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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.

https://www.gogigantic.com/redeem

Key 1: 4GB2KE5-I5FBYD-G433KKI-KN723Q
Key 2: BSKA5FG-SOFHUL-CCVNKBD-WLBRHQ
Key 3: ZIBOYHQ-ZQVHHX-FC3JL5T-6CMMKQ
Key 4: 3ML4C2H-RXJD5N-DRCJX3T-I5PAVU

Good luck! Hope to see you in game in the near future!

On Extremely High-Value Targets

September 14, 2015 by Ashgar

A little while back, I mentioned the trouble our Shadowrun crew was getting into. Here’s how it went:

Erase Police Records

Through sheer blind luck, I managed to roll my way out of getting arrested by the police, and got hired by them instead. (I still got the data I wanted too, but we ended up not using it. Pity.) Turns out that being allowed (even paid) to walk in is a great way to make sure that certain records aren’t there when you leave. This was done largely as a favor to the Prodigies, the NPCs that Tam is writing about.

Protect Shipment

As a side benefit to the above, we managed to get to the docks a little early, arriving in time to set up an ambush. Turns out they weren’t quite prepared to deal with a jet and a ninja. This one went way, way better than expected, as we managed to keep the gangs from running off with the shipment and making enough noise that the police showed up in large numbers, just as we were leaving…

Break Into Mansion

…which meant that there was no police detail at the mansion when we arrived. This is really what we came to Boston for in the first place: our investigations led to us looking for data on Project Alchera, and this was allegedly where it was located. As expected, we ran into quite possibly the most hated shadowrunner team in Boston, as we knew they’d been keeping tabs on us. Turns out the Prodigies had a grudge too, and Alice managed to wreck the place with a rather large fireball (at some cost to her own well-being). We did manage to clean up the entire opposing shadowrunner team, which means we’re leaving the Boston scene a little nicer than we found it. After some additional nonsense involving cutting communications and thinking we were just going to get the data and get out, we ran into Alchera II.

Alchera II turned out to be a very cybered-up woman. She was in a tank and appeared unconscious, so our initial thought was to save her. Then she woke up, and everything went to hell. Lashing out with very odd powers, she blew up electronic devices in her immediate vicinity, while also attacking everything available on the Matrix, which included the technomancer of the Prodigies, Nick. Her downfall was her arrogance: she tried to do too many things at once and ended up taking counterattacks both in the matrix and her physical body. An EMP accompanied her death, so we may not have gotten all of the data, but we got enough to work from. Among other things, we found out that there were 8 more of these things.

Get the Magic Box

Unfortunately, we had to leave the formerly burning, soaking wet building in kind of a hurry, as our jet was being shot at on the way out. We’re currently lying low (or as low as it’s possible to get in a VTOL), so we’ll have to take care of this last job while on the road. There’s also the matter of getting paid for the jobs we did do…