I’m currently torn between two video games, those being StarCraft 2 and Warhammer Online. Both games appeal to me in different ways and I know enough about my gaming habits to know that only one can win. I’ve never been able to really balance playing 2 video games at once.
On the one hand I have StarCraft 2. I started playing the StarCraft series when it first launched back in… what 1998? The StarCraft series has always appealed to my competitive nature. Back during StarCraft Brood Wars I use to play in 2v2 Tournaments hosted by IGN. The overall sweeping strategies of the game never clicked well enough with me to be to competitive in the 1v1 scene. Now that has sort of changed.
During the last 3 months of Beta I’ve found myself getting better and to the point where if I applied myself a little more, and actually sought out practice partners, I think I could make a splash in some of the smaller tournaments. The general strategies just seem so straight forward now I’m mainly just working on my mechanics. With 20-30 hours a week I’m fairly confident I could start placing in tournaments, the minor ones nothing major. However I love to play with my friends and most of them just want to do 2v2s or 3v3s. I would prefer to just do round robin 1v1s all night and talk to one another in Skype while we play.
So then I have Warhammer Online. I’ve played this game off and on since closed beta. A friend gave me his Beta account early on so I got to see how poorly development was handled of this game from day one. I love WAR though. The game is fun, the classes are fun, the world is interesting and PvP is dynamic. WAR’s only downfall now is the lack of players. If Warhammer Online could pull another 100-200k subs out of somewhere this game would have the power to continue to grow. Right now I feel it’s in a holding pattern that will soon dwindle away.
All that aside the game really is fun. I have always loved MMOs and MMOs that are about more than JUST gear are my favorite. WAR isn’t just about gear, it’s about Renown Rank. Gear IS important, but renown is more so. The way WAR is designed people don’t seclude themselves into tight knit groups running the same dungeons over and over again. The player base is forced into the open world and must work together in order to progress. No isolationism allowed! WAR is a game I can see myself being enveloped in. I’m playing with 2 real life friends at the moment but I know if I found a good friendly guild I could stay in WAR for a year or longer.
The Horizon… In 1 ½ months Final Fantasy 14 comes out. I fully intend to play it. For the last 7 months there hasn’t been any decent online games. Now I’m stuck between 2 and a 3rd down the road.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Ahh to blog.
Believe it or not I’ve written at least one post a week since the last one. It’s just that by the time I’m done writing them they feel like I’m just trying to talk about how great I am. Honestly I think this post may go the same way… (If it does you’ll never know though huh!?)
Tobold posted something about being ashamed of being a gamer. With the whole Real ID debacle that went down recently I can understand the misinterpretation of a large portion of the community. I have never been ashamed of being a gamer in my life. To me being ashamed of something means I regret doing it. I never have. I love video games; I love everything they have brought me in my life. I understand that the good things and the bad things have all brought me to where I am today and I like where I am today. I am a productive member of society with a full time job, military reservist, wife, kids, pets and I own multiple pieces of property. Why should I be ashamed?
However I have a very good friend who I play video games with. He is the same age as me and we met through the Military. He lives with his parents and has no job other than our reservist pay. Guess what? He isn’t ashamed either. He is happy. Isn’t being happy the point? He loves everything that video games have done for him and accepts everything they have taken away. Everyone in our Unit knows we play video games and often times when we are in the field we have a Wii and Xbox 360 with us.
I don’t think ashamed or even embarrassed are accurate descriptions of my… or our feelings towards how we present our gaming hobby to society in general. I know that no one in my military unit will judge me based on the fact that I play video games. We are in a technical field so in fact many do play, and those that don’t seemly write it off as a none issue.
Enter the civilian world, the free market. Here I keep my gaming as much as secret as possible. The people who do the hiring and firing aren’t of our generation. They don’t understand video games beyond what Facebook is providing them with or what CNN reports on… which more often than not isn’t a good story on us. When people apply for a job at my work now I’m the first one to see their resume, and I google everyone. If I were to see some Real ID posts come up from that person I would probably put their resume in the back of the pack assuming I didn’t throw it out all together. We don’t need to hire gamers, even though I am one. (I understand the hypocrisy there)
I want to choose who knows I play video games and who doesn’t. That should remain my choice and not the video game company.
Tobold posted something about being ashamed of being a gamer. With the whole Real ID debacle that went down recently I can understand the misinterpretation of a large portion of the community. I have never been ashamed of being a gamer in my life. To me being ashamed of something means I regret doing it. I never have. I love video games; I love everything they have brought me in my life. I understand that the good things and the bad things have all brought me to where I am today and I like where I am today. I am a productive member of society with a full time job, military reservist, wife, kids, pets and I own multiple pieces of property. Why should I be ashamed?
However I have a very good friend who I play video games with. He is the same age as me and we met through the Military. He lives with his parents and has no job other than our reservist pay. Guess what? He isn’t ashamed either. He is happy. Isn’t being happy the point? He loves everything that video games have done for him and accepts everything they have taken away. Everyone in our Unit knows we play video games and often times when we are in the field we have a Wii and Xbox 360 with us.
I don’t think ashamed or even embarrassed are accurate descriptions of my… or our feelings towards how we present our gaming hobby to society in general. I know that no one in my military unit will judge me based on the fact that I play video games. We are in a technical field so in fact many do play, and those that don’t seemly write it off as a none issue.
Enter the civilian world, the free market. Here I keep my gaming as much as secret as possible. The people who do the hiring and firing aren’t of our generation. They don’t understand video games beyond what Facebook is providing them with or what CNN reports on… which more often than not isn’t a good story on us. When people apply for a job at my work now I’m the first one to see their resume, and I google everyone. If I were to see some Real ID posts come up from that person I would probably put their resume in the back of the pack assuming I didn’t throw it out all together. We don’t need to hire gamers, even though I am one. (I understand the hypocrisy there)
I want to choose who knows I play video games and who doesn’t. That should remain my choice and not the video game company.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Battle.net 2.0
Battle.net 2.0 is disappointing. I’m not going to beat around the bush. B.Net 2.0 isn’t bad or broken for that matter, it just isn’t anything special. The Blizzard and StarCraft 2 fanbase was told that SC2 was being delayed due to the new features being put into Battle.net which would become Battle.net 2.0. The result is uninspiring.
I really don’t know what to say about B.net other than that. The interface is very cumbersome and difficult to navigate. All the menu’s lag when transitioning from one to another. It is difficult to connect with friends unless you either have them on your Facebook account or Email Address, gone is the day of simply knowing a friend’s handle. There is no online support for watching replays with friends.
There is no LAN support, so when I deploy to Afghanistan I won’t be able to play multiplayer with my fellow soldiers. Chat rooms are delayed until a “future patch” which could be who knows how long. Blizzard is usually really good about giving their customers what they want but in this instance it feels like they are missing the point.
I really don’t know what to say about B.net other than that. The interface is very cumbersome and difficult to navigate. All the menu’s lag when transitioning from one to another. It is difficult to connect with friends unless you either have them on your Facebook account or Email Address, gone is the day of simply knowing a friend’s handle. There is no online support for watching replays with friends.
There is no LAN support, so when I deploy to Afghanistan I won’t be able to play multiplayer with my fellow soldiers. Chat rooms are delayed until a “future patch” which could be who knows how long. Blizzard is usually really good about giving their customers what they want but in this instance it feels like they are missing the point.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Warhammer 40K MMO
I haven’t posted in awhile. I’ve been wanting to, but I haven’t had the energy or motivation to write anything. This post may be a bit incongruent due to the hiatus and being out of practice.
Warhammer 40K Dark Millennium has finally been announced… officially. I’ve known about the 40K MMO for almost 2 years now and have been checking the Vigil Gaming website at least once a month. This year at E3 a trailer and some info was released, though I find it hard to believe that the ONE interview and the ONE trailer is the only info I can find on the game thus far. This is basically what I hope they do base on what I know thus far, which isn’t much.
From what I can see the control is much like Gears of War, which is what my friends and I were hoping for. An over the shoulder shooter style control just fits so perfectly for a RPG that employs a lot of shooter style combat. If that is correct, good job!
I really hope they learned from Warhammer Online. The problem with WAR is that they didn’t do a Rock, Paper, Scissors style of balance… they did a Rock vs Scissors. What I mean by that is based on class balance and realm population each realm takes a turn being the Rock smashing Scissors and thus each realm takes a turn being the losing Scissors. The losing realm gets disheartened and typically stops fighting back and thus those that do stay and fight lose more. With a Rock, Paper, Scissors overall balance you always have a chance at beating someone. Now something to understand is that this is primarily important in a PvP centric game. You always have to have the ability to win or your players will stop playing.
However if you go for a more PvE centric game, ala WoW or SW:TOR you can have two races/realms/sides and have it not matter as much. With a PvE game the overall PvP conflicts are usually strictly controlled and thus easier to balance. That being said, I would prefer a combination of the two. I would like for 40K to be a mixture of both. I want 3 sides to play in this MMO but I want it to be PvE centric with a lot of PvP support.
PvE games are finically more successful. I want this game to succeed. I have also learned from WAR that while I like PvP it gets old and is more difficult to keep fresh than PvE content.
That’s all for today. Good to be back.
Warhammer 40K Dark Millennium has finally been announced… officially. I’ve known about the 40K MMO for almost 2 years now and have been checking the Vigil Gaming website at least once a month. This year at E3 a trailer and some info was released, though I find it hard to believe that the ONE interview and the ONE trailer is the only info I can find on the game thus far. This is basically what I hope they do base on what I know thus far, which isn’t much.
From what I can see the control is much like Gears of War, which is what my friends and I were hoping for. An over the shoulder shooter style control just fits so perfectly for a RPG that employs a lot of shooter style combat. If that is correct, good job!
I really hope they learned from Warhammer Online. The problem with WAR is that they didn’t do a Rock, Paper, Scissors style of balance… they did a Rock vs Scissors. What I mean by that is based on class balance and realm population each realm takes a turn being the Rock smashing Scissors and thus each realm takes a turn being the losing Scissors. The losing realm gets disheartened and typically stops fighting back and thus those that do stay and fight lose more. With a Rock, Paper, Scissors overall balance you always have a chance at beating someone. Now something to understand is that this is primarily important in a PvP centric game. You always have to have the ability to win or your players will stop playing.
However if you go for a more PvE centric game, ala WoW or SW:TOR you can have two races/realms/sides and have it not matter as much. With a PvE game the overall PvP conflicts are usually strictly controlled and thus easier to balance. That being said, I would prefer a combination of the two. I would like for 40K to be a mixture of both. I want 3 sides to play in this MMO but I want it to be PvE centric with a lot of PvP support.
PvE games are finically more successful. I want this game to succeed. I have also learned from WAR that while I like PvP it gets old and is more difficult to keep fresh than PvE content.
That’s all for today. Good to be back.
Friday, April 9, 2010
SC2 - What I'm working on
Every day that I’m at work I watch Livestreams of StarCraft 2 beta and replays on YouTube. I have a note pad and I’ve been taking notes. At this point I’d much rather be in the Gold League to practice but it is what it is, for some reason I manage to hang on near the bottom of my Platinum League.
So far I’ve come up with my 3 major weakest aspects of gameplay that I need to overcome.
1 – I don’t macro well enough. I need to constantly be spending my money and creating units while teching. I can’t just say, pay attention and be automatically better. I need to plan ahead to prevent stock piling of minerals while doing something else. I think that is my major macro issue is I don’t know what to do until I should have already done it. If I can get my game awareness to increase by 45-60 seconds of doing what I need to do prior to now I think I will be in a much better position.
2 – Don’t be too aggressive. This is a major reason why I wasn’t good at Brood Wars. I’m still of the mindset that I must kill their army to win, which isn’t the case. I’ve been learning two different variations on why I’m too aggressive. I don’t tend to get much base defense and when I attack I go all in. I’ve been learning to harass more and leave something to defend the counter.
3 – I learned this from HD Starcraft on Youtube. It is more of an overall mindset but I think it is a general idea of how to win any SC game. Harass, contain, expand. You don’t have to beat the other players, as most games don’t end with you killing off every one of your enemies units. You have to make them quit. By destroying their economy, then containing them to their main base you can expand and create a huge economic advantage. This basically smoothers them until they give up due to a lack of units.
Sure I’m still learning basic strategies, build orders, and counters; but I think an overall understanding of how games are won will be just as useful in beating my opponents and in turn getting better.
PS Sorry for no video. I’m going out of town tomorrow and will be at a buddy’s place watching the UFC fight tomorrow night. I won’t get to play much SC2 until Sunday. I will “try” to get a decent 2v2 I did up. I got destroyed but we still won.
So far I’ve come up with my 3 major weakest aspects of gameplay that I need to overcome.
1 – I don’t macro well enough. I need to constantly be spending my money and creating units while teching. I can’t just say, pay attention and be automatically better. I need to plan ahead to prevent stock piling of minerals while doing something else. I think that is my major macro issue is I don’t know what to do until I should have already done it. If I can get my game awareness to increase by 45-60 seconds of doing what I need to do prior to now I think I will be in a much better position.
2 – Don’t be too aggressive. This is a major reason why I wasn’t good at Brood Wars. I’m still of the mindset that I must kill their army to win, which isn’t the case. I’ve been learning two different variations on why I’m too aggressive. I don’t tend to get much base defense and when I attack I go all in. I’ve been learning to harass more and leave something to defend the counter.
3 – I learned this from HD Starcraft on Youtube. It is more of an overall mindset but I think it is a general idea of how to win any SC game. Harass, contain, expand. You don’t have to beat the other players, as most games don’t end with you killing off every one of your enemies units. You have to make them quit. By destroying their economy, then containing them to their main base you can expand and create a huge economic advantage. This basically smoothers them until they give up due to a lack of units.
Sure I’m still learning basic strategies, build orders, and counters; but I think an overall understanding of how games are won will be just as useful in beating my opponents and in turn getting better.
PS Sorry for no video. I’m going out of town tomorrow and will be at a buddy’s place watching the UFC fight tomorrow night. I won’t get to play much SC2 until Sunday. I will “try” to get a decent 2v2 I did up. I got destroyed but we still won.
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