I am Lady Jenny. Unlike most of my family, I am completely unsuited for a life of combat. I am too weak to survive direct confrontations. Instead, I hide in the shadows and find secret passageways to avoid my foes. But while I am not suited to killing, I am suited to all things money. Finding it, counting it, squeezing the most out of each pile. Unlike other members of my family, I can find chests others would ignore. Oh no! I see a skeleton! Better make a dash for it!!!
After the jump, the Scrooge McDuck of the Rogue Legacy family Continue reading →
I am Sir Fleming. Long have I travelled the halls of this haunted castle, seeking fortune and fame. Though from time to time I seem to hear the sound of laughter, and enemies fade to thin air before my eyes, I remain steadfast. Each enemy I kill only strengthens me. Take this mimic above me for example. I jump towards it, sword slashing through it. *@#$! It bit me! Run all you like, I’ll get you in the *#$%!!! It bit me again!!! Oh no, here it comes again! &#%@ @^#$ @#$%!!!
After the jump, @#&$ $@&#, or liches get stitches! Continue reading →
I am Lady Teresa II. My one goal in life is to destroy Alexander. I live only to defeat the monster and grind his bones into dust. Too many of my family have fallen to the abomination. Many of ancestors have challenged him, and as many have fallen to him or his minions. But unlike my ancestors, I am something new. I am an all powerful combination of mage and assassin. My blade is made of magic itself, and I possess all powerful spells. Be wary Alexander, I am coming for you!
After the jump, will the spellsword spell victory or another defeat? Continue reading →
I am Sir Hirshley, the first of my name. Unlike my mother, Lady Henrietta III, I do not wish to face the monstrosity Alexander. In fact, I don’t even want to venture into the treacherous forest where my mother died. My only desire is to spend my life wandering the castle and to perhaps delay my doom. I don’t trust this castle. In fact, I entered unwillingly through a necessity to do my duty to my family. The rooms seem to shift, and the demon at the gate, Charon, has stolen the remainder of my family’s money. Zombies and skeletons roam the halls, and haunted portraits hang on the walls. And the chickens. Charon take me, the chickens!
After the jump, who’s afraid of the big bad chicken? Continue reading →
I am Lady Henrietta, the third of my name. Both Henriettas before me were slain viciously by the treacherous master of the forest, Alexander. The tales have been passed down for generations of a dark skull that lives somewhere in these woods, the bane of my family. I have come far through a castle of stone to find the entrance to the forest, and now I pray my luck holds out long enough for me to see Alexander’s lair. I want to restore honor to my family’s name, to bathe my blade in his blood. As I trek through the forest I see a large door flanked by statues. Alexander’s Lair. I clench my sword tightly, set my jaw, and enter.
By the way, did I mention that I’m really short?
After the jump, vengeance, humiliation, and/or new loot for later generations? Continue reading →
I am the slayer of zombies, the knife in the dark, the caster of great magics, the slayer of Hdir. I am Sir Gans, the second of my name. I crouch on a ledge, feeling the cold stone beneath my feet, breathing the musty air of a castle centuries old. I see the Gray Knight shambling below me. His is all that stands between me and the castle exit to the forest beyond. I prepare to strike from above, my legs tensing for the leap onto the Gray Knight’s head. As I spring upon my quarry, a loud rumble emanates from my loins. The Gray Knight is split asunder by my falling strike, my flatulence the last sound on his ears.
After the jump, farting around in a dungeon. Continue reading →
The Zephyr Sanctum is a massive airship temporarily anchored at the Labyrinthine Cliffs. That’s my necromancer standing on the prow. The airship will be there as long as Guild Wars 2’s Bazaar of the Four Winds lasts, which I think is for another week.
This latest round of new content is an impressive feat in completely changing how you get around. Guild Wars 2, a game without mounts and without flying, is mostly about walking around. It has had optional jumping puzzles tucked into various corners. Some of them even have a touch of personality and they all have some reward waiting at the top. But they’re still just jumping puzzles, and they often require trying to figure out the rules of footing on imprecisely drawn terrain. Did the level designer intend for me to think I can jump there? I often find out the hard way.
As you work your way up the cliffs to the Zephyr Sanctum, it’s clear there are going to be jumping puzzles. It’s just so darn vertical. And all the rigging up there. You know you’re going to be jumping around in that. The whole thing looks at first like a town where you can buy stuff and sell stuff. But it’s more than that. Unlike Guild Wars 2’s other towns, it’s got plenty of combat. You’ll be walking past a merchant stand and someone accidentally lets loose a giant demon. Now you’re fighting a big public battle. A couple dozen drunkards burst out of a tavern. Reptilian slavers storm the docks.
But what mostly distinguishes the Zephyr Sanctum are the three power-ups you can find scattered around the cliff and the catwalks, each of which gives you 10 bursts of special movement. You can shoot forward as a sunbeam, call the wind to leap higher than normal, and use lightning to fling yourself to a specific point. These powers are the basis for a multiplayer race to the top of a spire (with some reward at the top, of course). But you can also use these power-ups to find crystals tucked into unlikely places. Hold down the key to highlight interact points and you’ll likely see a few of the crystals. How are you supposed to get up there? With sun, wind, lightning.
There are 52 crystals all told, but you only have to get 40 to unlock the reward, which is an achievement that applies towards the overarching Bazaar of the Four Winds achievement. You also get a model of the race spire. It’s an object that you can only deploy in town, but anyone who clicks on it gets a nifty cutscene showing off the Zephyr Sanctum airship. I hate jumping puzzles. I didn’t hate getting those 40 crystals.
Now that Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet is committed to a schedule of new content every two weeks, I’m committed to working (i.e. playing) extra hard to keep up. Today is the start of the Bazaar of the Four Winds, which I presume means the end of the Dragon Bash festival. At least that’s what I was worried was going to happen as I was looking over the achievements for the festival and I noticed I wasn’t far from earning the Holographic Shattered Dragon Wings, which you can attach to your armor for a cosmetic effect. I’d seen several people running around with the wings. Naturally, it had occurred to me they’d look pretty nifty on a necromancer’s frilly outfit. Like princess faeries wings, but edgier. However, I wasn’t about to grind the achievements to earn them. I don’t care that much about looks. I mean, sure, I’ve colored my blouse and skirt with a tastefully coordinated combination of heather and strawberry cream. And I had to consider carefully whether I wanted the trim to be sea breeze or summer thistle. But I only did it because I had some time to kill while shopping for town clothes on the trading post.
So, sure, why not grab the wings before the Bazaar of the Four Winds started. To earn the last few achievements, I scarfed down a bunch of taffy, pausing occasionally to vomit, and finished the backstory dialogue with the members of the Ship’s Council, who were helpfully lined up in a row in the center of Lion’s Arch. All that was left was 18 more matches of Dragon Ball, which isn’t so bad. It could be worse. It could be 18 matches of keg brawl, which is like rugby, but with spells so that you spend even more time knocked down. But Dragon Ball is a straightforward Unreal Tournament style team deathmatch. You play on a simple map strewn with jumping pads and powerups. You start with only a single attack. Grabbing powerups earns you up to four more attacks. 18 matches would be easy enough. On the 14th match, I noticed that the wiki said Dragon Ball doesn’t apply to your wings achievement.
And that’s how I ended up running all over Guild Wars 2 to track down 41 dragon effigies that needed burning. Because it was either that or betting on moa races, and there’s no way I’m going to burn 50 silver a bet on something that’s probably rigged anyway.
In the summer of 2007 I played my last game of online StarCraft. The people I was subletting from had a copy on their bookshelf, and one night I gave in to nostalgia. After tinkering around in a few skirmishes, I decided to dip my toes into unranked non-ladder online play. How bad could it be?
It turned out it could be pretty bad, because I was pretty bad. In the nine years since Starcraft had launched the general level of play had advanced while my skills had atrophied. I died to my opponent’s first push. I then joined a random 4v4 game on Big Game Hunters, a game mode and map specifically designed for people who don’t want to deal with all the fuddy-duddy details of being good at Starcraft. Within 90 seconds, two of my allies cursed me out and quit. The third helpfully stuck around for another 30 seconds to yell at me for having a non-optimized build.
After the jump, sink or swim Continue reading →
In the latest update for Guild Wars 2, developer ArenaNet saw fit to make necromancers more awesome. I’m not complaining. I might complain if I was playing a boring old warrior or ranger and I saw in the patch notes that boring old warriors and rangers were just as boring while already awesome necromancers got even more awesome. But the last people to decry the rich getting richer are the rich.
After the jump, tainted shackle love Continue reading →
One of the biggest changes in World of Tank’s recent 8.6 update is the distribution of shells within the aiming reticle. While this may seem fairly esoteric, having your bullets go where you aim them is critical in a game based on shooting guns. Tradeoffs must be made between accuracy, damage, and rate of fire. For example, in the picture up there, a clever player landed his shots above the Super Pershing’s thickly armored gun mantlet and onto the thinner armor at the top of the turret. In World of Tanks, a gun’s accuracy limits the size of the fully zoomed-in reticle, and its aim time dictates how quickly the reticle shrinks down around your target. Roughly 5% of your shells will hit the edge of the reticle.
Or, at least, that’s what we’ve been told.
After the jump: lost in translation Continue reading →
Yesterday’s 8.6 patch contained good news for anyone who has been thinking about trying World of Tanks for the first time. While the game’s starting field of World War I era tankettes have not changed, the crews inside those tanks now start with a 100% training level instead of the previous 50% training level. On Monday, the gap between a new player in a stock tankette and a veteran in a kitted out tankette was immense. Today, that gap is merely large. Progress!
If the idea of having to care about a crew’s training level sounds dangerously abstract, World of Tanks isn’t for you. But if caring about levels sounds dangerously abstract, you’re probably not cut out for modern online gaming. The insertion of experience point systems into action games has reached a point where I expect Id’s upcoming Doom sequel will require hours of leveling guns and perks.
After the jump: gaming versus garaging Continue reading →
Playing a necromancer with a menagerie of writhing freakish beasts tagging as I saunter through exotic landscapes reminds me of another game by the same lead designer. Klaatu barada Flannum. Group three, guard me!
High Explosive Anti-Tank shell 53-BP-540 left us at 1:00 am PDT today. It was 26 months old. It is survived by Armor Piercing shell 53-G-530 and High Explosive shell 53-OF-530. Condolences should be sent to the Soviet KV-2 Heavy Tank.
Today’s 8.6 update to World of Tanks represents the most ambitious re-imagining of Wargaming.net’s popular “freemium” game since its 2011 launch. Even major changes like the physics patch or the removal of “pay to win” components of the game pale in comparison. This update hopes to resolve some of the legacy problems that have been around for so long they had begun to feel like features.
Over the next few days I’ll examine the patch and the current state of World of Tanks. But balance changes often have a feeling of “two steps forward, one step back” and the 8.6 update is no exception. Buried in the massive list of patch notes was the change that signaled the death of one of my favorite tanks:
KV-2:
Added shell MPB mod. 1915/28.
Removed shell 53-BP-540
After the jump: requiem for a derp Continue reading →
Leveling up your characters in Guild Wars 2 is only one form of advancement. There’s also your score, which tracks all manner of things you’ve done with all your characters, broken down into categories of achievements: crafting, combat, PvP, fashion, exploration, and so forth. The score doesn’t mean anything, but it’s a helpful way to compare how much you’ve played compared to your friends. For instance, Jason McMaster has 1078 points. I have 1226, thanks in part to the careful application of a flamethrower. I rest my case.
One of the cool things about events like the ongoing Dragon Bash is that the points system — known in some circles as achievement whoring, but there’s no need to be nasty about it — is used to encourage us to do stuff related to the event. For instance, I’ve been gathering all this taffy that gives me a brief boost if I eat it. Big whoop. Frankly, I can’t be bothered. So I’m sitting on about a hundred pieces of taffy that I might as well throw away.
Oh, look, there’s an achievement for eating the taffy. I might as well start pounding it down. After about ten pieces of the dragon-themed candy, the above screenshot ensues. Pretty sneaky, ArenaNet. Also realistic.
My favorite instance of overindulgence gimmicks in an MMO was in Lord of the Rings Online. Turbine tried mightily to make player housing and guild housing relevant. Among their attempts was furniture and trophies you could use in the instanced housing. Such as the keg someone put in our guild’s house. It had a warning label on it that basically said the ale in the keg was too powerful and you therefore shouldn’t drink it. “Seriously,” it suggested, “just don’t!” So, naturally, you drank it. At which point you were teleported to a random location and told that you didn’t remember anything that had happened. This triggered a cute Hangover style quest in which you talked to various people to piece together what you’d done during your blackout.
But my favorite part of the gimmick was that when you were teleported to the random location, you appeared without your pants on. But not to worry! You hadn’t lost your Reinforced Mithril Britches of Budgeford! They were safe in your inventory.
UPDATE: After finishing off all my taffy and vomiting a few more times, my score is now up to 1228. Jason McMaster’s score is still only 1078.
