So, without further adieu, I give you this weeks place you should know about and love; Levelcapped!

It’s ran by Chris Smith (aka @Scopique on twitter) and features articles of his adventures in a  bevy of games (mostly MMO’s). It’s far more intelligently written than anything that’s laid down on the screen by my fingertips. These electrons hate me for wasting their time!

Sure, I could be doing many other things that, on paper, look more interesting than playing games. But I’m also kind of a wuss. I don’t like taking huge risks that could endanger my life or well-being. I’m not a huge fan of roller coasters or any form of “jumping-off-this-thing-from-way-high-for-kicks” as they make me quite nervous. I’m sure part of why I avoid this stuff is simply scientific and has to do with adrenaline, and the rest is most likely due to how protective my mother was. I was the only child and, until my son arrived, was the last guy in the family to carry on the name. So I had to wear a helmet at all times was forced to live in the basement. I was only allowed to eat foods that could be slipped under the door, so I mostly survived on pizza and pancakes.

Thankfully for my 4th birthday, I was given a very thin slice of cake, and an Atari, thus starting me down the path of gaming. I’ve always viewed games as a great way to relax, unwind and slip into a different place away from the harsh reality of a helmet obstructed view of a moldy basement. I apply the same attitude towards games as I do towards life in general. I can be serious and carry on a thoughtful conversation about gaming, but more often that not, I just talk about the fun parts because I find those more worth my breath.

I remember myself being much more dramatic about gaming when I was younger, and maybe I still am a bit and don’t see it. Not dramatic like writing, directing and starring in my own film about Sonic the Hedgehog based in turn-of-the-century London, but dramatic like “oh, this game is crap, so you should hate it just as much as I do.” The more I blog and talk with other gamers really has me question why I was ever like that. It’s probably natural to some degree. Something to do with the ignorance of youth, but it still bugs me that I ever acted that way. Sure, I feel that if a game has a glaring issue or annoyance it’s not a bad thing to share this dislike with others. But more and more I just find myself ignoring the negative feedback and concentrating on the good because I know there is usually someone out there who will love the game regardless.

I guess in the end, I just wonder if others see gaming the way I do.

Minus the helmet.

Mom says I can stop wearing it next year.

• Against All Odds: No more excuses for not wanting to fight the zerg. Or simply not wanting to RvR in contested areas. You know, actually going to RvR lakes where the opposition is hanging out instead of running to take empty keeps and battlefield objectives. This buff gives the underdog realm incentive to fight. It is a scaling bonus to experience, renown and influence, up to 400% to the underdog.

• Rats!: Added to the Empire/Chaos RvR lakes of T2 and T3 are plague rats and the Skaven Gutter Runner. You’ll find these between the Warcamps. Intended to increase PvP, these yield enough renown to make them worth fighting for, especially that Gutter Runner.

• Victory Points Reworked: Gone is any PvE to add to your realm’s victory points. In the past, you could work on PQs for a few points. Now, the only thing that contributes to VPs is battlefield objectives, scenarios and skirmishes. Gone also is contribution from previous tiers.

• Land of the Dead, Power Leveling No More: For T3 anyway. One of the problems with T3 was that LotD made for powering through T3 much easier. The result was that T3 RvR was a wasteland. Now, you can no longer be summoned to LotD and you have to be level 32.

You can find the full patch notes here. Patch 1.3.6 has been out for a few weeks now. From what I have seen, the results are good. After a nice nap whilst players powerleveled in the Land of the Dead, T3 RvR is alive and well once again. Perhaps it is not as active as some of the other tiers, but it at least has a pulse again. And in my experience, most of it has been in the form of open RvR. The Skaven in the RvR lakes have led to increased skirmishes and in general, I can find warbands pretty regularly. I will note that the first weekend after the patch was a double XP/RR weekend, so the numbers were most likely inflated even beyond what you would see with such a new patch. But overall, I’d say 1.3.6 was definitely a step in the right direction.

August’s producer’s letter hints of more such changes to come. Carrie tells us that the current victory point system is going buh bye. The specifics are not out on this, but word has it that the defensive ticks and other timers will be gone. Speculation is that the system will resemble the DAoC Relic system. There will be a Skaven themed RvR zone. No specifics on this, but Skaven will be playable by both sides. The Renown Ability system will get a makeover, specifically trying to make it more like the RA system that was in DAoC.

I find it interesting that more and more, it seems they are using DAoC as their model for making changes to the current system, to make it more like the RvR system that was in place there. Interesting, because it seemed they tried so hard to make WAR not a DAoC 2 game in the first place. An RvR system that most loved and which set that game apart from the others. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, huh? But I really like the path that WAR seems to be on now and I think it is definitely improving the gaming experience.

Open RvR alive and well in T3 on Iron Rock

]]> http://www.multiplaying.net/2010/09/01/war-stories-the-next-chapter/feed/ 1 http://www.multiplaying.net/2010/08/31/half-life-black-mesa-ho-lee-shit/ http://www.multiplaying.net/2010/08/31/half-life-black-mesa-ho-lee-shit/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:12:01 +0000 Steve "Slurms" Lichtsinn http://www.multiplaying.net/?p=5177 If you don’t already know about Black Mesa, let me fill you in; it’s a community made free mod for Half Life that updates the entire original game to the source engine. Do not think of this as a simple reskin though, this is a re-design. This project has taken years to complete (it was started in 2004), and it’s not quite finished yet. The team has no firm date for when we can download this ball of happiness, but I can assure you I’ll be ready and waiting to play this beautiful piece of nostalgia. Half Life was the game that got me into PC gaming , after all.

Check out the trailer! Then, be sure to head over to their site.

In between all the single player forays, I’m enjoying Guild Wars. All the news of the sequel has me quite excited for the game, so much so that I wanted to brush up on my Guild Wars 1 knowledge.

My return to Guild Wars started much like my return to WoW; with a banned account. It seems that my Aion account was hacked and because of that, all my NC Soft games were put on lockdown. But, a call to the support team was all it took to rectify my situation. I may even have to come up with an excuse to call them again, because the lady who helped me sounded SUPER cute. I wanted to put her in my pocket so I could carry her around with me everywhere and show her off to people. Listen to her! She’s so damn cute!

I’ve always enjoyed the look and feel of Guild Wars, but have historically been pulled away by other MMO’s. Not sure why, maybe the super casual attitude I have with the game is part of it. Regardless, there’s never been anything in the game that locks me in for a long time. I am finding this time around to be a bit different, and that might be because I’ve previously never played the Nightfall Campaign. In fact, the last time I had the game loaded on my PC was while Nightfall was in beta. It was suggested by Dean that I try it out, and I’m glad I did.

I rolled a Warrior this past weekend who is on the cusp of level 7 at the time of this writing. The big change that I’ve noticed in my experience since the last time I played is the addition of Hero characters as henchmen. I always liked that you could explore much of the content in the game, regardless whether or not you had friends playing, by hiring henchmen to round out the group. Heroes add a level of depth to the henchmen system that I really enjoy. For instance; I found myself just sitting in front of the monitor, going over their skills for about a half hour the other night. I also love being able to give them many of the weapons and armor that would have otherwise been sold.

Other than the Hero’s, I’m enjoying the feel of the Nightfall campaign areas, but not so much the quests. After just coming off of the Wrath of the Lich King’s Death Knight content a couple weeks ago, it’s hard to get excited about pretty standard quests. Maybe something will happen soon to change my mind, again, I’m only level 7, but I have this feeling like I’m playing a single player game, so something about it isn’t really scratching that MMO itch. In a couple weeks, we’ll see Lord of the Rings Online finally drop the free to play bomb on their game, and I’ve been giving more thought to trying out Everquest 2: Extended. Seriously, with all these games letting me play for free, I may be set on MMO’s for a while.

Maybe.

Download the episode here, subscribe via iTunes here

Hosts on this weeks episode:

Pazz (John)

Dean

Heather (Maeve)

Steve

Games spoken of:

Everquest 2 Extended

Fastar!

Star Trek Online

Warhammer Online

Super Street Fighter IV

Guild Wars 1 and 2

Sins of a Galactic (Star Wars) Empire

Elemental: War of Magic

Starcraft 2

Mass Effect 2

Music : The Triptones : www.thetriptones.com

Contact Info : Questions, comments, feedback, errors, voice messages in mp3 or wav format, etc. can be sent to multiplaying@gmail.com. We invite you to write a review on iTunes and visit our website at http://www.multiplaying.net. We’re a part of the Dead Workers Party Network. Find great podcasts athttp://deadworkers.com/network/

I took a little break from WAR in the middle of the summer. Several things led to me canceling my subscription for a second time. First, most of my Multiplaying friends found their attention drawn away again with other bright and shiny objects. Second, while fair or not, I found myself feeling disillusioned with the lack of any interest for WAR at this summer’s E3. Yes, I know you can argue that the E3 is more for new games, console games and what not. But at the time, it simply left me with the feeling that SW:ToR was the family’s beauty queen getting all the attention and WAR was just the ugly, red-headed step daughter. And finally, following the tweets of Josh Drescher as he went into work down at BioWare Mythic one morning to seemingly get sacked out of the blue was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

So I canceled my subscription. During this time off, I first tried out Age of Conan. I had played it some in beta but never after release. I even bought the new expansion, Godslayer. But no matter what class I tried, I could not keep my interest in this game to make it past level 5. I know, level 5 is hardly enough to judge a game. I had made it up to 20 or so in beta. There wasn’t really anything wrong with the game. It just didn’t do anything for me. It just seemed to be fitting into the same old MMO formula. And I canceled that subscription after about a week. Note to self: free trial first next time.

Next up: Champions Online. I had a beta invite for this game. I hated it. Now this was probably because it was not City of Heroes. CoH, as I know I’ve said a million times, was my first MMO love. If you date somebody who tries to look like your first love, sound like your first love and act like your first love, you’re probably gonna dump him because in the end, he is only just a pale comparison. But Steam had it on sale for under 7 bucks, and Rer, our awesome Santa Claus of game gifting, sent a copy my way. I really had fun with this game. The customization is awesome, the power travels unique and fun. I’ve never found a melee style that I like as much as their scrappers and tanks, like CoH. But this lasted me only about a week and I simply lost interest.

By now, the Multiplayers were kicking it around over in WoW. Hanging out with that gang is always fun, but I wasn’t sure I had another WoW stint in me. I had played for several months last year. But it was tempting enough to play with all my friends again that I even renewed my subscription for a month. But when I got to the character creation screen, I just had no desire to try another character. I have literally tried every class in WoW. I don’t hate that game. I’ve spent a lot of time in and out of that game over the years. I’m just finished with that game I think.

After not playing anything for a couple of weeks, I landed back in WAR. Not just out of boredom at this point. I wanted to play WAR. I wonder when the hell I became a PvP player?!  Leveling purely on open RvR and scenarios, I’m still having a lot of fun. The 1.3.6 patch has brought a lot of good things to WAR. And there is news about the upcoming RvR packs. I’m sure at some point, some of the big upcoming MMOs will lure me away yet again. But in the meantime, I’m loving me some hot, nasty RvR.

NecroRogIcon says,

Did they have to reuse the Neverwinter campaign name again? There’s got to be some other areas in the Forgotten Realms they could have tapped. This name has a serious pedigree when it comes to PC games. Plus, wasn’t the city of Neverwinter destroyed for the D&D 4th edition?

I’m imagining a scenario of too many limitations, with only Cryptic-run servers and only Cryptic-approved features in campaigns– That could disappoint the gamers that love the Neverwinter name.

Keen says,

I don’t care if it’s not a MMO. Cryptic simply does not have the ability to make good games. They lack the basic understanding of how to make a game fun and engaging. There’s no need to go any further and explain the plethora of individual failings seen in their games — they’re simply not any fun.

Syp says,

My feelings on all of this? “Eh.” I mean, it’s good to finally get confirmation, but nothing about this announcement intrigues me; on the contrary, a lot of it seems generic and not that ambitious. I think a lot of people displeased with DDO (I personally love it) really wanted a traditional open-world D&D MMO, and they’re certainly not going to get it here.

However, if Cryptic really can pull off a fun and involving mission creation system, and if the classes have a lot of diversity and specializations to them, it could be something.

Syncaine says,

Is it kind of nice that a famous IP is not outright trying to be ‘familiar’ to WoW players while selling you on a 4th, 5th, 93rd pillar? Yup. Does Cryptic have an awesome track record of awesome? No. So in the end, as of right now, we know a D&D title is in the works using a famous and beloved IP by a studio with a meh-at-best track record that may or may not do something kinda MMO-ish but not really.

and Tipa says,

Neverwinter sounds like the sort of game I’ll really like. Quick, session-based play. A world that I’ve played in through Neverwinter Nights and its sequel. Likely not going to use that weird camera that ruined NWN2 for me, but will use the very good camera they have for Champions Online and STO. I do hope the rooms will be less cavernous than those used in their previous two MMOs. The original EverQuest could support small rooms without any trouble, why can’t Cryptic’s MMOs?

I digress. I’m excited for Neverwinter. It’s going to have player generated content from the beginning, which means my static Sunday night group, currently in DDO as we wait for Diablo III, could possibly end up running an adventure that one of us creates.

Me? I’m in the position of, “it’s a game, and if it comes out and it’s good, hurray!” But, again, I know a lot of people have some serious love for the Neverwinter IP and either want this to work out for the best, or are completely baffled by it. So from the news so far, what are your thoughts on the game?

Mike Fahey over at Kotaku got a chance to sit down with a copy of Guild Wars 2 and its writer Jeff Grubb while at GamesCom. I’m insanely jealous of the man, not only because he got to experience the game, but also because he’s in Germany, home of the finest car brands and Gummi Bear capital of the world.

I’m increasingly excited about the game, and Mike’s account does nothing to quell my raging lust. Check out the full account here.

My favorite part has to be the following:

The game asked me questions from my background (upper-class, well-to-do) to my biggest regret (never joining the circus). Each class also gets to select a defining personal item. In the Necromancer’s case, it’s a mask. Skull-faced mask in place, I entered the opening cinematic

and then, after he died…

I had been out for three days, and several concerned visitors had checked in with me while I was unconscious, including a nobleman friend of my family. Mr. Grubb pointed out that the visitors would change depending on which background I chose

This is something I think alot of us have wanted for a long time now. Some way to personalize who you are in an MMO, and have it actually effect the outcome of events in-game. What Mike experienced seems somewhat minor, but I hold on to hope that ArenaNet makes these personal touches come up again and again as your character progresses, continuing to define who you are in the world.

EQ2X is an interesting beast. Boasting a slightly complicated membership matrix, there are several different ways to pay for your gaming experience. The free to play options of bronze and silver offer a stripped down version of the game with fewer storage slots (bags, banks and housing), restricted broker usage, access to fewer classes, and reduced spell and equipment grades. The other options aren’t free to play at all: they’re subscription based. I’ll let the matrix speak for itself, but I will say that the current structure and inability to really get your free to play “à la carte” is a bit of a let down for me.

You can't make one of these - unless you drop $7.50 on the race pack!

As a huge fan of EQ2, I couldn’t wait to jump into the game on the 19th. The new EQ2X beta launcher with streaming capabilities is awesome. I was through character creation and in the game in roughly 10 minutes. Immediately upon login I dropped $10 on the silver membership, a one time purchase to give you extra bank and bag slots as well as access to the public chat channels. These really are absolute musts if you plan on playing – even casually.

The next thing I looked at was the Station Cash Store, or “SC Store” for short. What I saw there was pretty standard F2P fare, although it seemed rather expensive:  a guild charter for $10? A mount for $25? Extra bags (not bag slots – bags) between $15-$20? You can even purchase crafting materials in stacks of 200, for $4 -$6. That’s not my thing – but it is there for you if you want it. The race packs seemed reasonable at $7.50, but I noticed that the store was missing one huge thing: classes. There are no additional classes available for purchase at the free to play bronze and silver levels. You must subscribe in order to access the other classes. And, if you ever unsubscribe and go back to your bronze or silver account, that class becomes unplayable. Another let down.

$25 sparkle lion, but no purchasable classes? Boo!

On the bright side of things, as a casual player, the EQ2 starting experience is still nothing short of awesome. You’re rewarded level appropriate gear for all of your quests, especially those in the new starter zone of New Halas. You’ll get new bags and harvesting crates to put all your goodies in. You’ll get a house to decorate. You have access to all of the tradeskills with what seems like no limitations. You can even join a guild, group, and do every available quest – just like the full experience.

Amazingly, the community on the new server has been nothing but friendly. I joined a guild my second day in and tonight I was greeted with something amazing: 3 40-slot bags from the guild leader (I never had bags this large in the live game!). The SC Store equivalent of these crafted bags is a $20 purchase. They really do go a long way in making the silver level experience that much more enjoyable now that the stress of inventory management has been reduced.

I told you I had a huge bag.

Other than the let downs of having the EQ2 F2P experience less “à la carte” and more “subscribe or be gimped”, I’ve been having a ton of fun since the beta began. My swashbuckler is now level 15, (with the AA/Exp bar locked at 50% – another stipulation of staying bronze/silver) my outfitting is up to level 16, my adopted guild is nice, I have huge…bags, and most of all: I don’t feel like I’m playing a crappy free to play MMO. I really hope that SOE brings classes to the SC Store as well as additional options to unlock bag and bank slots with a one time purchase instead of a subscription. But, as the game is now and with the support of a guild, I can see this being a totally viable, fun, free to play game in a virtual world I adore.