Tyler F.M. Edwards's Blog, page 42

So StarCraft: Remastered

After months of speculation, Blizzard has now officially announced StarCraft: Remastered, an HD update of the original game and its expansion, Brood War. They’re going to make SC1 and BW totally free, while the Remaster will be a paid upgrade.

[image error]A remaster of a classic Blizzard game seems like the sort of thing I’d be over the moon about, but to be honest… well, as Randy Jackson would say, I’m not feelin’ it, dawg.

The trouble with updating old games is that there’s such a fine line between changing too much, and not changing enough, and where that line sits can be quite subjective. For me, this remaster isn’t changing enough.

It’s basically the original game with slightly tweaked graphics. That will undoubtedly please the purists, but to be honest I don’t really want to be dealing with clunky UI, infuriatingly brain-dead pathfinding, and graphics that may be better than the original but still look about fifteen years out of date.

Ultimately, what kills my enthusiasm more than anything is Mass Recall.

The main thing I’d be interested in when it comes to a remake is the campaign, and Mass Recall already provides all of the story content of the original with fully modernized graphics and gameplay. And it’s free. It’s giving me more while costing me nothing, whereas the official remaster is offering less for a price.

The main thing the official offering has over Mass Recall is that it includes competitive play, but I’m not much for PvP, so that doesn’t really matter to me.

I am a little intrigued by the animated interludes they’re talking about — I don’t know if that means the briefings, the cinematics, or both —  as those sound pretty cool, but I don’t think it’s worth dropping cash for.

I’m sure there are people who will enjoy this remaster, but it seems like it’s going to be a pretty small niche.

I’m not really that disappointed because the remaster I want already exists in the form of Mass Recall. I am, however, concerned about the precedent this sets for other hypothetical remasters of old Blizzard games, which don’t already exist in the form of mods (not good ones, anyway).

I’d love to see modernized versions of a lot of older Blizzard titles, but if they’re all just going to be minor graphical face-lifts and nothing else, I’m not sure I’d want to bother. Warcraft III could maybe work with nothing but mild visual tweaks, but the others would need more changes to really be worth playing in this day and age. I’m not saying I want them totally redone from scratch, but at least fix some of the more broken old school mechanics.

Filed under: Games Tagged: pointless nostalgia, sci-fi, Starcraft

Mass Effect: Andromeda Is the Best Star Trek Movie in Years

I’ll level with you: I’ve had an unusually busy month, and it’s not done yet. I would frankly rather spend what free time I have on continuing to explore Mass Effect: Andromeda than blogging, but I suppose blogging about Andromeda is the next best thing.

[image error]I’m still pretty early in the game, and I’m a long way from ready to do a full review (though you can be sure that will come at some point). Any of my current impressions of the game can and will probably change with time.

However, right now, I would say it has met or exceeded pretty much all of my expectations. Of course it also needs to be said my expectations were very carefully managed, so don’t think I’m without complaints, but they’re complaints I expected to have. Too many boring side activities, slow pacing, iffy combat. In other words, it’s a Bioware game.

Right now the thing I’m enjoying the most is the sense of discovery and wonder of the unknown that runs through the whole game. I’ve said before that Mass Effect feels like it’s become something of a spiritual successor to Star Trek, and never has that been more true than it is now.

Some other quick and dirty (and spoiler-free) thoughts based on my first few days with the game:

-I don’t like Cora or Vetra as much as I expected to. I definitely don’t dislike either of them, but I was expecting to be more impressed than I am. Cora’s a beast in combat, though. I think she’s getting almost as many kills as I am.

-On the other hand, so far I like PeeBee more than I expected to.

[image error]-In general this may be the first Bioware game where I don’t hate any of my companions, assuming Jaal turns out okay. I’m not yet blown away by any of them, but so far none of them rub me wrong way, either. Even Drack is growing on me.

-Overall, though, my favourite characters so far are all outside the squad. Suvi is awesome, and Kallo and Gil are both a lot of fun.

-I like the Tempest a lot better than the Normandy. Easier to navigate. Pretty windows.

-I actually kind of like scanning planets and systems this time. If only because the space graphics are so pretty.

-On that note, I love my new computer. I’m running the game at 100% maxed settings, and it’s smooth as butter. It looks real.

-I’m far too pleased with how my Ryder looks. Also, the game’s ability to automatically make her father look like her is amazing.

-With keybindings being as limited as they are, Throw and Pull really should have been combined into one power. It sucks to give up 66% of your slots just to be able to combo them.

-I’m glad they brought back so many guns from the original trilogy. I’ve already been reunited with my beloved Viper.

[image error]-Jump jets! Jump jets.

-Did I mention Suvi is awesome?

-I am a little worried the wealth of side missions will start to beat me down after a while. That’s what happened with Inquisition. But at least this time the places you’re exploring seem to be a bit more interesting, and so far nothing is as annoying as collecting shards.

-The Remnant are the Xel’naga. I’m not saying they remind me of the Xel’naga; I’m saying they are literally the Xel’naga.

-For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over lack of polish, I’ve encountered very few issues, and all of them minor. Some very mild animation hiccups once in a blue moon, and I keep finding references on the Tempest to squadmates I don’t have yet. I’ve already heard Jaal mentioned, and I haven’t even encountered his species yet. But that’s hardly game-breaking.

-Above all, this is a Mass Effect game, for better and for worse. For all the talk of how much has changed, this is still fundamentally pretty much the same sort of experience as the original trilogy, with all the good and all the bad that entails.

Filed under: Games Tagged: Mass Effect, sci-fi

Review: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

As I post this, most gamers are probably either playing Mass Effect: Andromeda or counting the minutes until they can (myself included). I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say on it soon enough, but in the meanwhile, there’s another game I’d like to discuss.

[image error]I had planned to spend the month leading up to Andromeda focused on World of Warcraft, but some happenstance had me splitting my attention with another game, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst.

While looking for info on Andromeda, I discovered that Origin was offering a free trial of its subscription service, which allows you to play a number of games for no additional cost. I’d long had my eye on Catalyst but wasn’t willing to drop the dough without trying it first, so this was a great opportunity. After a couple hours of play, I knew I wanted to see more, and it also happened to be on sale for a generous discount, so I bought the full version of the game so I could playing even after the free trial ran out.

It’s an interesting game, though I do have some conflicted feelings on it.

High, just like the Runners:

Catalyst is a reboot of the Mirror’s Edge franchise. It has roughly the same general concept as the first game, but there’s no continuity between them that I’m aware of. They’re starting fresh.

Catalyst takes place in the futuristic city of Glass, a glittering metropolis whose pristine beauty conceals dark secrets. In Glass, nearly all information is digitized, and therefore vulnerable to hacking. The only way to prevent this with total certainty is to go old school and deliver letters by hand.

[image error]To this end, a strange subculture of “Runners” has developed, elite agents operating in a legal gray area, darting across the roofs of Glass to ferry packages and information.

As in the original Mirror’s Edge, the star of the game is a young Runner named Faith Connors. At the beginning of the game, Faith is released after several years spent in prison and resumes her life as a Runner. But Faith’s reckless curiosity soon finds her drawn into a dangerous conspiracy that threatens to end what little freedom exists in the shining prison that is Glass.

The gameplay is focused on high octane first person platforming as the player uses Faith’s speed and parkour skills to navigate the city, solve puzzles, and defeat her adversaries.

Long-time blog readers may know I have some history with Mirror’s Edge. I remember seeing a preview of the first game on Electric Playground many, many years ago and instantly falling in love with the concept, but when I finally got around to playing it, I simply couldn’t. I never was very good at jumping puzzles, and I became hopelessly roadblocked shortly after finishing the tutorial.

So the question with Catalyst was not so much, “Will I like it?” as it was, “Can I play it?”

The good news is that the answer is yes. I won’t profess to be particularly good at it, and there were still more than a few occasions where I screwed up and left a small crater, but that wasn’t the sum total of my experience this time, and I managed to finish the story, at least.

[image error]The funny thing is I’m hard-pressed to determine what the difference is. Catalyst offers more or less the same gameplay using more or less the same controls, and yet the difference is night and day. The first game was unplayable for me, but Catalyst just… works. I don’t know how else to describe it.

It’s a hard game to rate because it can be thrilling and frustrating in equal measure. Leaping, climbing, soaring, zip-lining, and wall-running across Glass is incredibly enjoyable — poetry in motion — when everything is going well. When things aren’t going well, it can get ugly.

The combat is the same way. Faith has access to a few basic martial arts moves, but on their own they’re woefully inadequate to deal with the heavily armed goons she finds herself up against.

To level the playing field, you need to take advantage of the same acrobatic movement that gets you around the city. Faith can literally run circles around her enemies, and the more momentum she can maintain, the stronger her offensive and defensive capabilities are.

When you get it right, this makes combat spectacularly satisfying. There is no way for me to adequately communicate in text how much fun it can be to flow like water around your enemies, to wall-run into a flying kick or leap off a zip-line and crash into a guard like a freight train.

But it’s a very finicky system. When it works, it’s brilliant, but it doesn’t always work, and then combat just turns into a flailing awkward mess.

[image error]Combat is a relatively small part of the game, though, and interestingly it is often possible or even advisable to avoid fighting altogether. You can simply outrun your enemies. Unlike a lot of video games, Mirror’s Edge is fundamentally about wits, not brute force. Enemy soldiers are more of an extension of the game’s puzzle nature than anything. The goal is not to kill them, but simply to stop them from killing you.

On a similar note, I do find it interesting that Faith as a character has no particular super-powers or exceptional abilities. She’s very fast, agile, and smart, but not inhumanly so. She’s not enhanced in any way, nor does she have elite military training or any of the other inherent advantages most video game heroes have.

I like playing super-powered characters, but Faith’s relatively ordinary nature is a refreshing change of pace.

One difference between Catalyst and its predecessor is that it is now an open world game, which is another thing that has its pros and cons.

On the one hand, I love the actual open world part. Movement is such a joy in this game that I love the option to just run around and explore the city at leisure, and there are lots of little collectibles that are just rewarding enough to make exploration feel useful, but not mandatory.

Conversely, though, Catalyst has also inherited many of the sins of the open world genre, like a preference for quantity of content over quality. The game is overflowing with side-missions, time trials, and other random activities that are for the most part just dull.

[image error]The good news is you can skip pretty much all the optional content and not miss out on anything important, so that’s what I ended up doing.

The one side activity that is a little interesting is billboard hacks. These allow you to hack into electronic billboards so that they display your Runner’s mark, a customizable sigil. Oddly, you can’t customize it in-game; you have to go to the game’s website, which is less than convenient. Still, it’s a neat idea, and it can be gratifying to see your personal sigil shining over the city for the rest of the game.

Supposedly any friends who play the game will also see your mark on billboards you’ve hacked, but since I don’t have any friends who play, that’s a non-issue for me. (Insert Forever Alone meme.)

One other thing that needs to be said about the gameplay is that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is not at all a relaxing game. In fact its constant “go-go-go” mentality can make it quite physically and psychologically exhausting at times.

It’s a very interesting game. It will challenge your intellect and your reflexes, and it can be both fascinating and satisfying, but it’s not something I’d recommend if you’ve had a long day and need to unwind.

The story, meanwhile, is mostly enjoyable, though a bit on the basic side. I played so little of the original that it’s hard to compare the two accurately, but based on what little I saw, the original seemed to have a bit more personality.

[image error]

I made my Mark purple, of course.

For the most part there’s very little to set Catalyst apart from any number of other sci-fi dystopias where corrupt corporations rule the world (a genre which seems increasingly prophetic by the day). It works, and it does get pretty exciting near the end, but it’s not especially surprising. What twists there are can easily be seen coming.

The ending is also fairly inconclusive and clearly intended to set-up a sequel, which may or may not actually happen.

I did really like the cast of characters, though. Faith is a great protagonist; she’s tough, but not to an unrealistic degree, and she still feels very human and relatable. Her recklessness and curiosity remind me of Leha a bit.

The rest of the cast isn’t quite as impressive, but they’re still pretty solid characters. For a game that isn’t particularly long or story-driven, they have a lot of depth and development, even the ones that seem one-dimensional at first. The one exception is Plastic, who is as artificial as her name would indicate.

It’s one of the more diverse casts I’ve seen in a game, too, which is always nice to see.

Graphically, I imagine this is a very good-looking game on a powerful machine, but as previously discussed, my rig was showing its age when I played it. Catalyst ran well enough, but the textures just never seemed to display quite right, and it did get a bit sluggish or laggy at times. The funny thing is that no amount of tinkering with the graphics settings seemed to affect any of these issues. At least the cinematics looked good.

[image error]One other thing that I did really like is that you actually have a body in this game. If you look down, you’ll see Faith’s feet and legs. If you grab onto a ledge, you’ll see her hands. It seems like such a small thing, but I found it made the game vastly more immersive than the standard first person game where you’re just a disembodied head.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is a very hard game to rate. I’m coming away with more positive feelings than negative ones, but there’s no shortage of either.

Overall rating: 7/10

One other amusing thing to note: Early in the game, you’ll encounter a jukebox you can activate to play music in-game. This is hardly a radical idea at this point, but imagine my joy when the very first song to be played was by none other than Chvrches, one of my most beloved bands of all time (though ironically not the one referenced in the sub-header).

Now, I knew they’d done a song for the game, so it didn’t come as a total shock, but it was a great way to be welcomed into the game. Needless to say my progress ground to a halt as I listened to the song.

Filed under: Games, Reviews Tagged: Mirror's Edge, review, sci-fi

Review: Logan

I went into Logan with very high expectations. I’ve enjoyed every X-Men movie to date, Wolverine is one of my favourite characters from the franchise, and the buzz around this film has been very good.

[image error]So perhaps my sky-high expectations are causing me to judge Logan with an unfairly critical eye, but for the first time, I’m leaving an X-Men movie feeling more disappointment than anything.

Logan depicts a grim future where mutants are dying off. An aging, sickly Logan is working as a limo driver while caring for the decrepit Professor Xavier. Well, “caring for” is probably the wrong term. Xavier is more of a prisoner. His mind is failing, and he needs to be kept under lock and key for the safety of all, lest his telepathic powers run out of control with deadly consequences.

Into this wretched purgatory of a life comes Laura, a mutant child with powers eerily reminiscent of Logan’s own. Laura is the product of horrific corporate experiments to create mutant super-soldiers, and the nurse who raised her is desperate to see her to safety. She believes Logan is the only one who can save young Laura.

Unsurprisingly, Logan isn’t eager to take responsibility for the girl, but in the end he doesn’t have much choice, and he, Laura, and Xavier find themselves in a desperate flight from the ruthless forces pursuing her.

I knew going in this was going to be a very dark movie. That much was clear from the trailers. If you’ve ever read any of my fiction, you know I’m down with grim stories.

But in the case of Logan, it just doesn’t quite work.

[image error]You see, there is a difference between trying to be something and actually being something. You’ve probably heard it said that the harder you try to be cool, the less cool you actually are, and the same is true of most of anything.

Logan is trying very, very hard to be a powerful movie, but that’s exactly why it isn’t. It’s such an unrelentingly bleak and brutal story that it just ends up feeling bland and tasteless. You need some light to contrast the darkness, or else you’re just fumbling blind.

It works so hard to be tragic that it misses opportunities to be genuinely impactful. Xavier has degenerated so much that I no longer see anything of Professor X in him. If there had been more flashes of his old self, if I could have seen something of the character I know in him, his issues would have been heart-wrenching, but instead he’s just this incoherent, foul-mouthed old man who isn’t a shell of his old self so much as he’s a different character entirely.

I very much like the idea of superhero movies being a little more serious, a little more about character and less about spectacle. Part of the reason I’m such a fan of the X-Men movies is that they’re already doing a pretty good job of that.

But Logan has gone to the opposite extreme. It wants so desperately to prove its emotional weight and artistic prowess that loses sight of the forest for the trees and fails to actually tell an interesting story.

[image error]That’s not to say that there aren’t positives to the movie. Indeed, there are a lot of individual parts of Logan that I enjoyed quite a lot, even if they don’t fit together very well as a whole.

By far and away the best part of the film is Dafne Keen’s performance as Laura.

This kid is going places.

Despite the fact that she doesn’t speak any coherent words for roughly the first three quarters of the movie, she manages to communicate an incredible amount of personality and emotion. You can see a clear resemblance between her and Wolverine, yet she’s also clearly her own person.

And the sheer intensity of her performance is staggering. When danger comes, she morphs into this shrieking avatar of bestial fury, and yet her quieter moments are no less powerful. She’s as convincing as a vulnerable, innocent child as she is as a cold-blooded killer.

The villains of the story also put on excellent performances. They’re skin-crawling, blood-boilingly, disgustingly and utterly vile, and I mean that in the best way possible. Villains should make you hate them with every fiber of your being, and these guys accomplished that with flying colours.

But still, Logan is a movie that ends up feeling like less than the sum of its parts.

[image error]There’s one other thing that bothers me, but it’s a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and want to go in fresh, I’d advise leaving now. For the record, I’m giving this 6.9. You can leave now and not miss anything non-spoilery.

Everyone ready for the spoiler? Good.

I don’t like that Logan died. Now, I want to be clear that I’m not being sentimental here (see my Dark Knight Rises review for proof I’m willing to kill my darlings). This was always going to be Hugh Jackman’s last movie as Wolverine anyway, and Logan has got to be pushing his second century at this point. We all have to go sometime. I’m not upset by the death of the character.

What bothers me is it sabotages the whole theme of the movie. The core thread running through the movie is Logan’s struggle to cope with the pain and horror of his long and violent life. He’s outlived everyone he ever cared about, and he just doesn’t have the strength to go on anymore.

What a powerful moment it would have been if Logan could overcome that in the end. How meaningful it would have been for him to find the strength to continue on, to escape with Laura and finally have the peace he long ago gave up hope of ever finding.

But instead he’s just killed off. It’s not even his choice; it’s just something bad that happened. Again, they were so desperate to make this movie a tearjerker that they ignored their best chance to tell a truly powerful story and just went for the most blunt, contrived, obvious solution possible.

[image error]It’s a death with no thematic meaning. It doesn’t make any point about the character. It doesn’t have any real emotional payoff. It’s lazy.

Again, if Logan hadn’t been so hyped by both myself and the media as a whole, I might view it less harshly. It’s not that it’s a bad movie, but it could have been so much more than it is. Honestly I liked the previous Wolverine movie much, much better.

To make it official:

Overall rating: 6.9/10

Filed under: Reviews Tagged: movies, review, sci-fi, x-men

WoW: A Short Visit

Like most gamers, I’m counting the days until the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda (or until my new computer arrives, if that turns out to be later). In the meanwhile, I decided to make a short return to World of Warcraft to get caught up in the game before the release of patch 7.2, which should come right as I’m in the thick of Andromeda.

[image error]Ru shanna Shal’dorei:

My biggest goal with this return visit — and one I accomplished much sooner than I expected to — was to finally finish off Suramar, both the initial reputation grind and the additional storyline added in patch 7.1.

Taking a break in the middle of the storyline probably didn’t help my impression of it, though admittedly it was rather disjointed to begin with due to all the reputation grinding between story arcs. I will say that I quite like the twist with Arluin. At first I thought, “Oh, this is such a cheesy, generic twist. The seemingly heartless rogue isn’t so bad after all.”

Well, I was right about the second part, but then came the follow-up quest afterward, and I realized Blizzard was being a lot more clever than I gave them credit for. Well played, Blizz.

That leaves the post-launch storyline, Insurrection. I feel like I should have loved this story, as it seems like exactly the sort the sort of thing I’m normally into. It’s almost pure story, and it’s basically Elfapalooza 2017.

But while I don’t have any big complaints about it, I can’t say I was blown away by it, either.

One thing that I found jarring was the presence of what I’m going to call “micro-grinds” breaking up the story. Every so often the storyline would come to a screeching halt as I was sent off to do arbitrary numbers of world quests or order hall missions.

[image error]None of these tasks took very long, and by WoW standards — or really any standard — they’re hardly onerous, but they did throw off the pacing, and I just don’t understand why Blizzard included them at all. The questline was originally gated on a weekly basis, so it’s not like they extended the life of the content any. Are the WoW devs just so addicted to grind they’re now physically incapable of designing anything without it?

I think the lack of good soundtrack in Legion that I’ve touched on before also hindered Insurrection. The grand and terrible events of this arc deserved some epic musical accompaniment, but most of the time, it’s just the standard Suramar ambient soundtrack, which isn’t terribly inspiring.

And I must admit the premise of a corrupt government selling out to a foreign power and then commencing a totalitarian crackdown while fueling the flames of xenophobia is hitting a little too close to home these days.

But more than anything I think I’m just tired of Suramar. It’s a great example of the sort of thing I’ve been complaining about pretty much since I started playing WoW. Blizzard will design amazing content, and then they’ll make you hate it. Suramar is an absolute triumph of game design in so many ways, virtually unmatched in my extensive gaming experience, but after weeks upon weeks of mind-numbing grinding within its twilit streets, I’ve just had enough.

Again, none of that is to say I didn’t enjoy the story. It just didn’t blow me away, even though in theory it really should have.

[image error]Honestly I think my favourite part was the banter between Valtrois and Stellagosa. I know some people have been shipping Kor’vas Bloodthorn and Stellagosa, but now I’m wondering if Stella/Valtrois will rise as a rival ship. I’m still not sure I’m on board with Dragons dating humanoids, but those two definitely have chemistry, I’ll give you that.

Also it was nice to see the Blood Elves taking an active role in the story, and especially nice to see Liadrin out and about. I’ve always felt she had such potential, and while her role in Insurrection doesn’t entirely make up for her neglect, at least it’s something.

The Nightmare to the Nighthold:

This visit also allowed me to experience Legion’s raid content for the first time.

Somewhat like Insurrection, the Emerald Nightmare has no crippling flaws, but failed to particularly impress me, especially after so many years of hype around the concept. I did think the ending after the Rift of Aln was a nice touch.

Trial of Valor I like a bit more. It’s a nice solid wrap-up to Stormheim’s story, the fights are decent, and it drops some very pretty gear.

[image error]I kind of wish Blizzard had the courage to do more small-scale content like this. It’s not evil to reuse art assets or have small raids you can finish in an under an hour. It might be a problem if that’s all Blizzard did, but as a supplement, humbler offerings like Trial of Valor add some welcome texture to the game.

Now I’m really sad we never got that Abyssal Maw raid in Cataclysm.

But undoubtedly the crown jewel was the Nighthold raid. Now that impressed me.

I think my favourite part has to be the Star Augur fight. It’s been a long time since a raid boss in WoW really wowed me (no pun intended), but this is a hell of a fight. While it’s ostensibly an illusion, in effect you spend the fight warping through space, arriving at a succession of increasingly hostile and alien worlds. The glimpse of the Void near the end is genuinely horrifying.

Most of the other bosses are solid, too. The voice actor for Trilliax was clearly having way too much fun with the role.

Only one I didn’t really like was Botanist Tel’arn. Annoying voice-overs, unremarkable mechanics. I also don’t think that Elisande or Chronomatic Anomaly quite lived up to the potential inherent in their concepts — last time we fought a boss with powers over time it was a vastly more entertaining experience.

[image error]I am curious why Elisande couldn’t see any future where the Legion didn’t win. Are we as players so awesome we broke the space-time continuum? Did the Demons trick her somehow?

Probably the latter. She did have frickin’ Tichondrius camping out in her guest room.

The Nighthold concludes with our long-awaited confrontation with Darkness Incarnate himself. The fight might not be quite as spectacular as Star Augur, but it’s still pretty impressive, and the cinematic at the end (a cinematic for a first tier raid!) was awesome. Like a lot of Legion, it did a good job of playing to nostalgia without using it as a crutch, and it was incredibly satisfying all around.

Just a bit of a shame it spoils the end of the Light’s Heart quests, as I hadn’t finished the grind for that yet.

Again, why did this need to be a grind? I actually like chain-running heroics, so the grind hasn’t really bothered me in this case, but I don’t understand the rationale. It’s a story quest with no significant power rewards. Why does it need to be such work? Or any work at all?

Other thoughts:

Few other random things to note about my vacation to Azeroth.

[image error]I got my first legendary item of the expansion, the Pillars of the Dark Portal, despite putting no significant effort toward getting one. I honestly didn’t think I’d get ever a legendary in Legion.

It’s a bit of a weird feeling, really. My philosophy has always been that I’m opposed to exclusive content, but in favour of exclusive rewards. I’m honestly not sure someone like me deserves legendary gear. But then again I suppose the Rubicon was already crossed when they Oprahed the legendary cloaks back in Pandaria.

The whole thing was rather an underwhelming experience, which I guess illustrates how much of a non-event legendaries have become. The special power for this particular legendary is so niche as to be virtually worthless (though the raw stats still make it a huge upgrade), and there’s no fanfare, not even an achievement. It just appeared in my bags like any other random piece of loot.

Meanwhile, in my absence Blizzard went ahead with the plan to allow people to convert WoW Tokens to Battle.Net Balance, meaning you can now pay for most anything Blizzard offers with WoW gold, at least in theory. This was followed by a massive upswing in Token prices.

I had feared I wouldn’t be able to continue paying my subscription with gold, let alone buy anything else with it, but it seems I may have underestimated just how easy it is to make gold these days. Despite putting only the barest minimum of effort into farming, I’m ending the month with three Tokens, which means at the very least my sub is safe for a while, and in the long run I may earn enough of a surplus to buy other things, as well.

[image error]This is a better deal for me than you may immediately realize, because Tokens convert directly to USD. This means I’m not being screwed over by exchange rates, which are getting pretty brutal these days. And it’s not like I’m going to stop spending on Blizzard games anytime soon.

Just the other day they released a new teaser for the necromancer in Diablo III, and while I’ve been hesitant to support what appears to be a largely abandoned game, the preview of the female necro is turning that around a bit. You’re basically playing as an even more badass version of Liv Moore from iZombie; how can I say no to that?

I really wish I’d known they changed it to let you have more than one unused Token at a time before now. I could have bought two or three Tokens before my sub lapsed the last time, back when they were still relatively cheap. It’s strange I never heard about the change; I’m usually pretty good at keeping up with WoW news, even when I’m not playing. But what’s done is done, I guess.

Now I just hope that Token prices don’t get much higher.

Filed under: Games Tagged: because Elves that's why, fantasy, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

Upgrading

Life has a funny way of surprising us sometimes.

[image error]My plan for this month was to spend a few weeks getting caught up in World of Warcraft until the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda. However, somewhere along the line, I somehow fell into playing Mirror’s Edge Catalyst as well. I’ll have full thoughts on my brief return to WoW and Mirror’s Edge sometime soon.

However, I noticed something distressing while playing Catalyst. My once mighty gaming computer was struggling with it a bit, with the in-game textures often not displaying quite right and occasional moments of lag. It hasn’t massively impacted my ability to enjoy the game, but it is a bit disappointing.

Then I saw how gorgeous the trailers for Andromeda are, and I started getting depressed that I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it in all its glory. Inquisition has the dubious distinction of being the first game my current computer couldn’t handle at max settings, and while I was still able to get it looking pretty good, Bioware’s now had a few years to push their graphics even further.

And it also occurred to me my computer has been showing its age in other ways. Nothing serious, but small hiccups and annoyances here and there that are becoming more common as game technology becomes more advanced.

So… I ordered myself a new gaming computer, which should arrive right around the time Andromeda launches.

This is sooner than I expected to get a new computer, and it’s maybe not the most financially responsible decision I’ve made in my life, but it’s not going to bankrupt me, and now I should be able to enjoy Andromeda in all its full glory.

Filed under: Games, Misc. Tagged: fantasy, Mirror's Edge, sci-fi, video games, World of Warcraft

Lord of the Rings Is not “Low Magic”

There is an argument I have often seen bandied about that Lord of the Rings is a “low magic” setting. It probably comes up elsewhere, but I often see it brought up in regards to Lord of the Rings Online. In particular it is at the centre of the unending controversy over the game’s rune-keeper class, which is essentially a mage.

[image error]I am a lifelong Lord of the Rings fan who has read the books and watched the movies more times than I can count, and I am completely baffled by this belief in a non-magical Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings isn’t low magic. Lord of the Rings is dripping in magic.

Magic is everywhere in Middle-Earth. Before the Hobbits even make it to Bree in the Fellowship of the Ring, they encounter evil psychic trees, are saved by an immortal nature spirit, spend the night in his enchanted home, get bewitched by evil ghosts, and steal a bunch of magic blades from them. And all that is just a tangent the movies didn’t even bother to cover.

Also in the Fellowship of the Ring, there’s a scene where Gandalf basically blows up a small hill just to chase off some wolves. Saruman calls forth incredible storms to drive the Fellowship back from Caradhras. Glorfindel (or Arwen in the movie) is able to drive off the Nazgul by unleashing the inherent power of Rivendell.

The Mirror of Galadriel. The Light of Earendil. Sting. Ent-draughts. It just keeps going. The Elves were so suffused with magic that the mere touch of anything wrought by their hands caused Gollum excruciating pain. And did you think that the Lorien cloaks kept their wearers so well hidden just through clever stitching? That a few bites of lembas a day can sustain a person for weeks simply because the Elves are good bakers?

[image error]The counter to all this might be that these examples all involve very special people. Gandalf, Saruman, and the Elves are immortals with abilities far beyond that of mere humans. Magic is out of reach of the ordinary person in Middle-Earth.

Is it, though?

Aragorn is mortal, yet his mastery of healing quite clearly comes from more than a simple knowledge of herbs and medicine. The Oathbreakers were cursed to undeath by Isildur, then commanded and subsequently released by Aragorn. Most tellingly, the Mouth of Sauron, a mortal man, is said to have learned great sorcery from the Dark Lord himself. This shows magic can be taught in Lord of the Rings.

Now these are Numenoreans and therefore still a bit beyond your garden variety human. But there are other examples.

Even Samwise Gamgee, a simple Hobbit gardener, is able to make hardened Orcs flinch before him simply by shouting a few Elvish phrases. He’s able to regrow the trees of the Shire using naught but a small pouch of soil from Lorien.

Even the humblest resident of Middle-Earth is therefore capable of wielding some degree of supernatural power, and one can imagine someone with more time and inclination to study ancient lore and seek out objects of power could accomplish quite a lot. Perhaps they might not equal Gandalf in power, but still…

[image error]Consider, also, that for a time Sauron masqueraded as “the Necromancer of Mirkwood.” Necromancers had to be a relatively common thing for him to not be immediately identified as his true self.

Although we don’t see a lot of mortal magic-wielders in Lord of the Rings, it is my opinion that they certainly could have existed, and probably did in some number. To get back to LotRO, then, I see nothing wrong with the rune-keeper.

Magic is everywhere in Lord of the Rings, so where did this perception that’s it’s a low magic setting come from?

I don’t know. Fanon is a strange thing at the best of times, and this is definitely one of the weirder examples I’ve seen in my time, all the more so for how widespread the misconception has become.

The one explanation I can come up with is perhaps it has to do with the fact magic in Lord of the Rings tends to be less visually flashy than you see in other settings. Magic in Tolkien’s universe tends to be more often about influencing minds and emotions than about flinging fireballs and lightning bolts. The magic is very common and very powerful, but it is subtle, so maybe that’s how people have come to dismiss it.

[image error]I can especially see this being the case for people who are more familiar with the movies than the books. The medium of film cannot easily convey things like how the heart is seized with unnatural terror in the presence of the Nazgul, or the serenity that can be bestowed by the Elves and their works.

Even then, though, there are still plenty of more dramatic examples of magic in Lord of the Rings, so it still doesn’t make much sense.

It is a great mystery. How have people convinced themselves the story that created the high fantasy genre is not high fantasy?

Filed under: Misc. Tagged: books, fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings Online, movies

ESO: A Crafty Stratagem

A few weeks after I hit what we would generally think of as the level cap in Elder Scrolls Online, I have now hit what could be argued to be the true level cap, 160 Champion Points. It is only at this point that you cease hitting new tiers of equipment and can begin gearing up in earnest.

[image error]This is where all those long hours I spent leveling my crafting finally paid off. Normally at this point in an MMO, I’d be hitting up dungeons or world bosses, or perhaps grinding daily quests or even doing PvP. In ESO, I had to do none of that. Like Tony Stark in a cave full of Middle Eastern stereotypes, I simply built my own equipment from scratch.

This first entailed several hours trekking all over the length and breadth of Tamriel to find enough materials, as the final tier of gear requires ten times more ingredients than what came before it.

I thought this would be a chore going in, but I actually didn’t mind it. It seems a small price to pay to free myself from the shackles of RNGesus, and this is a genuinely nice game to ride around and explore. I actually started the journey a bit before hitting 160 CP and made it the rest of the way thanks to the XP from exploration, killing mobs that got in my way, and doing the occasional Dolmen as I happened across them.

I had planned ahead and saved a bunch of crafting surveys for every profession, so that turned what could have been weeks of grinding into something that only took about a day of pleasant wandering.

My one complaint is how vague the survey maps can be. I had one where X didn’t so much mark the spot as it covered the entire northeast quadrant of Reaper’s March. That’s less than helpful.

[image error]In the end, I wasn’t entirely able to achieve my goal of 100% self-sufficiency and had to buy some things from guild traders. Most notably glyphs, since I didn’t level enchanting. Thankfully 160 CP glyphs are fairly cheap as long as you’re willing to settle for them “only” being epic. I also needed some extra leather, as I wound up a few hundred short of my goal even after clearing out all my surveys.

Once I had everything I needed, it was finally time to craft my new set of gear. That’s not exactly an exciting story, since it mostly entailed my going to some crafting stations and clicking some buttons, but it is interesting how much thought I put into those clicks.

I did what is for me a surprising amount of research and planning before making this final set of gear. I read online about the various crafting sets before settling on the ones I wanted, and even I drew up some basic graphs to track what traits I’d unlocked on what pieces and which I wanted to use.

I was a bit disappointed by how lame most of the five-piece bonuses for crafted sets are. The only one that really stands out is the double Mundus Stone one from Craglorn, but I’m not going to have nine traits on everything anytime this year. In the end I settled on two four-piece bonuses instead.

The end result of all this work and planning is that I’m now 100% equipped with gear made by my own pixelated hands.* Every piece has been tailored to have exactly the stats, traits, and appearances I want.

[image error]*(Excluding jewelry, which can’t be crafted.)

Every piece is at least epic quality, and I also managed to make a few legendaries, most notably both my weapons. In my bow stance, my crit chance is now near 60%, which calls to mind fond memories of being a fire mage back in Wrath of the Lich King.

I’m also mostly happy with the appearances. I still miss my mid-level Argonian chest, but what I’ve got now is okay.

On the whole, I’ve found this a very satisfying experience, though I’m not entirely without complaints, of course. Getting three crafting professions fully upgraded was pushing the very upper limit of what I’m willing to tolerate in terms of grind.

This is also something of an example of rewarding time spent over skill, which is a design philosophy I’m not fond of. I’m honestly not sure I deserve to have gear this good. Maybe instead of surveys just giving you a pile of mats you should have to fight bosses who drop the mats, or maybe they should entail puzzles or mini-games of some sort.

And I’m now living in terror of the inevitable gear reset. Hopefully it’s still aways off — I don’t want to do this again anytime soon.

[image error]But there is something deeply gratifying about being able to fully craft my own gear. It’s not even the fact that I don’t have to worry about being screwed over by bad luck, or that it’s a viable gearing path for solo players, although I love both of those things. There’s just something special about building the gear yourself that’s hard to explain in rational terms. It just feels good.

Crafting is something I’ve always liked as an idea but rarely enjoyed in practice. Elder Scrolls Online is a very welcome exception to that rule.

And now I can craft gear for any future alts, too.

Filed under: Games Tagged: Elder Scrolls, fantasy, The Elder Scrolls Online

Of Social and Themepark MMOs

If you spend any time in the MMO community, you will inevitably see discussions of how these games can be made more social, how can they can be designed to foster more player interaction. Given my famously antisocial nature, it may surprise you to know that I am entirely in favour of this. These are social games, and building bigger and better online communities can only be a good thing.

[image error]But I do take issue with a lot of the ideas that get bandied around for how to make MMOs more social. Most of them are the sort of punitive design that will drive me away, rather than make me want to reach out to other players. It’s mostly people who are already social trying to find ways to force solo players to be like them. We don’t hear from soloists what would make them want to reach out.

It’s an issue I tackle in a new article for MMO Bro, where I speculate on how to build a social MMO for the solo player. I can’t say for certain my suggestions will apply for everyone, but I know these are the steps that would help me become more social.

While I’m pontificating on MMO design, I also have an article on why themepark MMOs work. Hopefully this isn’t taken as a knock against sandboxes; while some comparisons are necessary, it wasn’t really meant to be about what genre is better. It’s just an analysis of what makes the themepark such an enduring formula.

Filed under: Games, My writing Tagged: video games, writing

If StarCraft’s Co-op Commanders Were RPG Classes

One of the things that gives StarCraft II’s co-op missions such enduring appeal is the wildly different playstyles offered by the many commanders. I’ve often compared to the different civilizations and god choices in the “Age of ____” games, but you could also compare them to RPG classes. In some cases, the similarity is very obvious, while others you have to squint a bit more, but most can find an equivalent in the RPG world.

[image error]Vorazun: Rogue

Vorazun is part of the inspiration for this post. I’ve been saying for months that she’s like the traditional rogue archetype ported to the RTS genre, focusing on cloaked units, burst damage, and crowd control. Generally playing Vorazun tends to entail a lot of stunlocking the enemy and then bursting them down before they have a chance to fight back. That’s a rogue if I ever saw one.

Artanis: Paladin

Artanis’ army is slow, with little mobility or fancy tricks, but they’re also incredibly tough and durable, making them the ideal frontline bruisers. He also boasts a number of helpful buffs that help add survivability to his ally’s forces.

Sounds like a prot pally to me.

Abathur: Death knight

Like Artanis, Abathur has a strong focus on very slow but very tanky units. In late game, his troops are virtually indestructible. But he also has a strong emphasis on feeding off the destruction of his enemies; his power comes from killing. That sounds like a death knight.

Stukov: Necromancer

[image error]Not just because he has zombies, but because his playstyle is about overwhelming the enemy with endless floods of cheap and free units. He’s a summoner through and through.

Karax: Priest

More so than any other commander, Karax tends to focus on supporting his ally. He uses buffs, global abilities, and powerful defenses to turn the tide in his team’s favour, often taking little to no direct role in the battle himself. While that’s not exactly the same as being an RPG healer, the general principle of hanging back and supporting your allies remains intact.

Alarak: Warlock

Alarak’s playstyle can differ a little bit depending on whether you’re going for a Wrathwalker or Ascendant build, but either way you’re going to be using a lot of active abilities (Alarak’s and/or the Ascendants’) and pumping out huge damage numbers.

That seems like a spellcaster to me, and given Alarak has a habit of sacrificing his own units for power, warlock seems like the best fit.

[image error]Raynor: Ranger

Raynor’s army tends to focus on mobility and high ranged DPS, which makes him a decent allegory for a ranger archetype. Furthermore, a common trait of ranger classes is that they are considered to be very newbie friendly but have a surprisingly high skill cap at higher levels of play, and that’s also true of Raynor.

Kerrigan: Battle mage

A lot of playing Kerrigan boils down to controlling Kerrigan herself, a hero unit with a variety of powerful abilities. This puts me in mind of a mage, but she’s also pretty hard to kill and tends to like getting into the thick of things, so I suppose that would make her more of a battle mage.

Swann: Warrior

Subtlety was never Swann’s strong suit. He likes to build an army of slow, tanky, powerful units and slog his way to victory with sheer brute force. This makes him a decent allegory for a warrior archetype.

Nova: Druid

This one’s a bit of a stretch, I grant, but she is probably the most versatile commander at the moment, able to adapt to any situation, and she can swap between two different stances with very different abilities, so that’s sort of like shape-shifting.

[image error]Zagara: ???

Okay, I’ll admit I can’t draw any clear RPG parallels with Zagara. What class does “hurl a bajillion suicide units at your enemy” translate to?

If you’ve got any suggestions, I’m all ears, but maybe this thought experiment simply has its limits.

Filed under: Games Tagged: sci-fi, Starcraft