Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
The release of this show was delayed a bit this morning because I tried really hard to apparently release the show from two weeks ago all over again due to my gross incompetence. However now that I have righted that particular ship… please enjoy the show!
After having to miss last week we had more topics than realistically could fit into a show and only actually made it through three of them. The first is the launch of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem and how maybe early access isn’t actually a game launch in certain circumstances. We talk about the myriad problems with the online components of the game and the struggles with an indie trying to buy server capacity for high volume bursty connections. Thankfully there is an offline mode which allows us to talk a bit about why the game is worth the struggle. From there we talk about the impending Final Fantasy XIV 5.2 patch and the most recent live letter previewing features coming up for the game. Lastly we talk about returning to an alternate future where the NGE didn’t kill Star Wars Galaxies as Tam convinces Belghast to play Star Wars Legends.
Topics Discussed:
Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem
High Capacity Launches are Hard for Indies
Going from 1000 to 65,000 concurrent users in a day
As I wrote yesterday, Wolcen finally released and I have to say it has improved significantly even from when I last played it. It has been interesting to see game evolve from something that felt very ramshackle and sandboxy to what we have today. Wolcen feels like the love child of Diablo 3 and Path of Exile, having points that fans of both series would ultimately enjoy. From Diablo 3 it gained gorgeous animations and a fast pace style of combat that isn’t just hitting things with a broken chunk of wood for 10 levels. From Path of Exile it gained the sphere grid, albeit a way more sane and rational version of it. Each pick on the sphere grid feels like it is significant, rather than just having an excessive number of picks that felt so incremental that it was hard to notice any difference.
Something I noticed that I did not on previous play time was how much the Diablo 3 style of encounters seemed to be infused with them game. The path you are taking as part of the quest is littered with mini-dungeons that allow you to venture forth and take down what is likely a mini-boss for some loot opportunities. These are like the shacks and caves that you encounter in D3 and are roughly the same length with a warp at the end that takes you back outside. I also encountered my first version of this games Treasure Goblin, which was effectively a glowing beetle that scurried around dropping gold and trying to get away from me. When I finally did manage to kill it, it dropped about the same amount of loot that you would expect from a Goblin with a similar spread of rarities.
I also noticed the game had a bunch of little mini-games out in the world like kill these monsters that just spawned in order to unlock a treasure chest. I’m not really sure the breadth of these but so far the one or two I encountered felt more like Path of Exile shrines than they did Diablo style cursed chests. Another thing that I don’t think I remember from before is that you can learn all of the abilities that you encounter, not just the ones that you can currently equip. This allowed me to fill my bar early on and get some levels in the starter abilities for other builds not just the ones that matched the equipment setup that I happened to be using. The spell vendor seems to more expensive than I remember it being before, but thankfully the game was pretty generous with dropping ones that were usable by me. I now have a full bar worth of abilities that are usable and one or two alternates to swap to as I see fit.
One thing that I did not get to play with but I noticed was happening was the collection of items for the cosmetic system. Apparently you access this in game by hitting the B key and it brings up the interface shown in the above cosmetic preview video. While roaming around the world I kept noticing that every time I picked up an item I had not encountered before it was telling me that I was collecting its appearance. Then when taking down bosses in the game occasionally they would drop a dye pot, which unlocks that color permanently. So already they are on the right foot because I would rather build up a stable of armor tint options than having to keep around a bunch of expendable items to dye my armor. Additionally I love systems that collect appearances as I play the game without having to put a focus on specifically doing something else to override an items appearance.
I saw reports from friends that they were encountering issues playing last night, and thankfully I personally didn’t have any of these. That said I also didn’t really get settled in to play until around 8 pm last night, so potentially after any initial problems that they might have had. I know that they patched a few times, and this morning I attempted to pop in for a screenshot or two of the cosmetic system and I am getting game service timeout errors. You can check out the official Twitter to see the random problems they encountered throughout the night so it is in fact an MMORPG launch fraught with the same sort of issues that you have with those. You can play in offline mode but apparently there are issues with playing in Offline mode if you don’t have the latest version of the game, so I have just been sticking to online personally.
I did not make it super far last night, because the maps themselves are rather large when it comes to traversing them. Again this is one of those things that I would connect more to Path of Exile than Diablo 3. Still however I didn’t find myself getting frustrated by the slog and looking like a dirty hermit like I do with PoE. All in all I am digging what I am experiencing and I think this might be the game that scratches that “waiting for Diablo 4” itch for me. I’m actually looking forward to getting home tonight and playing some more which is usually a good sign for me and a game. So the question is… did you manage to get in last night? What are your own thoughts? Drop me a line in the comments below.
I didn’t think I had a post for today and then suddenly I did. Today is the day that Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem leaves Steam Early Access and officially releases. This has been a day that I have been waiting for and quite honestly it snuck up on me. I’ve talked about Wolcen before, but for the uninitiated it is an ARPG in the style of Diablo 3 from the eponymous Wolcen Studio from Nice, France. It began its life as a Kickstarter for a game called Umbra, which shifted into the game that has been available on Steam in Early Access for the last few years. In the time it has been on my radar it has changed significantly and morphed into a really enjoyable gameplay experience. It is a game where you more or less “build your own class”, and the initial decision that you make on character creation can be undone and changed at pretty much any point during the process.
Your character is effectively made of up three components, the first being the gear that you wear. This gear gives you specific stats that will ultimately dictate whether or not you can equip specific abilities. Through gearing you can choose to go all in on a more melee tanky warrior build like I have, or split down the middle and maybe focus on Strength and Agility both to do more of a tricksy light fighter with some ranged abilities. The third component is a complicated sphere grid style talent tree which allows you to rotate sections of it to match up what is your ideal build. I would say it is less complicated than Path of Exile, but definitely less straight forward than Diablo 3 skills.
The biggest change since I first started playing back in February of 2018, is that the game has a proper story line with what appears to be a rich and interesting world. I admit to date I have purposefully limited my play time with the thought of wanting to be able to experience the game proper once it finally and officially releases. At first glance though the storyline has deep undercurrents of feeling similar to that of Tyranny, which ranks among my favorite RPGs. You start out potentially not one of the good guys, and through actions completely out of your control are branded a pariah by your own people. You travel your path with two companions and I am curious to see how the intertwining story arcs play out in the end.
Since release appears to have come with a character wipe, I plan on playing around tonight and restarting the mostly tanky character that I had been playing previously. This means likely my adventures in Star Wars Galaxies and my play through of Mars: War Logs will be put on hold for a bit. In my experience in playing a lot of the games waiting in the wings all vying for the Diablo crown, this is the one that was the most promising. Others like Last Epoch are on fundamentally flawed ground and still more like Torchlight III formerly Frontiers are still gestating. For the time being however this is probably the best new Diablo game we are going to get at least until the release of Diablo 4. I know Grace has access to Wolcen as well and I am hoping to see how good or bad the group play is at some point once she finally gets internet again.
Yesterday a brand new trailer arrived in honor of the release day and it hints at some of the story elements. The game itself is roughly $30 on Steam and in my humble opinion well worth picking up if you like Action Role-playing Games.
I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out what to write today and quite frankly I have nothing much to say about anything. I played some SWG Legends last night and turned in a bunch of fractaline in Destiny 2, but past that I didn’t do anything of significance to talk about. I also find that I have no real inspiration as far as topics to branch out into. The last few days have been a struggle to get through and as such you are getting a picture of Josie fighting with a box to tide you over until actual content arrives. Hell maybe the content is hiding in the box that she is fighting with.
I'm having one of those spells where my brain is trying to convince me that no one actually likes me and at best barely tollerates me and any evidence to the contrary must be wrong
Late Monday night I tweeted a thing out, and I am still more or less in this mental space which is making it super hard to be creative or thoughtful about anything. I appreciate the support that folks have shown me, but like… I am in a place where that almost makes it worse? I had an interesting talk with my friend Lyle aka @x1101 that put it into perspective as he struggles with it as well. I’ve known for awhile that I battle with impostor syndrome at work, because on some level I expect to be unmasked as a fraud and failure at every turn. He said that this whole feeling that I am having… is basically impostor syndrome but for friendships. That in the same way that I don’t think I have skills, I also don’t think I am worthy of friendship.
When I have these doubts I don’t share them because I want positive reinforcement, because really that doesn’t work in the way that you would think it works. I share them largely because I want the other people out there who are struggling with their own mental and emotional prisons to know that they are not alone. I’ve been told that I am someone that people entering the blogging community find intimidating. Like I am someone who has their shit together and such and seemingly is not easy to approach with comments or ideas. While I do not at all get this, because in my head I am nothing… I have heard it enough times to know that it is apparently a thing.
So my hope is that when I share my doubts with you my readers and my own challenges, that maybe it makes your challenges feel a little more normal. I have a few friends that suffer from some of the same issues that I have, and have built a sort of virtual family of folks who understand me at a deeper level than I am worth understanding. It feels good to not be alone and to have friend who get at a fundamental level when I have to bail on some activity because I just can’t handle human interaction right now. My hope is by dredging up these demons and putting them out on display that maybe it helps someone out there too.
on ol Menawi Carants 
(@belghast)