After a semester of blogging I can say I never expected it to be so difficult, fun, and a new experience for me. I learned more about the gaming world and the news which have influenced my passion for gaming even more. My blog ended up a polar opposite from how I pictured it being in the first day of class. The gaming community is immense and is growing at a rapid rate.
For anyone looking to start a blog or those of you who have a blog on this topic be sure to remember that this is a more lenient topic and a lot of it is based solely on your opinion, so don't be afraid to speak what you believe.
I'd like to say thanks for all those lurking around the world for viewing my blog and I enjoyed the experience.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Daylight.
Daylight is a psychological thriller from the creators at Zombie Studios;
Imagine waking up in an abandoned hospital with only your cell phone to illuminate the dark rooms. In the video below it shows that's how the main character starts off as she explores the past of the institution.
According to Zombie Studios no two experiences in the game will be alike, and this game is "best played alone in the dark"(Play Daylight). Jared Gerritzen, studio creative head, also says that the game is like a bunch of lego's in a bucket, where they've made all the pieces so when they say go or when a player presses start the game engine will take all the legos and build a different world, essentially each time someone is to play the game, the bucket of legos have different pieces. The game engine will add all the new rooms, details, and scares each play-through(Machinima). Even the layout of the building will be different from previous plays which in my opinion seems pretty cool as there won't be a set walk-through to help someone from start to finish since each play will be completely different. Which in turn will make the game even scarier if played in the dark as you'll never be expecting something to jump out or scare you since you haven't experienced that play-through before.
Daylight will only be a few hours of gameplay but it sounds like it has a lot of replayability and Jared Gerritzen also says that it will cost around $20 or less and be available on Steam, which is a website and application for purchasing computer games.
Sources:
Zombie Studios. www.playdaylight.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.playdaylight.com/>.
Zombieseattle. "Daylight Trailer." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qw-9qJLqx_g>.
Machinima. "Inside Gaming (Video Game News): Daylight Interview w/ Jessica Chobot, Jared Gerritzen! - Inside Gaming Extended." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=emgVN1aJjbI#!>.
Imagine waking up in an abandoned hospital with only your cell phone to illuminate the dark rooms. In the video below it shows that's how the main character starts off as she explores the past of the institution.
Daylight Trailer (Zombieseattle).
According to Zombie Studios no two experiences in the game will be alike, and this game is "best played alone in the dark"(Play Daylight). Jared Gerritzen, studio creative head, also says that the game is like a bunch of lego's in a bucket, where they've made all the pieces so when they say go or when a player presses start the game engine will take all the legos and build a different world, essentially each time someone is to play the game, the bucket of legos have different pieces. The game engine will add all the new rooms, details, and scares each play-through(Machinima). Even the layout of the building will be different from previous plays which in my opinion seems pretty cool as there won't be a set walk-through to help someone from start to finish since each play will be completely different. Which in turn will make the game even scarier if played in the dark as you'll never be expecting something to jump out or scare you since you haven't experienced that play-through before.
Daylight will only be a few hours of gameplay but it sounds like it has a lot of replayability and Jared Gerritzen also says that it will cost around $20 or less and be available on Steam, which is a website and application for purchasing computer games.
Sources:
Zombie Studios. www.playdaylight.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.playdaylight.com/>.
Zombieseattle. "Daylight Trailer." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qw-9qJLqx_g>.
Machinima. "Inside Gaming (Video Game News): Daylight Interview w/ Jessica Chobot, Jared Gerritzen! - Inside Gaming Extended." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=emgVN1aJjbI#!>.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
SMITE
SMITE is a MOBA (Massive Online Battle Arena) between Gods from different religious backgrounds, from the developers at Hi-Rez Studios. SMITE is free to play, all you have to do is sign up and download the game, but you can purchase gems which I will talk more about later or the God Pack for $30, which gives you all of the Gods already released in the game and any future Gods coming out before the game is finally released. Right now, SMITE is still in
it's beta stage however in the later stage and is approaching release
fairly quickly, but there is no set release date just yet. Unfortunately
for those Mac users out there, SMITE is only for PC. You have a third person camera view instead of other MOBA's where you
click on the map for your character to move to, you control the
movement of your God using the WASD keys.
Below is one of the trailers for SMITE (smitegame).
Abilities.
Players can chose from 33 different Gods, each with their very own abilities, passive abilities, and ultimate abilities. Each God has 3 different regular attack abilities as well as a primary attack. The primary attack may be something such as firing a bow, using a sword, or throwing lightning bolts for instance. The other abilities can be moves that deal tons of damage, heal the player or even players in a given area, stun enemy players, or even put up a wall to keep enemies or if you're that guy, you can even keep teammates in or out of certain fights for a few seconds. Passive abilities are also unique to each God and require nothing to activate them except to be playing that specific God. The ultimate ability is even more unique, focusing on the God's background and lore, Hi-Rez has managed to come up with amazing graphics and ideas for each God's ultimate ability. These ultimate abilities can make you immune to damage, or make you do massive amounts of damage, however it comes at a price. A God's ultimate ability, just like it's other 3 abilities or attacks will cost X amount of mana to cast and preform the action, all with different mana consumption variations. Not only do they come at a price of mana, they also have a cool-down time, which is a period where the ability is inactive and cannot be used until the timer is up, provided you have enough mana.
Favor.
All players will start out with the same 32 Gods. When players level up outside of game modes they will gain experience, or Favor. Favor will be used to purchase Gods later on in the game when players save up enough favor. The maximum level for a player's account to reach outside of a game is 30, while inside the game the players God will reach a maximum level of 20. Favor is granted to players after they finish playing a match and is determined on if their team wins or loses, and how many kills, deaths, and assists that player has. It will cost a player 11,000 Favor to purchase a newly released God, or 5,500 for an older one.
Game types.
There are four different game modes as of now, Arena, Domination, Conquest and Joust. Arena is like a Team Death Match game type but each team has 200 points and the first team's counter to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players. Domination is like any other game's Domination, there are 3 points available for capture and your team must hold 2 or more points to win, just like the Arena game type there is a counter with 200 points and the first to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players each.Conquest is the original game type and used to be the only one back in the earlier days of the beta. In this game mode there are two teams, both with 5 players each. The objective of this game is to defeat the other team's Minotaur, but it's not that simple. Teamwork must be used in order to take down at a minimum two of six towers, and one of three phoenix's standing before the minotaur, all while fighting other players trying to do the same to your minotaur. Joust is just a 1 versus 1, but is like Conquest where you have to defeat the other players Minotaur after passing one tower and one phoenix to win.
Gems.
Once a player has made their account they can either purchase gems from within the game or at Hi-Rez's website. They have 3500 gems for $50, 1500 gems for $25, 800 gems for $15, and 400 gems for $8. Now I know you're wondering what's so special about gems and why would someone pay real money for something in-game. A player can receive gems from purchasing them like I mentioned above, they can recommend a friend to play smite and when that person reaches a certain level, the person who recommended the friend will receive a small amount of gems, or you can get gems through giveaways in the SMITE community. Gems can be used in SMITE to purchase Gods to unlock them to play, costing 200 gems per God. If you rather purchase Gods using favor it'll take longer but it'll definitely save your wallet from getting thinner, but then what's the other purpose of gems. Gems can also be used to buy skins for the God(s) a player has unlocked. Each god has at least one skin, however the majority of the skins right now are just re-colors, which is how the God original looks with just a different color scheme. Skins can range from 200 or 400 Gems, normally the re-colored skins are 200 and the better looking skins go for 400.
Gods.
As of today, there are 33 playable Gods currently in SMITE. Below is a list of all the gods and their background. Also found at the SMITE website here with more information on about the Gods.(God List)
Agni - Hindu
Anhur - Egyptian
Anubis - Egyptian
Ao Kuang - Chinese
Aphrodite - Greek
Apollo - Greek
Arachne - Greek
Ares - Greek
Artemis - Greek
Bacchus - Roman
Bakasura - Hindu
Bastet - Egyptian
Cupid - Roman
Freya - Norse
Guan Yu - Chinese
Hades - Greek
He Bo - Chinese
Hel - Norse
Hercules - Roman
*Kali - Hindu
Loki - Norse
Neith - Egpytian
Odin - Norse
Poseidon - Greek
Ra - Egyptian
Sobek - Egyptian
Sun Wukong - Chinese
Thor - Norse
Vamana - Hindu
Vulcan - Roman
Xbalanque - Mayan
Ymir - Norse
Zues - Greek
*The Hindu Gods, mainly Kali caused quite a controversy for Hi-Rez back in the early stages of beta. Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism requested removal of these Hindu Gods as he believes having players control deities "trivializes" them. I have also heard of other storys saying that Kali looks like "a porn star." Todd Harris from Hi-Rez responded with the Hindu faith is one of the most ancient and diverse religions providing a good base for inspiration for characters in SMITE (Schaffnit).
Sources:
Schaffnit, Mike. "SMITE Creators Address Controversy Over The Inclusion Of Hindu Gods."
www.gamebreaker.tv web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.gamebreaker.tv/pc-games/playing-god/>.
smitegame. "Smite - Battleground of the Gods - MANOWAR - The Sons of Odin." www.youtube.com web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CA4XFHfpmRQ&list=PLqMnSYeIWk0aRO03A26vq04oXayTeXoaJ>.
"Gods." www.hirezstudios.com web. 10 April 2013. <https://account.hirezstudios.com/smitegame/gods.aspx>.
Below is one of the trailers for SMITE (smitegame).
Abilities.
Players can chose from 33 different Gods, each with their very own abilities, passive abilities, and ultimate abilities. Each God has 3 different regular attack abilities as well as a primary attack. The primary attack may be something such as firing a bow, using a sword, or throwing lightning bolts for instance. The other abilities can be moves that deal tons of damage, heal the player or even players in a given area, stun enemy players, or even put up a wall to keep enemies or if you're that guy, you can even keep teammates in or out of certain fights for a few seconds. Passive abilities are also unique to each God and require nothing to activate them except to be playing that specific God. The ultimate ability is even more unique, focusing on the God's background and lore, Hi-Rez has managed to come up with amazing graphics and ideas for each God's ultimate ability. These ultimate abilities can make you immune to damage, or make you do massive amounts of damage, however it comes at a price. A God's ultimate ability, just like it's other 3 abilities or attacks will cost X amount of mana to cast and preform the action, all with different mana consumption variations. Not only do they come at a price of mana, they also have a cool-down time, which is a period where the ability is inactive and cannot be used until the timer is up, provided you have enough mana.
Favor.
All players will start out with the same 32 Gods. When players level up outside of game modes they will gain experience, or Favor. Favor will be used to purchase Gods later on in the game when players save up enough favor. The maximum level for a player's account to reach outside of a game is 30, while inside the game the players God will reach a maximum level of 20. Favor is granted to players after they finish playing a match and is determined on if their team wins or loses, and how many kills, deaths, and assists that player has. It will cost a player 11,000 Favor to purchase a newly released God, or 5,500 for an older one.
Game types.
There are four different game modes as of now, Arena, Domination, Conquest and Joust. Arena is like a Team Death Match game type but each team has 200 points and the first team's counter to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players. Domination is like any other game's Domination, there are 3 points available for capture and your team must hold 2 or more points to win, just like the Arena game type there is a counter with 200 points and the first to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players each.Conquest is the original game type and used to be the only one back in the earlier days of the beta. In this game mode there are two teams, both with 5 players each. The objective of this game is to defeat the other team's Minotaur, but it's not that simple. Teamwork must be used in order to take down at a minimum two of six towers, and one of three phoenix's standing before the minotaur, all while fighting other players trying to do the same to your minotaur. Joust is just a 1 versus 1, but is like Conquest where you have to defeat the other players Minotaur after passing one tower and one phoenix to win.
Gems.
Once a player has made their account they can either purchase gems from within the game or at Hi-Rez's website. They have 3500 gems for $50, 1500 gems for $25, 800 gems for $15, and 400 gems for $8. Now I know you're wondering what's so special about gems and why would someone pay real money for something in-game. A player can receive gems from purchasing them like I mentioned above, they can recommend a friend to play smite and when that person reaches a certain level, the person who recommended the friend will receive a small amount of gems, or you can get gems through giveaways in the SMITE community. Gems can be used in SMITE to purchase Gods to unlock them to play, costing 200 gems per God. If you rather purchase Gods using favor it'll take longer but it'll definitely save your wallet from getting thinner, but then what's the other purpose of gems. Gems can also be used to buy skins for the God(s) a player has unlocked. Each god has at least one skin, however the majority of the skins right now are just re-colors, which is how the God original looks with just a different color scheme. Skins can range from 200 or 400 Gems, normally the re-colored skins are 200 and the better looking skins go for 400.
Gods.
As of today, there are 33 playable Gods currently in SMITE. Below is a list of all the gods and their background. Also found at the SMITE website here with more information on about the Gods.(God List)
Agni - Hindu
Anhur - Egyptian
Anubis - Egyptian
Ao Kuang - Chinese
Aphrodite - Greek
Apollo - Greek
Arachne - Greek
Ares - Greek
Artemis - Greek
Bacchus - Roman
Bakasura - Hindu
Bastet - Egyptian
Cupid - Roman
Freya - Norse
Guan Yu - Chinese
Hades - Greek
He Bo - Chinese
Hel - Norse
Hercules - Roman
*Kali - Hindu
Loki - Norse
Neith - Egpytian
Odin - Norse
Poseidon - Greek
Ra - Egyptian
Sobek - Egyptian
Sun Wukong - Chinese
Thor - Norse
Vamana - Hindu
Vulcan - Roman
Xbalanque - Mayan
Ymir - Norse
Zues - Greek
*The Hindu Gods, mainly Kali caused quite a controversy for Hi-Rez back in the early stages of beta. Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism requested removal of these Hindu Gods as he believes having players control deities "trivializes" them. I have also heard of other storys saying that Kali looks like "a porn star." Todd Harris from Hi-Rez responded with the Hindu faith is one of the most ancient and diverse religions providing a good base for inspiration for characters in SMITE (Schaffnit).
Sources:
Schaffnit, Mike. "SMITE Creators Address Controversy Over The Inclusion Of Hindu Gods."
www.gamebreaker.tv web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.gamebreaker.tv/pc-games/playing-god/>.
smitegame. "Smite - Battleground of the Gods - MANOWAR - The Sons of Odin." www.youtube.com web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CA4XFHfpmRQ&list=PLqMnSYeIWk0aRO03A26vq04oXayTeXoaJ>.
"Gods." www.hirezstudios.com web. 10 April 2013. <https://account.hirezstudios.com/smitegame/gods.aspx>.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Potential Sources.
At the beginning of the semester I knew that our class would have a final paper that would have to be written pertaining to our blogs and it's topic. Knowing this, I was influenced into picking the topic that I did and then evolving it to where it's at now. However, as the months have gone by I thought this would be an extremely simple topic but it seems I overlooked it at the time and it's actually harder than it seems. Sure there are tons of websites on gaming with the most recent news about all the new games, consoles or the drama of which lead developer has been fired from some big named gaming company. The redundancy of information from multiple websites covering the exact same big named games and ideas at the exact same time began to bore me more and more. This led to me browsing for hours on end finding very little that seemed interesting enough to post about.
On the other hand, I have outlined my next post in my mind of which sources it will contain and what it will be about. It will be about SMITE an online battle arena game, where players chose a God and are able to play against other people around the world. I myself enjoy this game to a great extent. There has even been some controversy over this game that's still in Beta, but you'll have to wait a week to find out more.
Major sources I will probably use on my final paper may include 1Up, IGN, VentureBeat, Game Informer, and possibly Kotaku, even though I am personally not a fan of how Kotaku is set up, they still provide some different information and another perspective to the gaming world. But those are all subject to change.
Once I figure out what my final paper will be about then I will be able to tell for sure which sources I may and may not use.
On the other hand, I have outlined my next post in my mind of which sources it will contain and what it will be about. It will be about SMITE an online battle arena game, where players chose a God and are able to play against other people around the world. I myself enjoy this game to a great extent. There has even been some controversy over this game that's still in Beta, but you'll have to wait a week to find out more.
Major sources I will probably use on my final paper may include 1Up, IGN, VentureBeat, Game Informer, and possibly Kotaku, even though I am personally not a fan of how Kotaku is set up, they still provide some different information and another perspective to the gaming world. But those are all subject to change.
Once I figure out what my final paper will be about then I will be able to tell for sure which sources I may and may not use.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Pixar artists gone gamer?
 |
| Picture taken from edge-online.com cited below. |
The artists have deemed Steel Wool just a side company for now and they have already begun work on their first game, Flyhunter, which will be released this summer but for unknown platforms says Jeffrey Grubb in his post on Current Pixar employees banding together.
Below is a picture of the Hero of Flyhunter.
 |
| Picture taken from Steel Wool Games, cited below. |
In my own personal opinion this is pretty cool that a big time movie company such as Pixar is going to be making video games, although they're not related Pixar's artists have a lot of talent and I'm very excited to see what Flyhunter brings to the table. I am also excited to see if I can find any more information on Steel Wool Games and do a follow up post soon. I will definitely keep my eyes on Steel Wool Games for any updates.
Long, Neil. "Pixar artists form Steel Wool Games." www.edge-online.com web. 20 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/pixar-artists-form-steel-wool-games/#null>.
http://steelwoolgames.com/ web. 20 March 2013. <http://steelwoolgames.com/>.
Grubb, Jeffrey. "Current Pixar employees band together to form game studio." www.venturebeat.com web. 20 March 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/18/former-pixar-employees-band-together-to-form-game-studio/>.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Minecraft for PlayStation 3?
For those of you who don't know, Minecraft is the game all about blocks. Everything about Minecraft is blocks, but it's not just that. You can build immaculate landscapes,
adventure for days on end, even play with your friends and come up with
other wonderful things to do. Alternatively to those who are not
appealed by Minecraft's blocky nature, there are "texture packs" which
you can install into your game to change how certain objects appear,
luckily there is an endless supply of texture packs to suit everyone's
fancy. However if players are not satisfied with playing by themselves
or with friends there are servers that contain different genres of the
game, now players will still be playing Minecraft but the servers may
have a combat system added into the game so that there will be some
player versus player, or maybe there will be one where a player can own,
run and manage their own town amongst other players.
Minecraft was started by Markus Persson in 2009 only to step down and give the title of lead developer to Jens Bergensten. Mojang, the Swedish company that developed Minecraft has sold over 9 million copies to PC/Mac's alone and then later expanded to the Xbox 360 in May of 2012, selling over 5 million copies. There is even a Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS and Androids. However as of now Mojang has a console exclusvitiy deal with Microsoft, the creators of the Xbox, meaning that Minecraft is not allowed to expand to Sony or Nintendo consoles until that deal is up. Jens Bergensten said "When it runs out we’ll consider Minecraft for PlayStation, but Wii U is very unlikely"(Edge). Unfortunately Bergensten did not specify if the release would be for the PlayStation 3 or 4. It is also unknown how long the deal between Mojang and Microsoft will last as it has barely been one year now.
This is huge news even though it's still only a rumor. This means that Mojang will expand their game to an even wider amount of players, those who own a PlayStation but not a Xbox or PC/Mac. With the numbers of copies sold to the PC and Xbox versions, I could only imagine how many the PlayStation version could sell. I am personally excited to see how this turns out even though I already own Minecraft for the PC.
Below is one of the buildings I made and one of my favorite pictures I took.
Sources;
Long, Neil. "Minecraft on PlayStation being considered, Wii U version "very unlikely."' www.edge-online.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/minecraft-on-playstation-being-considered-wii-u-version-very-unlikely/>.
Gaston, Martin. "Mojang will 'consider' Minecraft for PlayStation." www.gamespot.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/news/mojang-will-consider-minecraft-for-playstation-6404897>.
"Minecraft." www.minecraft.com web. 6 March 2012. <http://minecraft.net/game>.
Minecraft was started by Markus Persson in 2009 only to step down and give the title of lead developer to Jens Bergensten. Mojang, the Swedish company that developed Minecraft has sold over 9 million copies to PC/Mac's alone and then later expanded to the Xbox 360 in May of 2012, selling over 5 million copies. There is even a Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS and Androids. However as of now Mojang has a console exclusvitiy deal with Microsoft, the creators of the Xbox, meaning that Minecraft is not allowed to expand to Sony or Nintendo consoles until that deal is up. Jens Bergensten said "When it runs out we’ll consider Minecraft for PlayStation, but Wii U is very unlikely"(Edge). Unfortunately Bergensten did not specify if the release would be for the PlayStation 3 or 4. It is also unknown how long the deal between Mojang and Microsoft will last as it has barely been one year now.
This is huge news even though it's still only a rumor. This means that Mojang will expand their game to an even wider amount of players, those who own a PlayStation but not a Xbox or PC/Mac. With the numbers of copies sold to the PC and Xbox versions, I could only imagine how many the PlayStation version could sell. I am personally excited to see how this turns out even though I already own Minecraft for the PC.
Below is one of the buildings I made and one of my favorite pictures I took.
Sources;
Long, Neil. "Minecraft on PlayStation being considered, Wii U version "very unlikely."' www.edge-online.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/minecraft-on-playstation-being-considered-wii-u-version-very-unlikely/>.
Gaston, Martin. "Mojang will 'consider' Minecraft for PlayStation." www.gamespot.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/news/mojang-will-consider-minecraft-for-playstation-6404897>.
"Minecraft." www.minecraft.com web. 6 March 2012. <http://minecraft.net/game>.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online.
The Fifth edition of the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, an action role-playing game with an expansive world for players to explore developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Bethesda has teamed up with Zenimax Online Studios and they have recently announced a Beta sign up to try out the long awaited release of Elder Scrolls Online. Skyrim is available for the Xbox 306, PlayStation 3, and PC and like the previous four installments, you play your character but there is no online so you cannot play with your friends or random people, you are all alone in a world of NPC's(Non-Playable Characters). Skyrim is located on the continent of Tamriel, a vast land with dense forests, frozen mountains, lush scenery with a magnitude of animals and even dragons soaring over head.
There will have to be a lot of work put into Skyrim to ensure that everything works properly for the Online release. In an interview between Matthew Reynolds of Digitalspy.com and Matt Firor, a game director for Bethesda, Matt Firor states that "We've also reproportioned some of our NPC (non-playing character) and player figures, and retextured and tweaked some of our structures and buildings." The online installment of The Elder Scrolls' story will take 100 years before Oblivion (The fourth edition of The Elder Scrolls) and Skyrim. Matthew Reynolds asks "What does setting The Elder Scrolls Online hundreds of years before Oblivion and Skyrim allow you to do?" Firor responds with "It allows us to be able to tell stories about a time that is not well documented in lore, but what is known is very useful - mid 2nd era is known basically as a time of destabilization, lack of central control in Tamriel and lots of outside influences causing problems (invasions, pandemics, etc). It's a perfect setting for The Elder Scrolls Online. It has the familiar provinces and races, but a different cast of characters and stories. Also, it gives the player another era of Tamriel to explore, a time that is a little more unsettled than the Tamriel that they are used to in the other Elder Scrolls games."
Taking such an expansive game that is made solely to be played alone; completing quests, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons, and gathering resources and then turning it into a massively played online game will take a tremendous amount of work but in the end I personally believe it will work out for the best. The online portion will add new aspects to the game such as group-questing and Player versus Player or PvP, where people will fight to the death, most of the time in hopes of gaining what items the player they were fighting had. Matt Firor explains that there will be alliances that are in a conflict and the players get to chose from one of three alliances. Players will work together within their alliance to fight for and defend Cyrodiil, a province and even the throne of Tamriel, the whole continent of Skyrim. Firor also talks about how different the 360 degree radius that you as a player can see, such as games like World of Warcraft, as opposed to other first-person PvP games such as the Call of Duty franchise. This gives players a larger screen to find enemies, especially those behind them. (Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online Interview).
Opening the online to beta testing allows both Bethesda and Zenimax Online to gather information about the game such as bugs and glitches, as well as positive and negative feedback from the players allowing for changes before finalizing the game for launch (Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta).
Winda Benedetti from Nbcnews' technology section asks the big question of why. She asks "Why make a massively popular single-player game series into a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game?" Again, game director Matt Firor answers. Firor says that the main reason for the online is a tremendous opportunity to get new players who have never experienced MMOs before to just jump in and play online ('The Elder Scrolls Online' invites gamers). Not only is it attracting people who have never played MMOs but this also has a tremendous opportunity to attract people who are really interested in the player-versus-player aspect, so the community for The Elder Scrolls will grow immensely with the addition of online.
Below is the official Bethesda Trailer for Skyrim Online.
For those of you who play Skyrim and are interested in signing up to play the beta, you can sign up here at the beta signup.
Sources;
Mlot, Stephanie. "Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta Test Now." pcmag.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414557,00.asp>.
"The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Sign-Up." www.elderscrollsonline.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://signup.elderscrollsonline.com/>.
BethesdaSoftworks. "The Elder Scrolls Online - The Alliance Cinematic Trailer." www.youtube.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0jNT5cMwxw0>.
There will have to be a lot of work put into Skyrim to ensure that everything works properly for the Online release. In an interview between Matthew Reynolds of Digitalspy.com and Matt Firor, a game director for Bethesda, Matt Firor states that "We've also reproportioned some of our NPC (non-playing character) and player figures, and retextured and tweaked some of our structures and buildings." The online installment of The Elder Scrolls' story will take 100 years before Oblivion (The fourth edition of The Elder Scrolls) and Skyrim. Matthew Reynolds asks "What does setting The Elder Scrolls Online hundreds of years before Oblivion and Skyrim allow you to do?" Firor responds with "It allows us to be able to tell stories about a time that is not well documented in lore, but what is known is very useful - mid 2nd era is known basically as a time of destabilization, lack of central control in Tamriel and lots of outside influences causing problems (invasions, pandemics, etc). It's a perfect setting for The Elder Scrolls Online. It has the familiar provinces and races, but a different cast of characters and stories. Also, it gives the player another era of Tamriel to explore, a time that is a little more unsettled than the Tamriel that they are used to in the other Elder Scrolls games."
Taking such an expansive game that is made solely to be played alone; completing quests, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons, and gathering resources and then turning it into a massively played online game will take a tremendous amount of work but in the end I personally believe it will work out for the best. The online portion will add new aspects to the game such as group-questing and Player versus Player or PvP, where people will fight to the death, most of the time in hopes of gaining what items the player they were fighting had. Matt Firor explains that there will be alliances that are in a conflict and the players get to chose from one of three alliances. Players will work together within their alliance to fight for and defend Cyrodiil, a province and even the throne of Tamriel, the whole continent of Skyrim. Firor also talks about how different the 360 degree radius that you as a player can see, such as games like World of Warcraft, as opposed to other first-person PvP games such as the Call of Duty franchise. This gives players a larger screen to find enemies, especially those behind them. (Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online Interview).
Opening the online to beta testing allows both Bethesda and Zenimax Online to gather information about the game such as bugs and glitches, as well as positive and negative feedback from the players allowing for changes before finalizing the game for launch (Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta).
Winda Benedetti from Nbcnews' technology section asks the big question of why. She asks "Why make a massively popular single-player game series into a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game?" Again, game director Matt Firor answers. Firor says that the main reason for the online is a tremendous opportunity to get new players who have never experienced MMOs before to just jump in and play online ('The Elder Scrolls Online' invites gamers). Not only is it attracting people who have never played MMOs but this also has a tremendous opportunity to attract people who are really interested in the player-versus-player aspect, so the community for The Elder Scrolls will grow immensely with the addition of online.
Below is the official Bethesda Trailer for Skyrim Online.
For those of you who play Skyrim and are interested in signing up to play the beta, you can sign up here at the beta signup.
Sources;
Reynolds, Matthew. "'Elder Scrolls Online' interview: The beta, first person and Skyrim." www.digitalspy.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/interviews/a458194/elder-scrolls-online-interview-the-beta-first-person-and-skyrim.html>.
Benedetti, Winda. "'The Elder Scrolls Online' invites games to test the new Tamriel." www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog web. 1 March 2013. < http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/elder-scrolls-online-invites-gamers-test-new-tamriel-1B8057219>.
Mlot, Stephanie. "Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta Test Now." pcmag.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414557,00.asp>.
"The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Sign-Up." www.elderscrollsonline.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://signup.elderscrollsonline.com/>.
BethesdaSoftworks. "The Elder Scrolls Online - The Alliance Cinematic Trailer." www.youtube.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0jNT5cMwxw0>.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Playstation 4 Announced.
That's right, Sony has announced that the new PlayStation 4 game console will be coming out in the 2013 Holiday season. Although there is no set cost or pictures released of what the console will look like, this is still a major deal to the gaming community. It is confirmed that it will be called the PlayStation 4 or Ps4 though.
The Ps4 offers new features that allow interaction between tablets, smartphones, and the PlayStation Vita, also called the Ps Vita. According to Venturebeat, you will even be able to stream games from the Ps4 to the Ps Vita. There will also be the option to play games while they are still downloading. This feature is just ridiculously awesome as downloading games from the Playstation Store onto your Playstations hard drive may take around 30 minutes or more and when the game is downloading you obviously want something to do to kill the time between you and playing the game you just got so what better why than to play the game itself. As for the specs, this console will be as powerful as modern PC's, which is pretty impressive for a console, it also comes with a Blu-Ray player, like it's previous version, the PlayStation 3. Even though there was no reveal of what the console will look like, a picture of the new DualShock 4, the PlayStation 4's control was released.
Sony has been second bested by Microsoft in the gaming industry by their Xbox 360, outselling Sony's PlayStation 3. Sony has high hopes for their PlayStation 4 with it's new features and hopes it trumps over whatever console Microsoft puts out.
Sources;
"Sony finally reveals the PlayStation 4 for the holiday 2013- but not the console or price." venturebeat.com web. 20 February 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/20/playstation-4-announced/>.
"PlayStation Cloud streaming tech the 'fastest gaming network in the world' - and promises PS4 games on Vita." venturebeat.com 20 February 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/20/playstation-cloud-streaming/>/
The Ps4 offers new features that allow interaction between tablets, smartphones, and the PlayStation Vita, also called the Ps Vita. According to Venturebeat, you will even be able to stream games from the Ps4 to the Ps Vita. There will also be the option to play games while they are still downloading. This feature is just ridiculously awesome as downloading games from the Playstation Store onto your Playstations hard drive may take around 30 minutes or more and when the game is downloading you obviously want something to do to kill the time between you and playing the game you just got so what better why than to play the game itself. As for the specs, this console will be as powerful as modern PC's, which is pretty impressive for a console, it also comes with a Blu-Ray player, like it's previous version, the PlayStation 3. Even though there was no reveal of what the console will look like, a picture of the new DualShock 4, the PlayStation 4's control was released.
Sony has been second bested by Microsoft in the gaming industry by their Xbox 360, outselling Sony's PlayStation 3. Sony has high hopes for their PlayStation 4 with it's new features and hopes it trumps over whatever console Microsoft puts out.
Sources;
"Sony finally reveals the PlayStation 4 for the holiday 2013- but not the console or price." venturebeat.com web. 20 February 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/20/playstation-4-announced/>.
"PlayStation Cloud streaming tech the 'fastest gaming network in the world' - and promises PS4 games on Vita." venturebeat.com 20 February 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/20/playstation-cloud-streaming/>/
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Borderlands 2 Expansion
Borderlands 2, a First Person Role Playing Shooter has been out for quite awhile now and I was browsing a few websites and stumbled across some articles talking about raising the level cap with "consequences," says Randy Pitchford, one of Borderlands developers and the President of Gearbox Software. Interested in what those consequences may be the little fan-boy inside me started to get scared but I had to muster up the courage to find out. Myself and my other Borderlands lovers were extremely disappointed when we found out what exactly Randy was about.
As of right now, the highest level achievable is level 50, and previously Randy had stated that there would be an increase from 50-69, just like in the first Borderlands. Sadly, there have already been 3 different expansions added and the level cap has yet to be raised. Not only has this not been released yet but Randy Pitchford stated "We designed the skills really well this time, but we did, for better or for worse, make a lot of the decisions with the knowledge that there will be no more skill points available to put into any trees after you reach level 50" (Level Cap Increase). Now Randy and other developers are worried that if they try to add in some sort of code that it may take up too much memory on game Consoles and computers, or even "break" them. Randy also believes that adding more skill points to the game would take certain configurations that the Xbox 360 simply could not handle.
Now the demand for the level increase is so important to us players because we want to gain more points to spend on our Skill Trees and become the strong character we desire to be. As you can see for one of the characters here, although there are 50 levels, you only get 46 skill points to spend on your skill tree in an attempt to make him or her the strongest they can be. That's where the major problem lies with this level cap, if it does get increased all the time and experience spent leveling up from 50-69 will be for nothing because you won't get any skill points to spend.
Luckily, the development for the level cap increase is still underway so maybe, just maybe the developers will figure something out and be able to implement an increase in levels along with skill points to spend on the skill trees. Fingers crossed.
Sources;
"Gearbox Prez: Increasing 'Boderlands 2' Level Cap Could Break The Game and Melt your Xbox (But We're Doing It Anyway)." multiplayerblog.mtv.com web. 13 February 2013. <http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2013/02/11/borderlands-2-level-cap-increase-will-explode-xboxs/>.
"UPDATE: Borderlands 2 developer: Raising the level cap could break our game (interview)." venturebeat.com web. 13 February 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/07/borderlands-2-level-cap-increase/>.
As of right now, the highest level achievable is level 50, and previously Randy had stated that there would be an increase from 50-69, just like in the first Borderlands. Sadly, there have already been 3 different expansions added and the level cap has yet to be raised. Not only has this not been released yet but Randy Pitchford stated "We designed the skills really well this time, but we did, for better or for worse, make a lot of the decisions with the knowledge that there will be no more skill points available to put into any trees after you reach level 50" (Level Cap Increase). Now Randy and other developers are worried that if they try to add in some sort of code that it may take up too much memory on game Consoles and computers, or even "break" them. Randy also believes that adding more skill points to the game would take certain configurations that the Xbox 360 simply could not handle.
Now the demand for the level increase is so important to us players because we want to gain more points to spend on our Skill Trees and become the strong character we desire to be. As you can see for one of the characters here, although there are 50 levels, you only get 46 skill points to spend on your skill tree in an attempt to make him or her the strongest they can be. That's where the major problem lies with this level cap, if it does get increased all the time and experience spent leveling up from 50-69 will be for nothing because you won't get any skill points to spend.
Luckily, the development for the level cap increase is still underway so maybe, just maybe the developers will figure something out and be able to implement an increase in levels along with skill points to spend on the skill trees. Fingers crossed.
Sources;
"Gearbox Prez: Increasing 'Boderlands 2' Level Cap Could Break The Game and Melt your Xbox (But We're Doing It Anyway)." multiplayerblog.mtv.com web. 13 February 2013. <http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2013/02/11/borderlands-2-level-cap-increase-will-explode-xboxs/>.
"UPDATE: Borderlands 2 developer: Raising the level cap could break our game (interview)." venturebeat.com web. 13 February 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/07/borderlands-2-level-cap-increase/>.
Friday, February 8, 2013
For the Non-Gamers.
For those of you who aren't an avid gamer, are new to gaming, or have been gaming for awhile but don't quite have the nerd language down yet then this post may be helpful. I will almost always link back to this post in my future posts just so all of you are caught up in the action and know what's going on, although I probably should have done this sooner. I may also continue to add to this list as I maintain the blog and find more words to define.
A
AOE - This stands for Area of Effect. These are spells or attacks which affect more than one target within a predetermined radius set by the game's mechanics.
Alpha - General software term; This is the first phase of testing software. The structure and most of the content has been developed but not all the intended features may be present. Alpha tests are typically run in-house or by specialist testing agencies.
ARTS or Action RTS - This is an Action Real Time Strategy game. In this game type all of your moves take real time to complete and some have waiting periods in real time. Games like DotA 2 are ARTS'.
B
Beta - General software term; This is the second phase of testing software (not exclusively games) and last development phase prior to release. Most features have been implemented but some of these may be removed during the beta phase if they turn out to be too problematic to fix.There are two types of this, Open and Closed. Open Betas are open to the general public anyone who signs up for the Open Beta or just downloads the game is guaranteed access to the game. Closed Betas however require an invitation, most of which will be sent via email after completing a survey of why you should be selected to play the game, other times you can simply be invited by a friend and you will recieve a code that you have to activate.
Bots - Faults in the programming which cause unintended effects both good and bad. Some examples are crashes, unintentionally high character advancement, stretching of a players body or clothing, etc.
Bug(s) - AI players in an online game. Bots are used as computer opponents for practice, fun or when human opponents are unavailable.
C
Camp - To remain in one place and repeatedly kill people or mobs.
Crash - When your game console or computer stops responding, this also can happen to game clients and servers sometimes causes people to lose hours of progress. Very frustrating.
D
DPS - Damage Per Second, amount of damage a skill, ability or attack does per second.
DOT - Damage Over Time, a prolonged effect that causes ongoing health degeneration.
E
Eat - the act of consuming a food item or potion to regain health.
Exp - Experience or Experience points. Generally gained from killing monsters, players, or completing quests. Required to level up.
Expansion or Expansion Pack - Additional content for a game normally created by the same developers.
F
FPS (1) - First Person Shooter. A game genre in where you view the world in a first person perspective.
FPS (2) - Frames Per Second or Frame Rate. A measure in which images are produced on a screen.
Fed - A term usually used in RTS' for when a player obtains a substantial amount of gold and can buy great gear and becomes an unstoppable killing machine.
G
Gank - Derived from the word Gang-Kill, where a gang of players would trap another group of players, usually of a lesser number, and rush them from multiple sides resulting in a quick kill.
GG - An acronym for Good Game.
GL - An acronym for Good Luck.
Gold - A form of currency. Often referred to as Coins, GP - Gold Points or Game Points depending on the game.
Grind - To preform repetitive tasks in order to reach a certain level.
Glitch - incorrectly displayed graphics, collision detection errors, game crashes or freezes, sound skipping, or other inconsistencies. This is also used as an excuse for dieing/losing. For example players could complain they lost because of a 'lag glitch' another would be 'game froze' or 'stuck' when the game is operating normally and the player is not familiar with the mechanics.
H
HP or Hitpoints - Also referred to as LP or Life points. This is the amount of damage a player can take before dying.
I
J
K
Kite or Kiting - To take advantage of having more range to attack your opponent than they have, allowing you to attack from a distance they can't harm you at.
L
Lag - Time delay between sending a command to the game and your character actually performing the action. A slow computer or very low FPS can contribute to lag.
Lure - To lead an unexpecting player into a pre-planned trap.
M
MMORPG - Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game.
Mob - A NPC, monster, or opponent.
N
NPC - Non-Playable Character.
Nerf - Generally used when there is an update to certain characters, weapons, or armor making them less powerful. Doing the damage that somewhat resembles a Nerf gun.
O
OP - Over Powered, something that is fairly strong and does quite a bit of damage.
P
Pk or Pking - Player Killing, this term is usually used when killing other players isn't the main focus of the game.
Q
R
RPG - Role-Playing Game, a game genre where you assume the role of a specific character.
RTS - Real Time Strategy. A game where the actions take real time to execute.
S
T
Tank - A player or monster who can take a substantial amount of damage without dying.
U
V
W
X
XP - See Exp, above.
Y
Z
Sources;
"Gaming Terminology." programingtours.net web. 8 February 2013. <http://www.progamingtours.net/index.php?/Gaming-101/GamingTerminology.html>.
"Gaming Terminology." theaveragegame.com web. 8 February 2013. <http://www.theaveragegamer.com/terminology/>.
"Game Terms." wowwiki.com web. 8 February 2013. <http://www.wowwiki.com/Category:Game_terms>.
A
AOE - This stands for Area of Effect. These are spells or attacks which affect more than one target within a predetermined radius set by the game's mechanics.
Alpha - General software term; This is the first phase of testing software. The structure and most of the content has been developed but not all the intended features may be present. Alpha tests are typically run in-house or by specialist testing agencies.
ARTS or Action RTS - This is an Action Real Time Strategy game. In this game type all of your moves take real time to complete and some have waiting periods in real time. Games like DotA 2 are ARTS'.
B
Beta - General software term; This is the second phase of testing software (not exclusively games) and last development phase prior to release. Most features have been implemented but some of these may be removed during the beta phase if they turn out to be too problematic to fix.There are two types of this, Open and Closed. Open Betas are open to the general public anyone who signs up for the Open Beta or just downloads the game is guaranteed access to the game. Closed Betas however require an invitation, most of which will be sent via email after completing a survey of why you should be selected to play the game, other times you can simply be invited by a friend and you will recieve a code that you have to activate.
Bots - Faults in the programming which cause unintended effects both good and bad. Some examples are crashes, unintentionally high character advancement, stretching of a players body or clothing, etc.
Bug(s) - AI players in an online game. Bots are used as computer opponents for practice, fun or when human opponents are unavailable.
C
Camp - To remain in one place and repeatedly kill people or mobs.
Crash - When your game console or computer stops responding, this also can happen to game clients and servers sometimes causes people to lose hours of progress. Very frustrating.
D
DPS - Damage Per Second, amount of damage a skill, ability or attack does per second.
DOT - Damage Over Time, a prolonged effect that causes ongoing health degeneration.
E
Eat - the act of consuming a food item or potion to regain health.
Exp - Experience or Experience points. Generally gained from killing monsters, players, or completing quests. Required to level up.
Expansion or Expansion Pack - Additional content for a game normally created by the same developers.
F
FPS (1) - First Person Shooter. A game genre in where you view the world in a first person perspective.
FPS (2) - Frames Per Second or Frame Rate. A measure in which images are produced on a screen.
Fed - A term usually used in RTS' for when a player obtains a substantial amount of gold and can buy great gear and becomes an unstoppable killing machine.
G
Gank - Derived from the word Gang-Kill, where a gang of players would trap another group of players, usually of a lesser number, and rush them from multiple sides resulting in a quick kill.
GG - An acronym for Good Game.
GL - An acronym for Good Luck.
Gold - A form of currency. Often referred to as Coins, GP - Gold Points or Game Points depending on the game.
Grind - To preform repetitive tasks in order to reach a certain level.
Glitch - incorrectly displayed graphics, collision detection errors, game crashes or freezes, sound skipping, or other inconsistencies. This is also used as an excuse for dieing/losing. For example players could complain they lost because of a 'lag glitch' another would be 'game froze' or 'stuck' when the game is operating normally and the player is not familiar with the mechanics.
H
HP or Hitpoints - Also referred to as LP or Life points. This is the amount of damage a player can take before dying.
I
J
K
Kite or Kiting - To take advantage of having more range to attack your opponent than they have, allowing you to attack from a distance they can't harm you at.
L
Lag - Time delay between sending a command to the game and your character actually performing the action. A slow computer or very low FPS can contribute to lag.
Lure - To lead an unexpecting player into a pre-planned trap.
M
MMORPG - Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game.
Mob - A NPC, monster, or opponent.
N
NPC - Non-Playable Character.
Nerf - Generally used when there is an update to certain characters, weapons, or armor making them less powerful. Doing the damage that somewhat resembles a Nerf gun.
O
OP - Over Powered, something that is fairly strong and does quite a bit of damage.
P
Pk or Pking - Player Killing, this term is usually used when killing other players isn't the main focus of the game.
Q
R
RPG - Role-Playing Game, a game genre where you assume the role of a specific character.
RTS - Real Time Strategy. A game where the actions take real time to execute.
S
T
Tank - A player or monster who can take a substantial amount of damage without dying.
U
V
W
X
XP - See Exp, above.
Y
Z
Sources;
"Gaming Terminology." programingtours.net web. 8 February 2013. <http://www.progamingtours.net/index.php?/Gaming-101/GamingTerminology.html>.
"Gaming Terminology." theaveragegame.com web. 8 February 2013. <http://www.theaveragegamer.com/terminology/>.
"Game Terms." wowwiki.com web. 8 February 2013. <http://www.wowwiki.com/Category:Game_terms>.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Path of Exile, The Final Review.
After a few days worth of game play I can safely say that Path of Exile is a fun game, for a few hours. Once you get the hang of the game it becomes pretty simple. Unfortunately the quests that they have you complete are very similar to one another: Go find the bad guy, kill the bad guy, come back to me for your reward. Hey, there's nothing wrong with a few quests like that, but having almost all of them or having quests that lead you into "Go kill this monster for us" kind of quest gets very redundant and boring after awhile, especially if you're playing alone which most of the time I was because not everyone is on the same quest as me and joining random peoples parties can be difficult and frustrating so it's easier in my opinion, to set off solo.
Although I haven't completed the third, and final chapter, I just have a feeling of redundancy of quests just in a new area. Either I'm forging my way to find something somebody lost and they need me to retrieve it, I'm finding a new way to a city, or I'm defeating some sort of evil monster. The story of the game tied in to the quests somewhat, but I would have liked to see it done a little better. The story also made Wraeclast seem like a terrible, dark, horrifying place, but when I got to Act two I was in this jungle that was flourishing with trees and life. I don't know about the gaming community as a whole, but I'm a huge quest dork. I love it when other quests intertwine and have amazing stories, same goes for the main story.
On the bright side, this game offers a massive skill tree, where each time you level up you gain a skill point that you can invest into one spot on the skill tree. I personally am a huge fan of skill trees and this one still blows my mind at how big it is. Another thing that is pretty interesting are the skill gems, these little guys can be placed into your weapons and armor giving you certain abilities from raising zombies from corpses of already slain enemies to raining fireballs down onto your foes from the sky.
The graphics in Path of Exile are like I stated in my earlier post, not the best but they are far better than I could ever do. I would have to say I did like the attention to detail on the small things and applaud the game designers for that one.
I guess I can't bash this game too hard since it is still in it's beta stage, not fully complete, and free to play even though you can donate and get in game items for it, but my gosh are all the disconnects, freezes, and other miscellaneous issues annoying. For about 3 days straight that had a server issue where it'd log you out and freeze up, then when you fired it up again you were at the beginning of whatever you previously just started. You have no idea how many times I did the same quest over and over. But that's expected in a beta.
Graphics: B
Gameplay: C Overall: C+
Story: C
Replayability: B+
Although I haven't completed the third, and final chapter, I just have a feeling of redundancy of quests just in a new area. Either I'm forging my way to find something somebody lost and they need me to retrieve it, I'm finding a new way to a city, or I'm defeating some sort of evil monster. The story of the game tied in to the quests somewhat, but I would have liked to see it done a little better. The story also made Wraeclast seem like a terrible, dark, horrifying place, but when I got to Act two I was in this jungle that was flourishing with trees and life. I don't know about the gaming community as a whole, but I'm a huge quest dork. I love it when other quests intertwine and have amazing stories, same goes for the main story.
 |
| Flourishing jungles in Exile |
On the bright side, this game offers a massive skill tree, where each time you level up you gain a skill point that you can invest into one spot on the skill tree. I personally am a huge fan of skill trees and this one still blows my mind at how big it is. Another thing that is pretty interesting are the skill gems, these little guys can be placed into your weapons and armor giving you certain abilities from raising zombies from corpses of already slain enemies to raining fireballs down onto your foes from the sky.
 |
| Massive Skill Tree |
 |
| I enjoy the little things |
Graphics: B
Gameplay: C Overall: C+
Story: C
Replayability: B+
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Path of Exile at a glance.
Continuing from my previous post regarding Path of Exile, PoE, has been in the open-beta stage for one week now and I must say that I am very impressed with the game so far. When I first fired it up and became face to face with the log in screen, I found myself just staring at the pouring rain and view from the ship looking at Exile, which in the game is a place named Wraeclast. It really set the mood as did the dreary and gloomy music.
As I stated in my prior post, there are six different classes to chose from, each with their own backstory. All six of the character's stories were voiced-over and I thought that they did a marvelous job. After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out which class I wanted to choose, I finally settled on the Templar, who is a hybrid between strength, dealing with heavy weaponry and brute force, and intelligence, which is more like magic with spells. The Templar is an old holy man who has defended God and his Templar brothers for many years but has found himself exiled to Wraeclast. He now understands that who he called his brothers are "merely God's tools," as he states in his backstory.
Then the real story began; There I lie, an old man, face down washed up on a beach. There were two other men who had washed up on shore next to me so I was directed to talk to them, once I got done with the conversation one of them turned into a zombie and I was instructed to grab the nearest weapon to kill him, which just so happened to be a giant piece of driftwood. This got a chuckle our of me, here is some probably 80 year old guy beating up zombies on a beach with a giant chunk of driftwood. I applaud the developers for that one.
The graphics for the game are not the best, but they are also not god awful. I think they did an excellent job for a game that is free to play. There are also a plethora of settings for people to change around with and get comfortable, I have yet to go through them all but I have made a few changes to fit my playing style. Unfortunately, right as I made it to a saving point the game crashed. Possibly due to the overflow of people playing is as this was the second day of release, or since the game is still in the Beta, it still has lots of problems and bugs that need to be worked out. So I had to go back through the introduction all over again. Other than that I have enjoyed playing and hope to experience more of it soon and analyze more of the story.
"Character Classes." pathofexile.com web. 30 January 2013. <http://www.pathofexile.com/classes>.
As I stated in my prior post, there are six different classes to chose from, each with their own backstory. All six of the character's stories were voiced-over and I thought that they did a marvelous job. After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out which class I wanted to choose, I finally settled on the Templar, who is a hybrid between strength, dealing with heavy weaponry and brute force, and intelligence, which is more like magic with spells. The Templar is an old holy man who has defended God and his Templar brothers for many years but has found himself exiled to Wraeclast. He now understands that who he called his brothers are "merely God's tools," as he states in his backstory.
Then the real story began; There I lie, an old man, face down washed up on a beach. There were two other men who had washed up on shore next to me so I was directed to talk to them, once I got done with the conversation one of them turned into a zombie and I was instructed to grab the nearest weapon to kill him, which just so happened to be a giant piece of driftwood. This got a chuckle our of me, here is some probably 80 year old guy beating up zombies on a beach with a giant chunk of driftwood. I applaud the developers for that one.
The graphics for the game are not the best, but they are also not god awful. I think they did an excellent job for a game that is free to play. There are also a plethora of settings for people to change around with and get comfortable, I have yet to go through them all but I have made a few changes to fit my playing style. Unfortunately, right as I made it to a saving point the game crashed. Possibly due to the overflow of people playing is as this was the second day of release, or since the game is still in the Beta, it still has lots of problems and bugs that need to be worked out. So I had to go back through the introduction all over again. Other than that I have enjoyed playing and hope to experience more of it soon and analyze more of the story.
"Character Classes." pathofexile.com web. 30 January 2013. <http://www.pathofexile.com/classes>.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Path of Exile
Today marked the release of the open beta for the game Path of Exile. Path of Exile, or PoE, is an action role-playing game(RPG). I have been looking forward to playing this game for awhile, as I have only previously played for an open weekend and did not get much playing time.
Path of Exile offers six different character classes to chose from; the Marauder, the Ranger, the Witch, the Duelist, the Templar and the Shadow, with a tremendous skill tree to level your character up with. For those of you who have heard of or played any of the Diablo games, it is very similar. I am excited to fire this game up and look at all the content, graphics, and see how it plays out now that they've added a third part to the main story.
Unfortunately for me and probably many others who also tried downloading it today had to deal with insanely slow download speeds probably due to overloaded servers from so many people trying to download PoE. So I will continue to download it even at this slow rate and hopefully be able to get up some more posts about it.
Path of Exile offers six different character classes to chose from; the Marauder, the Ranger, the Witch, the Duelist, the Templar and the Shadow, with a tremendous skill tree to level your character up with. For those of you who have heard of or played any of the Diablo games, it is very similar. I am excited to fire this game up and look at all the content, graphics, and see how it plays out now that they've added a third part to the main story.
Unfortunately for me and probably many others who also tried downloading it today had to deal with insanely slow download speeds probably due to overloaded servers from so many people trying to download PoE. So I will continue to download it even at this slow rate and hopefully be able to get up some more posts about it.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Introductions are key.
Welcome to my blog,
I have been informed that we have to sustain a blog for one school semester. At first I was indecisive about what to do my blog on, and to be quite honest I still am. To make this blog a lot less stressful on myself and more enjoyable, I am going to be heading in a gaming route.
I will play a multitude of games of all different genres, even on other platforms. I will then analyze many aspects of the game such as graphics, bugs, is it user friendly, etc. I also hope to expand my knowledge of video games. After I've played it for awhile I may even grade the game based off my opinion on a regular school system's A-F grading scale, grading individual aspects as well.
This semester I hope to entertain you, as well as myself. I hope you're up for the journey!
I have been informed that we have to sustain a blog for one school semester. At first I was indecisive about what to do my blog on, and to be quite honest I still am. To make this blog a lot less stressful on myself and more enjoyable, I am going to be heading in a gaming route.
I will play a multitude of games of all different genres, even on other platforms. I will then analyze many aspects of the game such as graphics, bugs, is it user friendly, etc. I also hope to expand my knowledge of video games. After I've played it for awhile I may even grade the game based off my opinion on a regular school system's A-F grading scale, grading individual aspects as well.
This semester I hope to entertain you, as well as myself. I hope you're up for the journey!
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