Month: August 2019

Blaugust 2019 Wraps Up

Izlain2 Comments

August just flew by, didn’t it folks? For those of you who made it through the slog, congratulations. This is I believe the third or fourth time I’ve managed to do the full gamut of posts during the event, so I’ll pat myself on the back for that. Some items learned during this year’s Blaugust:

  • I didn’t follow the schedule at all. I made one post that was on theme with Bel’s schedule with the developer appreciation bit.
  • I didn’t really mentor anyone, don’t know if that means I should lose the status.
  • I was in my own little world, not mentioning WoW Classic once. Well, now I just did.
  • This year was the most difficult to get out all 31 posts. Having a vacation in the middle of the month made for a mini-marathon just to have posts scheduled.
  • I enjoy blogging, but I cannot keep up this pace. Some days I was reaching for something to write about.
  • Despite many passions, sometimes I don’t feel like writing.

It was a long month that passed quickly and I am glad that the marathon is over. I’ll be returning to my 15 or so post a month schedule that has served me well in the past. I’ll probably go silent for a couple of days unless the bug strikes me sooner. I know there were some drafts I didn’t end up publishing that I may work on, but for the most part I am spent at this point.

That’s really all I have. It was nice to see the community come together again around this event, but once again the attrition will likely set in. Not to sound like a downer, but these are facts. Hopefully some of you stick around for the long haul. I need stuff to read.

Thoughts on Genesis

Izlain

Periodically I check out the free section of the Playstation Network just to see if anything catches my eye. I like trying new games for free, even if the free to play model isn’t the best way to go about doing things. It’s been a long while since I played a new MOBA, seeing as how Survival Sandboxes and Battle Royales took over that flavor of the month slot for a few years. I guess Auto Chess is a thing now, but it’s awful and that’s all I have to say. Enter Rampage Games and their new title, Genesis.

As MOBAs go, this one seems to fit the standard build. From the main menu you’ll have various sub-menus with stats about characters and weapons and things, along with leaderboards, a storefront with virtual currency and skins along with chat and mail systems. This is all pretty standard faire, and though its not revolutionary, it is pretty slick and intuitive.

Contrary to most MOBAs, there is a story of sorts. I know that League of Legends used to do various text-based story updates for a while, but I never really paid attention. Their cinematic videos were more well received but didn’t tell a story as much as they looked pretty. In the case of Genesis, it is said that our universe was basically expanding beyond the point of no return, a tear in space/time happens and probes are sent through. A whole new galaxy exists on the other side, so the best warriors of our universe are sent over to explore. From there, alien life forms are encountered and it doesn’t really explain how we get to a MOBA setup, but let’s be honest — story doesn’t really matter in this style of game.

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What does matter is the gameplay, and as far as that goes, it’s pretty much what you’d expect from the genre. Like, the map isn’t exactly the same as in a game such as League of Legends or DOTA 2, but the general concept is the same. There are three lanes. There are neutral jungle creep camps. There are towers. One thing that’s a bit different is that there are specific places on the map where you can place wards (called “observers” here) and you can’t buy them from the store. Another twist is a variety of buffs that hang out on the battlefield such as healing packs, defensive shards and others. Otherwise we’re looking at staple concepts from the genre.

Another feature that LoL may not have but I have seen in other MOBAs, is the ability to purchase items for your character while still out on the map. Other games did it in a way that a critter would run off to buy and bring you back your items, in this case you can just straight up buy items while away from the home base. I don’t mind this, though it can lead to some unfair power spikes during a fight, but I guess the same thing goes for leveling up mid fight and getting a new ability, which I’ve seen happen many times in other games. The game defaults to automatically give you reminders when you have enough gold to buy something and a simple press on the d-pad will buy the item. I spent my time with the first few sessions focusing on the gameplay pros and cons rather than trying to learn new item builds. The game will automatically recommend items to you which is nice, especially being new to the genre. Skills are automatically leveled up as well by default, but these features can be turned off. Personally I’d recommend using the help until you have a better feel for the game. It can be a little wonky if you’re a PC MOBA player and now have to adjust to a controller. One stick controls movement, the other controls skill shots. Skills are used with various button presses, but it definitely feels different than other games I’ve played. Same difference?

Overall I think it’s a pretty fun title. I enjoyed myself for what little time I played. If nothing else it’s free (I do believe it is on PC as well) so you lose nothing by trying it out. Craving a new MOBA experience? This could be the one for you.

TellTale Games to Rise From the Grave?

Izlain

It’s been almost a year since TellTale Games went under. It was a sad time, but also understandable. The company had honed in on a particular type of game to the point where it started to feel lackluster. Characters from cool IPs can only hold your attention for so long before there needs to be something new done with your games. Whatever the case, it was disappointing for me and other players who had already purchased what would become their final game, the final season of their long running Walking Dead series. After two episodes the company announced its impending closure, and we were left with a sour taste in our mouths. Thankfully, Skybound (owned by the creator of The Walking Dead) decided to open up a games division and promised that they would be finishing up the series themselves.

Within six months I would write my final post about a TellTale game, one of a long line of posts about their games. Or so I thought. I was sent a message by a friend on Steam the other day with a link to this article (thanks Hurt!). It appears that a holding company called LCG Entertainment has formed and is picking up “key assets.” From the article:

The new company will be focused on “re-releasing select games from the studio’s back catalog and developing new games in some of the company’s best-selling brands,” according to the announcement.

Good news for people who haven’t been able to play those older games for whatever reason, as I suppose at some point you would no longer be able to acquire some of their better options such as The Wolf Among Us or Tales From The Borderlands. Re-releasing means some of them may end up again on newer game consoles, which are looking to be a thing by next year. More exciting though, is that they have said they got licensing rights to TWAU and Batman both of which I really enjoyed and would play another season of.

The article goes on to talk about how they have acquired talent that worked for the original company and are offering freelance positions to some of those that were let go last year, with full-time positions to come in the future. I think that’s great, particularly if they didn’t get a steady job by now, they can go back to something more familiar. It should also keep some of what we’ve come to expect from this style of game intact. I for one look forward to some new games as well, that are completely different than their norm. Something on the level of Detroit: Become Human would be fantastic. I guess we’ll see what the future holds, I’ll try to keep up on this story as things progress.

How Drinking Habits Change

Izlain2 Comments

Let me preface today’s post with an IRL anecdote:

I woke up this morning to go to work at my normal time, 2:30 am. Today was my first day back to work after nine days off, so you can imagine my mood at that time. As I got into my car, it wouldn’t start. It almost started, clicked a bunch and well, I knew my battery was toast. What was strange about this is that there wasn’t any sort of warning. Sure, I didn’t drive my car for the three days I was gone, but I did drive it several times after being home — enough you’d think the alternator was keeping it charged. There was no hesitation yesterday when I made a few stops, but it is what it is. Thankfully my girlfriend tends to wake up when my alarm goes off, so she hadn’t yet drifted back to sleep and allowed me to take her car to work. I asked my mom to give her a ride to work and to get our son to school and that was that. The day was a standard Monday otherwise and nothing overly eventful happened. After work I had to go get this battery taken care of, so I took the old one out of my car and loaded it into hers. They couldn’t find my warranty information at AutoZone despite the fact that I know I bought it there, probably about four years ago. Whatever the case, I needed a battery so I got a new one, but would you believe they cost $150 these days? I remember the days when you could pick up a half-decent video card for that price. Anyway, I got the battery put in and all is well with the world again. It did sour my mood on writing a bit, hence the later in the day post.

Having had that sort of day, I decided to browse some of the community’s posts before trying to jot something down myself. I came across this post by Roger from Contains Moderate Peril, and I thought I could offer some thoughts on the topic as well.

Like Roger, I tend to get seasonal beers when their seasons come around, but I don’t tend to every really drink light beers (pilsners and the like). If you go back to the beginnings of my drinking career, I didn’t even drink beer. We mostly bought bottles of cheap spirits and drowned them in juice or soda and got our kicks that way. At some point I was introduced to “good” beer, which prior to I hadn’t had much outside of the big ones like Budweiser or Miller. Some early roommates of mine introduced me to Heineken and other “skunky” brews that I took a liking to, eventually graduating to things like Sam Adams (and a variety of their seasonal brews) and Guinness. I still enjoy the latter two, but I tend to only drink dark beers, outside of IPAs.

That was a more recent addition the repertoire. When I met my girlfriend, I remember still buying 12 to 18 packs of Miller Lite and other watery beers, and we would drink and drink and pee and pee and well, you get the picture. At some point someone bought her some Lagunitas IPAs and from there she was hooked. I didn’t immediately enjoy them, but had tried and enjoyed a few IPAs in my day, so I started an experimental phase and found a number of great tasting IPAs that I buy on a regular basis. I also found beers like the Old Rasputin Russian beer that is fabulous – it’s dark, it’s strong, and it tastes good.

The main reason for enjoying IPAs though is less about the flavor and more about the alcohol percentage. See, with your typical Bud Light you’re probably getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5% alcohol per volume. Most IPAs start around 6%, so you’re already doubling up on the percentage and are able to drink less beers, hence less bathroom breaks. It also means only needing to pick up a 6 pack for that gathering, rather than an 18 pack, and yeah,  you’ll probably have to be that guy who doesn’t share but fuck em, right? It was BYOB and you handled shit son! Anyway, many of the IPAs that I drink are in the 7.5-9% range, and I find that I don’t have to drink too many to get a nice buzz, and when you have to nap in the middle of the day, that’s a good way to bring it on. If nothing else, I’m now a cheaper date. I’m sure my lady appreciates that.

Apex Legends Doing EA Things

Izlain

Earlier this month, Apex Legends, coming off of an uptick for me with the release of the second season and some overall changes, boasted about a new “Iron Crown” event. With it, came a number of new things to check out:

  • Limited-Time Mode – Solos
  • Octane Town Takeover
  • Double XP for Top 5 and Wins Weekend
  • A special Iron Crown Collection Pack and Iron Crown Event Store
    • With Bloodhound Heirloom Set Preview
  • Exclusive event challenges with free loot

Sounds good right? A new queue (which is actually rather fun, more on this later), an updated part of the map (this sort of thing has happened before, but it keeps the map interesting) some XP boosts, and free to earn loot. A new limited time store with micro-transactions are fine, but then they went and did the whole EA thing and made these loot boxes with % chance for awesome skins and why can’t we just outright buy this shit or grind for it??? At least that seems to be the way things went. I didn’t keep up with the news much because honestly I’ve been just trying to do enough to keep my Blaugust post total on pace and otherwise it’s IRL most of the time. Whatever the case, Respawn back pedaled almost immediately, which is better than the reaction EA had back when this was going on with Battlefront 2.

  • Starting on 8/20, we’ll be adding and rotating all twelve of the event-exclusive Legendary items into the store over the course of the final week of the event for the regular Legendary skin cost of 1,800 Apex Coins. You will still be able to purchase Iron Crown Apex Packs for 700 Apex Coins if you choose. The store schedule for the week will be as follows:
  • For future collection events, we will provide more ways to obtain items than just buying Apex Packs.

So at least there was some feedback. It sucks that devs are constantly doing this sort of thing, but at the same time it shouldn’t take this sort of crack back for them to realize they should just do it the right way in the first place. But the discussion has been going on for a long time so I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Whatever the case, they have now plotted out a bit of a roadmap with things to expect, and basically promise not to lock exclusive stuff behind lock boxes. Or something to that effect.

  • One or more new gameplay changes such as permanent and limited-time modes (Ranked or Solos respectively), map updates and town takeovers, balance changes, new characters, new weapons, and more
  • New free progression content via challenges or the free Battle Pass track
  • Purchasable cosmetics via Battle Pass, Packs, and/or the Shop

Season Launches 

At the start of every season, you can expect a major map update, a new Legend, new loot items (weapons, ordnances, etc.), meaty changes to the Legend and weapon meta and balance, updates to our Ranked mode, and potentially new features (like we introduced in Season 2 with Ranked mode).Every season will also feature the release of a brand-new Battle Pass.

Themed Events

These events will generally occur during a season and bring with them a limited-time mode, event challenges that let players earn cosmetics, and a mix of event limited and evergreen cosmetics available for direct purchase. These events may also include a town takeover or small map change, and potential extensions to Apex Legends lore. Legendary Hunt was an example of a Themed Event, with the next one coming early September focused on a certain Phase Expert.

Collection Events

Collection Events will also take place throughout the season and deliver a limited-time mode, event challenges where players earn cosmetics, and a set of event limited cosmetics available via Event-specific Apex Packs or direct purchase; it’s your choice. Like Themed Events, Collection Events may also feature a town takeover or small map change.

So it seems there will be reasons to check in with the game from time to time, particularly if you’re kind of over the base experience. Most MOBAs used to have these sorts of limited time events, as grinding 5v5 on the same map over and over can get tiring and having a way to break that up keeps people playing your game. Skins and things will keep a particular type of player engaged, but most are going to stay more interested in your title when they have more activities to participate in. As for me, I enjoy the base gameplay loop, but I also like having new game modes once in a while. New characters, alternate progression. Give me something to work towards.