The Super Adventure Box

So it would seem that the angels at ArenaNet have heard my comment about losing touch with our "gamer roots" and have implemented something called the Super Adventure Box. I'll keep the description simple: within Guild Wars 2 is an honest-to-goodness RPG... No, I don't mean you're chucking d20's at each other screaming "Lightning Bolt!".
They've inserted something that reminds me of the days of playing the original legend of zelda, complete with block graphics and a pointy stick to dispatch the lego-esqe crown-wearing cobras and dog-faced bees. The reward for running through the nostalgic three levels (if the enjoyment of smacking lego mobs around with a stick wasn't enough) is a new "game style" weapon skin players can apply to their current equipment. If my words aren't enough to sell it, see for yourself!

How to train your dragon prophet...

So about a day ago I decided to take a look around at some of the "new blood" coming into the gaming scene. By that of course I mean upcoming games. And while I have a few issues with games supported/created by SOE I think they may have FINALLY hit the mark with this one Dragon Prophet. A free to play MMO based around, you guessed it, Dragons.
Character development is apparently based around the 4 available classes (ranger, sorcerer, guardian and oracle) and capturing/training some of the 300 different dragon species in game. While this doesn't take the bitter feeling of losing the WKC2 servers in June it may stave off the encrouching boredom.

Rise of MMO, Death of Independence

So with the upcoming games like the Neverwinter and Elderscrolls Online it seems as if the stand alone market for games is dying. Though some RPG's still try to bridge the gap with solo story driven content and multi-player options (the first that comes to mind for me is White Knight Chronicles 2, a JRPG on the PS3). Many are favoring purely online instead and are gradually shifting their focus. The soon-to-be relaunched Final Fantasy MMO for example speaks volumes of where SquareEnix sees their future.
The "Steam Box" or Piston is another example of this fundamental shift into this Gamer Community and may actually be the hero for the remaining solo players among us. Linking with your Steam account and downloading the plethora of old school games like the Fable series or Skyrim or the like... but wait, what's that in the distance? It's the community again! Forums at your finger tips about optimizing character builds, player created mods and re-skins.
Being an avid online-gamer myself, I don't really see this as big news but still important to know.

FTP, PTP, BTP, PTW... WTF?

So in the past few years there's been a number of changes to how MMO games charge their players to.. well, play. But what do these different price models mean to the players really? is a pay-to-play game automatically better than a free-to-play? Is there really such a thing as a free-to-play to begin with?

First let's go over the basics; PTP or pay-to-play refers to games like the ever-immortal WoW that have players pay a subscription fee. These companies maintain that the monthly charge helps them keep the standard of gaming the players are used to. In all honesty I can't argue with this, I mean there are games out there that don't charge sub fees and are great but can someone ever say that having a greater guaranteed disposable income for development is a bad thing?

BTP stands for ArenaNet... no... really. I have a hard time NOT imagining the guild wars franchise when looking at BTP, which really means Buy to Play, which refers to having to buy the game itself and then never having to pay for anything else content-wise.

Next is FTP or free-to-play. When someone talks about a game like this their almost assuredly talking about LoL (League of Legends), and while a person COULD pay to unlock everything they want (characters, skins, etc.) they don't NEED to which seperates it from our next subject...

PTW, the infamous Pay to WIN! Yes that's right, playing costs you nothing but in-game success requires monetary investment. Off the top of my head is SWTOR, you need to buy (with real money not game currency) the ability to possess more than one crafting/gathering skill. What's that? "Not too bad" you say? Well how about the fact if you're not a subscriber you are stifled in the number of space missions you can run, and even more devious you earn substantially less experience than subscribers! (I can see the angry red lightsabres in the distance) In truth the game does have some cool things about it, the first and biggest being the option of rolling a Jedi/Sith. However that's about where it stops for me. I come back to it now and then when I'm having a fan-boy moment of "Eat hot plasma sith-scum!" but it doesn't hold a candle to most other games available, a truly unfortunate truth.

I'll just leave the link for SWTOR here if anyone is interested in seeing for themselves, which I fully endorse. My opinions are just that, opinions, I don't expect everyone to agree with me.

Who doesn't like free stuff?

Not too long ago I wrote a post explaining the nature of expansions in Guild Wars 2, how the game world has been designed to evolve with the growing storyline. Well it's started, Flame and Frost is that name of the current story arc.

Havoc and destruction abound in the north. Severe storms are pushing the inhabitants of these northern reaches southward into the Charr and Norn capitals. Most assume the cause of natures distress is the frost dragon, Jormag. However some say that something far more insidious stirs in the insufferable north.

I love this game. In actuality the content that has been released so far for this story arc is minimal. Drawing a comparison from another game, the difficulty in helping these refugees is about the same as trick-or-treating in WoW and you're rewarded with the "Volunteer" title... So far. It's not too much of a stretch to think that the achievement will be a stepping stone into a much larger group of rewards.But the real reward for this game is the story.

It's often the case, at least for myself, that a game has my undivided attention. Drawing me into a beautifully written story... and then it's over. The fantastical tale is done and you're left with grinding for better gear until the game big-wigs decide that subscribers are frothing at the mouth enough to buy whatever half-cocked idea they pull out of their creative pool.

That's not really the case here. It's not that this game has eliminated the *shudder* level cap gear grind, but they've hidden it really well. There's literally a flood of events that are constantly happening around you. Here's a quick example.

You're up in the northern portion of the world, why? because you've never been there of course! As you're walking around you discover the entrance to a dungeon, but wait, what's that noise? A huge frost dragon appears out of nowhere and begins something akin to an open world raid that scales difficulty to the number of people around, and should you manage to kill it you're rewarded with the typical "fat loot" minus the threat of losing a need/greed roll and being stuck with whatever vender trash is left.  You'd think it stops there, but no, but killing it you've actually finished a daily achievement which rewards you with a type of currency you can use to buy end-game gear.

But that dragon wasn't a random mob,  it was part of a regional story that required multiple events to come to pass. Without you're assistance, a town may have been destroyed, people killed, all kinds of bad news. You're actions change the world and in Flame and Frost you'll have ample opportunity to do just that.

A Realm Reborn Beta Date

Hurray! So Square Enix beta test for "FFXIV A Realm Reborn" is happening in just over a week, I'd post a link to the signup page but anyone should be able to find it with minimal effort.

Every gamer loves getting into beta tests, if for no other reason than to gripe about how their preferred game is so much better. That being said I'd like to take a moment and quote one of my favorite game reviewers TotalBiscuit. "Beta is beta". Things are going to be broken, things are going to be rough, and try not to compare this game to whatever your current online addiction is, keep and open mind! These things are important because this isn't just a new game per say, this is a complete redo of an existing game, they want FEEDBACK! Don't be just a leech if you get in, there are always methods to deliver feedback in game, use them! It's the only way to help build a world worth playing.

While I've always been a fan of the Final Fantasy series, I have to say that my own exposure to their MMO counterparts is pretty limited but I'm definitely in line with everyone else jockeying for a spot in the beta.

Video Game Movies

I often wonder, just how many bad video game movies can hollywood put out before they realize this is not a good idea?

The current track record for game-movies is poor to say the least, I won't lie though it's a rare treat to see that random copy of the Mario Bros. movie on a friends shelf, which is often followed by the grim realization of it being in the company of movies like Mortal Kombat Anhillation or even Fatal Fury. 

But leave it to the creative geniuses in the movie business to once again try and tap into the poorly conceived and consistently failing game-movie, this time in an attempt to bring Azeroth onto the silver screen.



Expacs: The Good, The Bad, and The Pandas

Ok, so almost immediately after tossing up my last post and talking about the mythical "WoW Killer" I had the urge to rant about something that's been bugging me.
Let's just quickly look at the major points in the previous Warcraft story arcs. In the first expac, The Burning Crusade, the players strode bravely through the dark portal to do battle with the demonic hordes. The second pitted the players against the Lich King Arthas and his undead legions. In the third we saw the corrupted black dragon avatar, Deathwing, rise from the depths to try and wipe all life from Azeroth.  And now we have anthropomorphic pandas.
I can't get over it, they've built an expansion on a race that was originally meant as a gag, a joke. I mean seriously, who can take this seriously?

I do believe that WoW is a good game, it's entertaining, engaging and evolving. I know that suspending disbelief is a major part of any MMO but... talking Panda's are just too far off the bridge for me to follow.

No such thing as a "WoW Killer"

For years games have tried to claim the seemingly impossible title of "WoW Killer" and so far each challenger has been unceremoniously crushed. So what's the big deal about this concept?
Well first of all lets look at this from a financial standpoint, with over 10 million subscribers at $15 a month... not a small chunk of change. And that doesn't even cover the online store and micro-transactions. It's definitely a position that most game companies would do almost anything to get.
So there it is, the white-whale. A lot of games and game reviewers have tried to convince the world gaming community of ones superiority over WoW and it doesn't appear that it will end any time soon.

One of the newer challengers is Guild Wars 2. As one of the current leaders in the "micro-transaction pricing model" MMO's GW2 has a fairly strong following and a few tricks up it's sleeve in the form of different game functions. GW2 steps away from the accepted ideology of most MMO's and brazenly states that it has done away with things like the holy trinity of gaming (a party combination of established roles including; Tank, Healer, and DPS), Loot ninjas (people that join groups only to steal or "need roll" on absolutely everything that  drops off mobs), and the removal of expansions.

I know what you're thinking "Hold up, no expansions? No growth?! How the heck can a game stay alive with stagnant content?!". Actually that's not as hard as it sounds. ArenaNet (the developer for GW2) has said that there will be no PAID expansions, every month new content is released into the game, either in the form of holiday events or, the newly coined phrase, the "living story".
All this makes GW2 an incredibly fun and attractive game, but WoW Killer? No. If anything the reality is that GW2 is the alternative, the second person in a 2 party system. It appeals to a different group, that's all.
Truthfully, the only WoW Killer that will ever exist are the Blizz executives. The game will live for as long as they let it and in turn we the players are the ones who decide when it's truly time to let it go.

Starting off with a bang, we've got great news! Ivan Butch and Martin Pezlar of Bohemian Interactive were released three days ago after 128 days in the custody of the Greek governement.

In case you were unaware of the story of this unfortunate pair I'll give you a quick rundown. Back in September Martin and Ivan were on the Greek island of Lemnos, located in the the northern Aegean, they were tasked with taking pictures and doing research of the area for the development of the game Arma III. Research that included taking photographs of the island and it's surroundings, which apparently included a Greek military base... which just so happens to be illegal as it threatens Greek national security. 

So suffice to say their release is good news, however the only real qualm I have about this situation is that the two have been released on bail, meaning they have to go back to attend their trial once the judicial system in Greece stops being on strike. Stranger still is that their bail was a meager five thousand euros... an incredibly small price to pay for the freedom of two men that had been accused of espionage.