox One, which I find mildly frustrating since it ran perfectly fine on Windows 8 up until this latest push. This however is a listed requirement, and since I have not been actively testing of late… I have to assume it is probably a legitimate requirement. If you are interested in checking the game out you have to hit the link below and redeem one of the codes I am posting. This is of course a first come first served sort of deal, but I figured the best option was to share them with my readers.