What do bigfoot, Chinese dissidents, Magic the Gathering, nudity, and Zone of the Enders have in common? They’re all discussed on this week’s Qt3 games podcast! Plus, good news for freedom and Jason McMaster totally outs himself as a lifelong nerd.
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Jace Beleren is a blue mage. From his picture, you can tell he enjoys both looking mysterious and magical glowy hands. From Duels of the Planeswalkers, I learned that he has fought with Chandra Nalaar, that he worked for something called the Infinite Consortium, and that he has visited the planes of Ravnica and Zendikar. Absolutely none of the above information has helped me in any way in the Duels of the Planeswalkers game, or in Magic in general. Why does Wizards of the Coast consider plot and characters such a selling point for collectible card games?
After the jump, an example of when lore can matter in the play of a game Continue reading →
So I fire up Terraria to take Sir Digsalot and his fancy new phaseblade out boss-hunting, and what’s this? 1.0.5… a new version? The changelog is just crazy. 8 new enemies. Over 50 new items. Potions that give buffs. The guide now has a little spot you can drop an item into, and it will show you all the things you can craft with it. NPC shopkeepers have different inventories at different times. It goes on and on. Some of the new features won’t be seen unless I start a new world, because they’re set during world creation. This really isn’t a big a deal – Terraria is a game where you’re meant to start new worlds, and visit other people’s words, with your continuing character (hence the importance of the piggy bank). Sir Digsalot is kind of committed to this world right now, so we’ll be sticking with Quarteria for a while longer.
Minecraft and Terraria are perfect examples of the new attitude of many game developers. Sure, the games go on sale at some point, but they’re not really “done”. The developers view their game as a service more than a product, and just keep adding and fixing and tweaking, mixing their vision with the player’s requests and ideas. One day, you fire up the game and it’s twice as compelling as the last time you played.
After the jump, it’s finally time to kill that great big eye Continue reading →
