Call in sick to work tomorrow for the start of Path of Exile season one

Posted by on February 21, 2013 in Games

Friday_Path_of_Exile_flu

One of the unique features of Path of Exile is leagues. When you create a character in Grinding Gears Games’ action RPG, you select your character’s league. Currently, there are default and hardcore leagues. Default is default. Hardcore means you get one life. If you die, your character suffers a fate worse than death; she is kicked downstairs to the default league. Oh, the ignominy!

However, as of tomorrow morning, Grinding Gear Games will offer additional leagues. 109 of them, to be exact. It’s the start of what they’re calling “season one”. This is a series of temporary leagues. They’re events, really, over the next month and a half, starting with a one-hour solo play league tomorrow morning at 9am Pacific. This means you start a new character and play solo for an hour to get as far as you can. Then your character is demoted to one of the permanent leagues and your account is credited with prize points based on how you ranked, whether you were first to clear a quest, what level you reached, and so forth (scoring for S01E01 — season one, event one — is listed here). Other leagues last varying amounts of time, they allow grouping, or they have superfast turbo speed monsters. You can click on upcoming leagues in the schedule for specifics.

So what’s the point? Prize points are the point. As you accumulate prize points, you work your way up a list of unique items, available only this season and listed on the season page. Maybe I can get Redbeak, a fast, hard-hitting, life-sucking sword that does more damage when you’re hurt. Could I possibly get Wanderlust, a pair of speedy, mana-charging, wool shoes that make you immune to freezing. I’d love to see what the “extra gore” trait does on those Facebreaker gloves. I’m guessing it’s something like Fallout’s “Bloody Mess” perk. But do I like Path of Exile enough to play 240 points worth of league events in the next month?

I’m thinking.

Frankly, given the way the scoring works, I’ll be lucky to have my own Redbeak by the end of season one. But I love that Grinding Gear Games is doing this sort of thing.

  • CB

    I actually got Redbeak within a half hour of starting my first character.

    And haven’t gotten another unique since. :(

  • Tim James

    This reminds me of public schools doing those magazine drives where they show the kids beforehand what prizes they can win. We all dreamed about how many magazines or candy bars we could force on friends and family. It never seemed to turn out that way.

  • sid

    Been playing PoE for about a week now, and I am impressed. It is pretty much Diablo 2.5, while doing enough different with mechanics to keep me interested. It does take a while to figure out how some of the more arcane mechanics work as there is little to no hand holding (but useful nuggets of knowledge can be sifted from global chat). Given that it is free to play, there is very little downside to this trying it out if you are a fan of the old school click-click-looters.

  • tomchick

    Oh man, that brings back memories. Great analogy, Tim.

  • tomchick

    Wait, you can get these items from playing the game normally! No fair!

  • Comrade Beep

    The versions available as Season One rewards share the same name and stats with items already available, but they will be using unique Season One specific artwork.

  • tomchick

    Phew. I was worried I was going to be wasting my time. :)

  • thebigJ_A

    I played the beta thingy for this, and was so sad when I got to the end of what was available, it was that good. I hadn’t realized the game was officially out yet, though. How many more areas have been added after that first? (Or was it second. There was the beginning area, and the one after with the swamp town)