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Elder Scrolls Online

2017-03-20T05:19:00.000-07:00

I beta tested for ESO several times in its infancy and then forgot about it until well after it went public and live. In fact the game was a subscription and that didn't interest me in the least. Instead I was enjoying other Bethesda standalone titles like Skyrim and Fallout instead. I would rather pay once and have the game and all its parts right at the start.

Well after a while ESO announced they were going subscription free or as they called it "free to play". But we know how the game developers define their idea of free to play, the original game is free to download and play but everything else cool or worth having including future map additions will cost you as much as a new game costs or more. Not free to play in any sense of the phrase.

While ESO can be amusing, it has the feel of the stand alone games to an extent but there is much missing from the game as compared to the stand alones. Housing is not even close to the housing in Skyrim. In Skyrim you can decorate, your home occupies a physical location in the game AND most of all you can store your personal items in your home instead of always looking for a bank with meager slots available (unless you buy more with real cash or painfully slow in game cash for ESO).

Your crafting supplies take up your entire bank slots incredibly quick in ESO unless you fork over real money yo buy a craft supply slot which stores all your items for crafting in there later, again nothing is for free in ESO or mostly nothing.

Lets talk about Vampire and Werewolf skill sets and game play. Werewolf has more abilities, the entire 5 slot action bar can be filled and the Ultimate Ability as well but the skill and animations available are mostly lame. WW as it will from now on be refereed to has mostly Howling skills which IMO is not incredibly inventive. Perhaps one but not two especially given the game only allows for 5 slots plus one Ultimate on special moves or skills as they call it. Improve werewolf by keeping the leaping attack, Keeping only one Howling paralyzing skill, adding a skill that has you in human form utilizing some of your WW abilities in combat like for Example huge claws to fight with, the feeding skill is OK but the duration for WW form is stupid, lame and too short, I think like any fictional WW of lore that a WW should remain a WW as long as the moon is up and full AND should remain a WW as long as the player wishes to play the WW and toggles it off manually.

Vampire is worse. With only 3 bar skills it's pretty weak and unimaginative in design. The entire 5 slots and Ultimate need to be devoted to Fangs. For example the blood drain skill needs a revamp (pun intended) The Vamp should become mist like with a basic outline of a bat in the mist or a cape with the head of your character in the mist baring a mouth full of fangs, the Vamp should pounce on the victim and the animation should show the Vamp bending the victims head to one side and burying their fangs in their neck. The other skill mist whatever it is should have the Vamp disappear in a cloud of mist and if you move close enough to your target you reappear with your fangs in their neck, Another skill should be a large Bat form and actually being able to fly in the game during the night looking for victims. Also Wolf form for Vamp would also be a recommended addition.

Both of these lines, the WW and Vamp should have a second set of at least 5 skill slots devoted to weapons or magic that can be used in conjunction with the monster skills with no Ultimate for the weapons while in monster form but at least you would be able to utilize dual wield or summoning.

Housing needs storage in all good housing additions to any of the games I've played with housing like UO for example you could store personal items in chests or dressers etc. It is useless to provide a house without this capability.

ESO has a long way to go and I will bring up more suggestions to improve the game but the best suggestion I can give the developers is to stop being so greedy. I will not buy anymore add-ons or DLC for the game, I purchased the original release in commercial and I have per-ordered Morrowwind but all the other content is lost to me because they want $$$ for it all.

More PAY TO WIN

2017-01-18T08:02:00.002-07:00

Well I've been busy trying out some more supposedly "free to play" games that really are NOT so free to play.

Most recently I played "Tank Wars" and all of the "World of _____" tanks,airplanes and warships franchise.

Tank Wars IMO is a waste of time, completely pay to win and completely hacked by Aimbot jockey's. If I wanted to play a war game solely to be a target it would be OK. Just log in game after game and die. No thanx.

The franchise war games ARE Free to download BUT that's pretty much where the free ends and the dig for your wallet begins. World of Tanks for example has something akin to Aimbot already built into it called "auto Aim" (quite original huh?) anyhow it does a pretty slow but decent job of keeping your turret facing the enemy but that's where it ends, it stays centered on the enemy tank if its stationary BUT if the enemy tank hides behind obstructions you will just shoot up all your ammo on what its hiding behind IE: Rock, House, mountain, you will NOT hit the tank when it is hidden behind something, you need to disengage the auto-aim and fire manually at a piece you can actually see sticking out. The only time the auto-aim really works is when the enemy is out in the open and stationary. Provided you have the only useful ammo in the game on hand. The other two types of Ammo just bounce off or do no damage at all.

All of the games listed here Especially the World of series ARE pay to win. To me just a greedy guy trying to sponge as much off the player as possible and lying that the game is free to play. They might argue that you can download the game, install it and play away as much as you want, while most of that is true the REAL truth is, you get very basic configurations of tanks, most you have to buy with experience credits or the in game money, both are high and hard to get.

The only way you stand a chance of surviving and actually killing other tanks (unless you get lucky with the useless ammo) is to fork over real money. Ammo is ridiculous two types are usually free but not always, one is an armor piercing that couldn't pierce a piece of cheese the other is a high explosive that just makes fire works but no damage. The other armor piercing shell can be bought on "some" tanks for a super ridiculous high price in game money or in real life cash and even they are iffy on penetration if you haven't got a store bought tank.

Most times if you play free, you login to the game, drive around in the cover until a player with a store bought tank spots you and 1 shots your ass into oblivion. So if you like being a moving target the game might be for you.

I have had a guy dead to rights with the cheap armor penetrating ammo and shot them 5-6 times at close range without damage (you get voice confirmation like "it bounced off" or "ricochet" or "we didn't do any damage" these messages continue until the enemy locks onto you and with one shot ends your game. There is no second chance once your TKO you are our of the game and can only spectate, boring.

As you move up in tiers the tanks almost become impossible to purchase with in game money, it takes literally FOREVER. Each match pays on average between 3,000 - 6,000 credits, and roughly 150 experience points a higher tier tank can cost over a million credits and 12,000 experience, do the math and you will play for a year before you can buy a decent tank AND then you have to buy upgrades which are even more experience and credits AND to move onto the next tank you have to buy all the high upgrades of the previous tank, STUPID and a gimmick to piss people off into buying stuff for real money.

IMO not great games to play and NOT free to play.

StarTrek Online : The Iconian thing

2015-04-28T13:43:00.003-07:00

Well I was happy, now I'm pissed. Cryptic have a way of coming across as all about the money even though they are supposed to be Free to Play. They are better than some MMO's in that respect but they are far from perfect in it as well.

I've spent real money (ZEN) in STO to buy a ship and some other things, frivolous, no sense spending IMO after all spending any real money for digital goods is odd at best and for the non-gamer probably even stupidly insane. After-all this is not tangible goods we're talking here we are talking digital (as in doesn't really exist, your buying nothing for real money) Another way the logical person would look at it is, if Cryptic ever went tits up (which if they don't get better about their fixing bugs, might happen) then all those digital goodies you bought go "poof" and so does your REAL money. Of course if your a spoiled little asshole whose parents give him/her whatever to shut them up and keep them from getting under foot you probably don't give a shit. But if you work 40 hours a week and break a sweat while doing it you take your digital purchases a bit more seriously.

Why all this chatter about real money and phoney stuff? Like I said I've actually dropped some real money down on STO. To me I was paying for the game which I never bought since it's F2P and it is a pretty decent game except for what I'm getting to, I felt the game company did a marginal decent job and my purchase was a show of appreciation.

However, after my good experiences I have had some not so pleasant experiences that have me a bit pissed, since this is my blog I'll tell you about it and the pissy little Trek Geeks who think Cryptic are Gods and can do no wrong can go jump in a lake.

Well one of my purchases with real money (ZEN) was an account bank (so all my characters on one account could exchange items other than through mail) However, mail is stupid and doesn't know or recognize when you are trying to email your own toons something that is account bound so you need the account bank for account bound items. Anyway, I bought the 10 slots and it worked fine for the first week. Then STO patched in their new Iconian add-on and in so doing (lack luster pre-testing) screwed up my Account bank which now has 4 unusable slots. Some of you are probably going aww pew-pew well I spent real money and expect to get what I paid for (anything else is stealing from me and I detest that).

I've written their bug reports and GM's about the issue but don't get any answer to my satisfaction about what's being done to fix the issue only the automated usual BS, which pisses me off. Because I do feel like I've been stolen from. Anytime, you say something in the STO forums your tackled by smart asses and geek STO cult members (every game has liberal cult members that think the developer is God and can do no wrong and everyone else is a pew pewer) Now it's not just the account bank but other issues as well. Seems like Cryptic didn't test run their Iconian patch as they should have before unleashing it on the public.

What pisses me off even worse is they have the nerve to ignore requests for some real answers and that it takes them forever to fix these things but only takes them a few hours to add more promos for your ZEN like a weekend where they can still suck your money out of you for a broken game. Personally I've said to myself, "self your not supporting a company with real money, especially in these economically disastrous times, if they can't fix their broken shit as fast as they can produce promos to ask you for more money".

So while STO may have been one of my favorite 80% F2P MMO's it's rubbed me the wrong way and they will need to earn my trust again if they ever want to see another ZEN out of me. FIX THE BROKEN SHIT NOW! Tin Foil Hat Speculation: Cryptic deletes posts on the Forum from people like me who are generally pissed about some issue that is serious especially when it involves my real money. Also any private moderators of said forums also do this practice. It is also something I've wondered about, if they (Cryptic) do not like what your saying about them could they not in fact internally hack your account to cause issues with game play and or items etc.? Something to ponder.

Here's a short list of what I know isn't working as it should.

1) Account bank broken. 4 Slots do not allow items to be deposited into the bank. In other words pay for 10 get 6. Paid real money for this as well as $50 bucks worth of other things.

2) Entire game crashes (since Iconian patch) when trying to rename a DOFF (Duty Officer) in the tailor screen. (Crashed twice, filled out bug report both times.)

3) Some missions are broke and some need major readjusting. Deferi transports are no where to be found. Some of the system patrol missions have been nerfed to almost impossible to complete by yourself solo and they are supposed to be solo. I died 30 times in one system by one shots from the NPC enemies. Impossible given my ship did have buff's and shields on. but if a player can only have 7k shield why give the NPC the ability to do 15-20k dmg with one shot? How does one survive an encounter like that? Wouldn't it make more sense if they only did 5-6k dmg to make it hard but not impossible?

4) Items being returned to me by the auction because of expired sale are showing up in the mail as an attachment that has no graphic nor can it be re-claimed, so I have lost millions of in game EC on lost items.

5) Space weapons are giving two sets of stats when you look at them on the ground the stats are lower than if you look at them while aboard your ship. This is asinine, make doing ship builds flawed and tedious.

6) The ship Loud-outs do not work and are confusing as shit. When I set up the two free load-outs that come with every ship your get it always A) forgets or looses my slotted items when I try and switch between them from the load-out screen. B) Is a confusing mess as to where items from a load-out are stored when they are not loaded on the slots. IE: what should be the case is this there should be a free bank system per ship you own for load-outs only that allows you to preset what each slot in the ship will hold and when it's not on the ship it's stored in this loud-out bank instead in a predetermined slot, that way the game doesn't have to look through the regular bank, the account bank and the other toons and their ships through out your account for items that may be needed for a particular ships loud-out. I think the dude in charge of this at Cryptic is a moron and should fix it.

7) This is not a bug but I still think it should be looked into. Fleets are nothing more than a tool for a player to extort from other players. Most fleets have ridiculous standards set by the fleet creator for in game cash donations before you can even purchase from fleet stores. I think that fleet stores should not be admin controlled, that they should be available to any fleet member on joining a fleet regardless of contributions to the fleet. There said my piece.

When a developers bottom line becomes money rather than quality they will soon feel that in subscribers or players loss. Common STO restore my faith in you and fix what's broke immediately, put aside your quest for ZEN.

ArcheAge...Trion again.

2014-09-07T15:36:00.001-07:00

Trion games has been in the news quite a bit in the last couple of years and not always for good things either in fact quite the opposite.

Trion is known for two previously released titles. One is Rift and the other Defiance, which is mated with the TV show of the same name but really that's where the similarities end.

Defiance was designed to be an MMO shooter to accompany the TV show however, the way the paring was handled makes it look like it was done by baboons. The show is all about RP, stories, plots and action, it can manage to hold your interest for an hour but it also has it's pitfalls it's full of porn, lewd suggestive sexual confrontations. Let me ask you is that shit necessary? People tune in to watch a Sci-Fi about a new terraformed earth filled with new and weird life forms including surviving humans NOT hand jobs, lesbians or faggots.

The GAME was supposed to interact with that show but I ask you HOW? It lacks socialization, no RP ability and the chat system is painful to use. Trion supposedly let go their entire Rift crew go and retained their CA Asshat clan of Defiance team. Doesn't make sense, anyway as I predicted this game went F2P because it is useless and no idiots other than myself and a handful of others would actually have paid for it (shamingly I did, I paid $65 for the game prior to F2P and $35 for the season's pass) then poof it went F2P naturally I'm out the $100. The game is still full of bugs, misaligned graphics, terrible lag and other junk.

Anyway after that failure you think they would have learned a lesson. To be fair Rift, Trion's title before Defiance is awesome in respect. You get dimensions where you can build your home and decorate the entire dimension. If you beta'd like I did your stuff carried over to the live game. And you can pretty much play the game F2P which surprises me. Chat is cool and useful, the UI is cool, fighting sequences are cool and it is a social game if you want it to be with opportunity for RP unlike Defiance.

There newest title is ArcheAge which is a Korean created game (no wonder it works, Trion didn't actually code it) The game play is absolutely superb! I've been Alpha testing the game and now I'm in the final open Beta and although there are a few areas needing improvement and some land mass requiring finishing it's good to go. I actually had fun leveling to level 31. I made a glider, have been collecting resources to get my ship finally built and have been questing all over the place. But that's where the fun ends.

First off I have learned that even though this is supposedly a F2P title it is NOT. It is actually a P2W game with total disregard for it's F2P players. Harsh words? Well sometimes the truth hurts but this is a money grab by Trion and they don't give a shit about their F2P player base just the ones with Daddy's check book or more money than brains and we know there are plenty of those around.

Apparently when the game goes live this 9/16/2014, Trion will wipe everything we've done in the betas. Allot of the liberal are going so what, they'll just get dads wallet and pay for everything again.
While those of us without a fountain of cash who will play F2P will suffer.

What does that mean, well spelling it out again for the liberal trolls it means cost to get some stuff back. No F2P about it. In Beta I worked hard to tell Trion about bugs I encounter in the game, I also worked hard to suggest items that could use improvement from a player stand-point. But I also ground out the game interface and the quests and leveling up to level 31 so far, I do not fancy the idea of having to regrind back up to level 30 again, obtain my ultimate glider again, and all my saved resources and the gold I have made. Why is Trion taking this stance of pissing off the F2P player in favor of paying customers when they actually NEVER wiped anyone's stuff in Rift or in Defiance.

Housing will not be open to F2P players as will not the Owning gardens or fields. All the liberals are running around saying well make friends with a Patron (paying) player they will let you plant on their land or share a piece of their house. Excuse me? I have to find some liberal asshat and beg a spot from them? I cannot plant trees safely or anything else only in open where they can be stolen unlike Patrons who are secured. Houses are denied to F2P players ( Are you starting to feel discriminated against? I know I am). Paying customers also get the enhancement stuff easily to make armor and weapons, F2P do not and are penalized by small amounts and large massive intervals of getting anything special.

Like I said the game is really cool but Trion's public relations bites ass. I don't think I'll play much, just when my other games are down and such. And I don't recommend anyone else who has to play F2P give this one a second thought, play Rift instead.

What kind of business practice is it to cheat the customer?

2013-09-05T16:01:00.001-07:00

Hi Readers and fellow gamers,

Well lately you have heard me ranting on Trion's business ethics and downright criminal behavior. Too strong an accusation? I think not, I'm a customer, this is my outlook, I purchased a game in good faith through a 3rd Party Authorized seller which is Steam. Steam is more of a distributor of licensed games AND F2P ones as well directly from various developers. They do not create the games just sell them like any other online store, however they also interface your games with other online so that there is a community of gamers (your friends) that you can interface with and play the games together if they are MMO or team. Pretty cool but they are not responsible for some game companies shady dealings as the ones Trion is pulling on it's customers of Defiance.

I purchased Defiance for $60 bucks through Steam it was the deluxe version that came with a number of player items that you would receive once you created your account. That went smoothly and there was no crooked activity to report. I bought through Steam who set up their own prize pack with Trion to give early buying customers, the pack included items like in game car, some weapons, exp, etc. that kind of thing. They Steam also offered the other Trion Title called Rift as an added bonus. At the time Rift was a subscription game where you had to buy it and then pay monthly to pay. Trion had some personal issues, mainly shitty management and poor, uncreative and fail help in developing the game. I beta tested Defiance for Trion it was a mass of unfinished thoughts, horrible chat system, no social interaction between players or very difficult and full of crashes and bugs. I estimated a year before they should even consider releasing it. WOW did I get a shock, it was a matter of months, like April to be exact. Was the game finished and polished? No not even close, in fact it was the same junk I beta tested. Terrible.

Anyways what happened next, you didn't need to be a genius to figure out. The game flopped, you get your liberal ass kissing geeks of course that love every piece of crap game out there if they think they are all knowledgeable about them but the majority of players, the ones who work hard for their money did not find it amusing to play a massive mess of issues.

This of course effected Trion in ways as well but what was their management thinking. What do I mean? Well Trion's other game RIFT was a huge success with tons of happy people playing a wow like game that was better than wow. Chat worked all other interfaces were beautifully executed the game is a great contender for market share but Trion's mentally troubled Executive LAYS ALL RIFT EMPLOYEES OFF! and KEEPS the losers from the Defiance team. WTF? I have a 186 IQ, I cannot wrap my brain around this one. Duh! is all I can say. Later things get even worse, Trion closes it's San Diego Defiance offices and moves to it's Rift head office in L. A.

Nothing like bringing the weeds to your nicely manicured million dollar lawn huh? What are they thinking? (Continuing to think?) Sounds like they have an Obama at the helm too doesn't it?

Trion then promotes a seasons pass to all up coming DLC's for Defiance for $35 which I bought purely out of belief that the game has no way to go but up. I was wrong. Trion has released a DLC but did NOT give it to the pre-purchasers of the Season's Pass as was promised. They have stolen from their customers plain and simple. I've heard rumors that they are pushing responsibility to the third parties that sell their game like Steam, PULEEEZ does Steam create the content or does TRION? Trion you need to back up your shit with honesty and humility and give what you promised or get out of the game industry.

Ouch! Defiance and it's prime time blunders.

2013-08-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

I along with a few other players I'm sure are wondering why it is Trion insists on patching and crashing at prime time?

While I can understand and I really do appreciate patches to fix issues with a game that should have been corrected with all the information received from three alpha tests, I still have to wonder why it is they do these things when most people actually find time to play?

Today is another such day, first the two hour patch then the 4 plus hours after the patch that the servers had to go down to repair what the patch screwed up.

Unfortunately I have not worked in game company yet as I'm a 3D artist but I would suspect that having a small independent DEV only server always running and being checked by an in house testing team would be the way to go to test pre-release of patches and new content before unleashing and fucking up the entire game(s)?

The following part of this column has been written many months after the top part. Since that patch and it's issues TRION has only stooped to new lows in business ethics and IMO criminal behavior. Trion recently closed their San Diego offices and moved it's Defiance operations to it's LA RIFT operation. This is post laying off most of the entire RIFT team and retaining the blunderers that are working on Defiance. (This boggles the mind).

When I purchased Defiance through Steam, I was given the full retail version of RIFT prior to it's going F2P which was odd in itself. Why? Well Obviously TRION didn't come to the conclusion overnight or in the few weeks following my purchasing of Defiance to make RIFT F2P? Anyways, it happened and to tell you the truth RIFT is a much more enjoyable, thought out and creatively created game than Defiance could ever hope to be. Which is the only nice thing I can say about Trion.

Trion has done something else to upset customers, they lowered the price of Defiance from $60 which I paid to $10 and are offering DLC for $10, which I paid $35 for this was called their season pass. This change in price also could not have happened overnight. Trion also released a new DLC for their Casthian class aliens and us prepaid customers did not receive it. I don't know what is going on with Trion's executive but the company is spiraling towards doom if it keeps alienating its customers.

I've written customer support on several occasions to try and resolve these account issues in a civil manner but Trion does not respond. So I'm Warning all potential customers of Defiance to hold onto their money for a while longer.

Rift Is a much more stable game and I suggest that anyone wanting to try out one of Trion's titles choose that one instead.

Defiance - Not so hot

2013-04-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

I bought the full retail $60 early bird version of Defiance. Got the red Dodge (hate dodge), got the Quads (love those), got some weapons (garbage), and some other stuff like titles, etc. Tell ya I was hyped and ready to go after I did the Closed Alpha 3 Test. I could see the potential for this game IF they catered to both the shooter AND RP communities BUT alas it left the RP players out in the cold.

So far it's a shooter and not a good one by any means. The free to play ones like APB, Blacklight and Planetside 2 to mention a few actually blow this out of the water as a shooter.

Let's address the shooter aspect first then I'll talk about what the game needs to survive otherwise I see a bleak short life for this game. (The TV show is different, it's RP, acting and makes sense, everything the game doesn't).

The shooter end of any shooter is usually the gun customization or modding aspect of it and in Defiance it is a disaster. Makes no firkin sense and is hostile to user interface. I mean it, there is no sense to the modding of weapons in this game, no way for a player to organize their efforts in weapon modding and the interaction system is terrible and embarrassing. I'm serious when I say that the Dev who thought of this aspect and developed it should be standing in the soup kitchen line. It needs an over haul from start to finish. Does Defiance appear to take it seriously? No, so far they are so slow bringing about fixes and patches it makes listening to Obama tell lies seem like a blessing.

The UI is great looking but needs a major fix. It needs modding over-haul, categorizing ability for players, Load-out fixes are needed its more buggy than a cave full of hellbugs. Chat system is so frikin gross it is like your playing a stand alone talk-to-no one game anyhow. Terrible, no meat an potatoes there and the in game voice chat? At first it echoed like talking in a can , that works better but still along way from good. Also, it's full time on voice chat unless you turn it off in options meaning, you start talking dirty to the wife/husband, swear at the dog/cat, fart, burb, sing, talk to yourself it doesn't matter EVERYONE in the GAME WILL HEAR YOU. ADD a push to talk feature and can the always live already OK?.

The art work is pretty good in the game. Scenery is cool, lighting needs some work as do shadow effects, Character customization sucks ass in that it is not available AFTER initial character creation. Want to lighten your skin? (I'm accidentally stuck with an African instead of the light tan I wanted on one character and CAN'T Change it now). You can tell the environment artists get paid too much and have too much freedom in the office at Trion, Stones, rocks, trees, stumps, assets mission items and structures are "floating" above the virtual world all over the place and not because they meant it that way either. Just lazy and poor application of game assets to the environment.

Weather systems? No, Clouds - yes, Night and day transition? yes but terrible. Add some rain storms, lightening, Tornado's etc this is a terraformed planet not EDEN.

Life forms? Other than raiders, mutants and hellbugs and Pows? nope, disgusting. Where is their imagination? Terraformed planet? How bout giant pray mantis, huge alien wasps, meat eating ants? How bout normal life like birds and bunnies mixed in with NEW terraformed life like a shark with mountain lion? or something else weird and new and something even the aliens haven't seen.

Where are the aliens? other than us human or irathient and the few characters who show up from the show in the game where are they? There are supposed to be 8 alien races why are they not found all over the place, doing alien things. AI controlled NPC's for shop, taverns populace do not exist so its a barren and lonely world at times. In fact if your not doing arkfalls, the main mission (the last part so far is impossible for most to finish) or the side missions there is NOTHING else to DO!. They left RP out. I can't believe they have a show where they are paying actors big bucks to RP and they don't have the ability at all in their game? WTF is with that?

I know this review so far is not glamorous for Trion and for that I had wished I could have said something nice about the game so far but I can't. I am hoping they take heart and fix the major pitfalls in this creation before it bottoms out. If it goes tits up it will likely be too late to bring it back out of the ashes so Trion fix it make it RP to, get all the little quirks and bugs fixed and add some major changes to weapons and chatting and NPC interaction and allow the RP community a place to blossom and the game would become a winner.

2013-03-31T21:52:00.002-07:00

Frikin unbelievable, I post in the TRION forums and some asshole flames me/another
guy for a simple question so I return a post but use Asterisk in the curse so it
could be literally anything from a compliment to an insult but the point being there
is NO indication of an insult or a provable one other than my word for it the idiot
deserved it. Here's the post the forum moderator sent back to me what do you think?
Do they need a lesson in the 1ST amendment or do I need one in profanity?
[QUOTE=Trion_Community]Dear Ezpikins,
You have received a warning at Defiance Forums.
Reason:
-------
Rude to another member of the Community
Greetings,
We understand that you may not have been aware, but one of your posts/threads has
been removed because it was a not in concert with our Code of Conduct. Under our
guidelines, comments such as,
[QUOTE]Guy asked a simple question don't be a *******, ***-hat.[/quote]

The above quote is exactly what I posted in response to the flamer whom they are
defending.
Can be considered as being rude to other members of the community. While this warning
does not reflect negatively on your account, future incidents could result in an
infraction. This is just a reminder so that you can avoid these types of posts in the
future.

Also, if you feel a post is out of line, please report it to the moderation team
rather than responding.

Thank you for respecting our community rules, and for helping us to create a fun,
welcoming, and safe environment for the Defiance Community.

Regards,

The Defiance Community Team
-------
What got me is this asshole, whom they are protecting was rude to another player whom I was standing up for and defending and yet we are the parties blamed, this asshole gets away with his flame job. This is the liberal Bullshit I'm talking about, since we're involved with media here and TV as well as a game we're treading into a land full of idiots that have no clue about Amendments or the Constitution or the terms Freedom of Speech. This has brought down the Trions public image with me a few notches. I am insulted by their political correct bullshit aimed at the innocent parties instead of the Jackass who started it.

What you read isn't always what you get.

2013-03-31T09:41:00.002-07:00

Lately I beta tested Defiance which I'm eagerly waiting to play. It's fun and it's release is on April 2ND. However, I'm a bit let off by one of Trion's promotions for the game in which they, teamed up with Steam. They offer various in game rare in game items which is a wonderful idea and thing and I don't want to seem ungrateful for a bit of a head start when joining up, but in this offer Steam/Trion say you get a copy of retail RIFT by Trion and a second incentive for buying Defiance early on Steam. Where the problem lies is how they present this offer, it comes across like your getting a free game, you even get the CD code but that's not the case. There is NO FREE play on rift it's a subscript only game UNLESS you want the vegetarians version of the game called "light" which limited you on almost half of all the playability of the monthly version.

Anyways, Like I said disappointing for me. You can only afford so many monthly games and their $60 initial purchases, unless of course your spoiled, your parents don't mind if it keeps you out of their hair, or you work are 40 and live at home with mom, or you steal the money from the rainy day jar every month. Some people MAY be able to utilize this reward because they have more money than brains, it happens. Anyway, a posting on the reward ad that there is a Monthly script would have been forthright and up front instead of over-looking that fact for eager Defiance players.

And as added news a new development: Also I would watch what you post on the TRION forums. Apparently if you bleep out your own swear words, that can lead to you being banned. WTF? For Example when I deal with some goof that thinks his ass-kissing of a Dev team member makes him a forum god and he/she flames everything you say, I call them ASSHATS and in this forum I called them this ******* A**hats (litterally with asteriks)and for this I was threatened with expulsion. LIBERALISM exists even in forums. If you don't say what the dictators like then they toss you out until all the opinions come from the same type of people. Assholes.

Until next time, and remember I'll make your head-shot a personal experience. - EzPikins

Beta Testing Fever

2013-03-28T13:44:00.001-07:00

Wow what a gas. I have been so busy beta testing lately. There are so many new entries into the so called Free to Play arena it's not funny but some only call themselves Free to Play, not many really ARE F2P.

My first stop on the beta test was War Inc. The impossible slow to log-in shooter? Finally got in. Not bad game, nice maps, decent weaponry but already plagued by pimple faced Aim-bot users. Ruins it for everyone. Next.

The Secret World. WOW. Loved the zombies, cool world to explore but even the NPCs have gutter trash mouth. Too bad everyone thinks, everyone has to swear every Nine our of Ten words these days. (They truly have no concept of the use of profanity in society these days, take it from an expert.) Great movement, Good shooting action and some decent missions to boot. It has since dropped in price since going live but is not free to play. I believe they have dropped the monthly subscription fee of $12? It's now only the cost of the game which was $40-50 and has now dropped as well. Might be worth checking out if you like killing zombies and don't mind one F**k of allot of swearing? http://www.thesecretworld.com/buy/

Bullet Run. Wow people I beta tested this F2P and a few short months after it went public "POOF" Sony dropped it and it is now unavailable. It wasn't a bad game they even brought in some new maps but it was also aim-bot dominated and foreigners (rag-heads) were acting quite rude to other players. At least I found that. Anyways, *plays taps* this one is dead and gone. http://help.station.sony.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/37136/p/5816/session/L3RpbWUvMTM2NDU5Mzk5My9zaWQvTHZramVwbWw%3D

APB Reloaded. Another shooter in gang style a little too Black and Mexican for me. And I don't mean that in a racist kind a way I mean culturally it would appeal more to their ethnic up bringing not mine. It is part bullet run and part grand theft auto. The car driving is frikin amazing. The shooting again controlled by aim-bot users, you can however run into matches with people that don't use aim-bot it just takes time. http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/113400/

Blacklight Retribution. OMG love the game, maps, toons. Hate the AIMBOT! Dominated by punks who can't shoot without help, holding each others hands and telling them how good they are shooting (Aim-bot) also they seem to think Aimbot really makes them champions? Let's see how good they do in Iraq without their frikin Aimbot . Anyways aside from those asshats, the game rocks and rolls and you can get by without spending a dime of real money as well. Cool weapons and a ton of Real Life upgrades for them. They do have some crazy shit like "exploding tomahawks" and toxic bullets and shit, they need to keep it real though or they will go to far and loose the realists. Maps there are many or were. Scenarios are many too from TDM to Take the flag and more it's in there. If they could get the Aim-bot under control this would rock but...well you know....the cheaters sometimes are the ones that spend the real money as well. http://blacklight.perfectworld.com/

PlanetSide 2. I beta tested this for one day. I was on a contract when the invite came in so I didn't see it right away. I think this game is more epic than all the rest of the shooter genre and why? Because, it has everything all the other ones have, cool weapons, armor, vehicles but it's on an MMO scale not unlike what Defiance will be. Huge maps, easy way to get around to the fighting or you can take the long road in some kind of vehicle either ground based or a flyer. Lots of tech menus to flip through, really cool map view, fast reloads and character type changes. Free to Play? Not really, some things are and certainly there's enough to get you buy if you play free but the really cool stuff? Of course your gonna dig out the VISA or MASTERCARD. https://www.planetside2.com/

Defiance. AWESOME. I just finished the 3RD Alpha Phase Test for this game. It's official release date is April 2ND 2013 the show will debut a week or so later on Sci-Fi channel. DID HE SAY SHOW? Yeah, TV Show and a video game for not only PC players but X-Platform as well. The game will effect the outcome of the show and vice versa. It has a possibility of limitless entertainment and enjoyment for millions of people IF Trion and Sci-Fi Channel play their cards right. ON that one you'll just have to figure it out. https://www.defiance.com/en/game/

Bit of a backgrounder. Defiance takes place on Earth, yes, this Earth. I think it's 90 years in the future after an alien race flees their solar system in Arks (containing all their life, history and technology) which was about to go extinct they come to the only planet they know that can support them, Earth. Only problem is when they get here in 2013 they find us primates running around all over the place. They begin negotiations with us to settle on earth as well but some terrorist act destroys ALL of the Arks in orbit around earth causing a huge almost impenetrable Ark debris field around the planet. What crashes to earth causes the world to be terraformed however. Allot of what man knew is destroyed or ruins and replaced with an alien landscape and creatures and species mixed with what survived of our own AND Huge BUGS. Parts of this circling space debris come to earth like meteor showers called Arkfalls and humans and aliens alike run to salvage what they can from them but are always greeted by huge menacing alien/earthen bugs creature and smaller ones called skitter-lings.
We Ark hunters must battle the bugs/scavengers/mutants/machines for new technology and other things.

Anyways let me tell you about Defiance. I am a pre-order-er as well as a 3RD Alpha closed tester. When I logged in on Friday night I didn't know what to expect but shit I was blown away. As a shooter this game will send chills up your back. There's already a built in aim helper so no need for the AIMBOT assholes to waste their time creating one (go play somewhere else). And it doesn't make you über shot either just evens the battlefield.

The guns are awesome, weapons are awesome and vehicles are awesome. weapons can be modded however that one aspect was a bit weak in Defiance. Mods were not easy to figure out, how to apply or what stats they brought to your gun/weapon. Needs a bit of work. Menus need a bit of organizational work but are extremely cool and once you figure it out not to hard to navigate.

The action at an Arkfall is nothing short of film quality hard rocking action. WOW. and everyone works TOGETHER. Novel concept. Explosion are nice and Nvidia Physx shines through. Ammo runs short but I think that might have a resolution.

Vehicles are cool but the physics behind them needs some work. Just characteristically speaking. Choices however are very cool (although I wish something other than a Dodge had survived in the car class. (Mustang?) (Corvette?))

Landscape. Earth with some alien elements (needs more IE: plants, animals, birds, insects, etc) In the beta we were limited around the San Fran area and there were places with not much visual candy.

Anyway, pre-order from Steam and you'll get a whole bunch of extra goodies to help you Ark Hunter.

FOR ALL THE ASSHATS: Oh and a bit of a reality check for some of you mentally ill youth who's parents taught you a liberally minded communist concept of gaming (when they did have a moment for you) that believe because you rule on a video game shooter you would do so in real life? Think again, you do not RES if you get shot OK? Once and your dead it's for good or maimed for life. The people you point a weapon at in REAL LIFE are those that mean to kill you or your family (not imaginary ones) otherwise you DO NOT point a gun, rifle or shotgun at anyone. If your old enough for military duty and of sound mind, you should have all your Constitutional rights intact and without infringement. However, if you feel strange about guns, a power over others or have other thoughts of violence please seek help and stay away from firearms. Remember there is a difference between a digital bullet and a lead one.

FREE TO PLAY!

2012-09-21T15:12:00.001-07:00

Either game manufacturers can't speak English or they have no concept of the word FREE. Why even get into this genre of game if you don't understand the principle, FREE means absolutely no cost what-so-ever.

Currently I'm beta testing two MMO Shooters and one MMO team kill, at this time I'll refrain from naming them because they are in Beta and you want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they will understand and grasp the English word FREE when they go live. But I hesitate to hold my breath.

Look the argument I get from every wanna-be groupie or dev member is this, have to pay for servers ya know, blah blah blah. If you advertise FREE then legally your bound by law to make it FREE, completely free. That's right a person should be able to attain the highest level and the best junk and swag that's available in the game for absolutely no cost (in real currency). That's why I think the F2P fad is exactly that a fad.

Most F2P games are complete rip-offs of commercially successful versions of the games that have been out for years. Take these two shooters I'm beta testing, they are rip-offs of Counter-Strike no matter how you look at them, the third game the Team Kill game I'm testing is refreshingly original in design at least I've never seen one like it before and it may merit investing some real money into gear and such if needed.

Anyway more on the FAD called F2P later.

War Inc. F2P MMO Shooter.

2012-09-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

Well.....War Inc. The game has a pretty explanatory title. It consists of capture flag, death-match and sabotage matches. Very Counter-Strike like. In fact spooky so. Log-in for me is slllllooooooowwwww assssssss slooooowwww, at least 5 minutes to get from the icon to the client and the play button and then finally you load-out screen. It's so frikin slow I could go conceive 2-3 more kids while I wait.

Before some asshat from Warmongers says "it's your PC dude" other games like the beta test for The Secret World, Bullet Run and all my other Steam games including Black Ops all run great.
PC is:
Dual Processor Intel E2160's
Nvidia GT 9400 1 GB
500 GB HD
4 GB Ram
Cable Internet
Windows XP Pro
has latest bios
and drivers

Support sucks ass too. Slow and err...slow. F2P or FTP (free to play) MY ASS. Everything mostly costs GC Which you can only get through real money so it should be called P2W (Pay to win).

More later.

Fallen Earth Continued

2012-09-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well I am disliking the cheesy modeling and the horrid texturing that was done in this project. The Dev team should be ashamed of themselves unless of course these are Construction workers who have traded in their jack-hammers and made their very first video game? If they are then they did a great job considering, but if they call themselves game developers? They need to go to Art school/ Game Art School/ texturing classes and get a degree in Game Art before they consider putting out a F2P game which they also charge money for items in. Real Money! Yikes.

Textures are terrible, the sense that someone just made a bunch of assets then randomly popped them into the game engine is the feeling I get here. Characters and actual modelling of things like ATVs and buildings, weapons, computer consoles and everyday items isn't really that bad but the support art and texturing destroy the game for me. If it weren't F2P I would put a plague sticker on this game and send it into orbit.

Missions: Tedious tooooooo looooooonnnnggggggg. F2P people are punished by only being able to craft a single item at a time. More boredom than you can shake a stick at. Let me just say this is NO Fallout, The artwork in Fallout and the modelling are so far above this its like 2 sticks rubbed together to make fire as opposed to a zippo lighter used to make fire.

Now the designers of this game (Fallen Earth) had their hearts in the right place, they wanted to give the public an MMO like Fallout but they just set the objective to high and the project got weigh-laid. If they took it now and refined it to the nines with accurate textures, lighting and environmental maps as well as add weather elements they may redeem themselves and make the game better.

I'll write again soon about this one.

Fallen Earth revisited

2012-09-18T09:41:00.001-07:00

Well I've gone back and given Fallen Earth one more chance. It seems it doesn't like my wife's computer, I finally got it installed on my new PC laptop. Once I installed the game, I was able to get in and created a character which went without too much of a hitch.

However, Fallen Earth doesn't report my Nvidia Gforce GT 650M instead it reports the on board Intel chip. Anyways, I got the game loaded and created my character and entered the game finally. On first impressions I was not overly impressed by the in game graphics. A lot of the textures seem to be stretched or act strangely with my video card which is super advanced for this game. The modeling in the game from a 3-D artist's perspective is mediocre at best. The realism, lighting, textures all seem unfinished. It's my opinion, that the game needs to go through another development phase where all the models and their textures are revamped.

In towns, assets are kind of thrown around to fill space in my opinion, no real cohesiveness exists again this is due in part to amateur modeling. In the wilderness, there exists highway overpasses or monorail tracks but have no cohesive directions or details. All in all art wise this game needs a lot of work and is no FALLOUT by any means. The one thing interesting is the fact that this game is an MMO and fallout is not.

This game does have some interesting ideas in it, like modes of transportation. There are horses, ATVs, and motorcycles as well as cars. All of these are modeled fairly well in comparison to the buildings and landscaping. Still it's my opinion that Fallen Earth needs to go back to the drawing board and be refined with richer lighting, more realistic texturing, and some cohesive town construction and map construction.

Environmentally, there are no weather aspects to the games to the game. No blowing wind effects or storms, no rain or snow. it seems to be set in a desert like area however, I lived in Arizona for 10 years and the desert never looked like this. The game artists need to do some research on their topics. There are Saguaro Cactus in fields of grassy plains, there are resources placed haphazardly all over the place. I guess the best way to describe it is lack of depth and accuracy.

Anyhow, I'll play the game awhile and tell you what I think of that aspect the next time. For now cya later.

Bullet Run

2012-09-14T14:35:00.004-07:00

Well Since the game is public I can finally write about my experiences in it which mostly occurred while in Beta. However, there have been some major changes since the full release which have greatly effected my view of the game.

First let me start by telling you a bit about Bullet Run. Was supposed to be a game based on a TV like game show where contestants kill each other for the amusement of the audience and for style points. That never really came into play and the game kind of evolved into game show type environment for the players themselves by having commentary by a few NPC announcers, there are flying cameras etc but they do nothing in recording spectacular moments and kills for prosperity. Still the game is fun, at least now it is.

Pre-release and a bit after it was publicly released Bullet Run had a few very unpleasant things going for it which pissed me off and made me not want to play. The biggest issue was weapon repair, a first person F2P with weapon repair costs. This was gross because your weapon naturally wore out to useless very quickly and constantly needed repairs which you, the player had to work for in game constantly. It was outrageously expensive and the deterioration rate of weapons was unusually high and outrageous, needless to say it was boring and just plain stupid. I think it resulted in much lower participant numbers than the creators of the game expected. So Sony took out weapon repairs since the release and now the game is better to play.

But hold your horses, I said it was better to play it still isn't perfect. The biggest thing I see is still weapons. Bullet run weapons are given only 2 upgrade slots for standard weapons and 3 for the black line of weapons. This SUCKS! There are a tone of fun upgrades available but you can only have 2 or maybe 3 if you can afford the black weapons. Most of these will cost you real money because they are priced so ridiculously high that you can almost never get enough GP in game to buy them. Upgrades cost almost as much as the guns themselves upwards 7k-10k GP and you make roughly only 70 GP per round of play that's allot of rounds to earn enough GP. Rest of the upgrades for players etc are as highly priced.

Anyhow, to fix the game further SOE needs to add upgrade slots to the weapons (at least in my opinion) for every major area of weapon upgradable for example there should be a slot for Stock, one for sights, one for muzzle, one for barrel, one for magazine, one for decals or custom paint etc. So the player can buy one item for each category not just two for the entire gun. The price of those upgrades should be relevant to actual real world prices so players can afford to buy them.

Anyhow SOE did add a new arena which is very cool and it seems they may add more in the future. Perhaps that's how they should focus on making real money for the game which is supposed to be free? By selling new map addons for $2-$5 real cash? That may be more acceptable to players than being gouged for addons?

Anyhow give the game a try it is free to play (almost) and fun.

http://www.bulletrunthegame.com/index.vm

Fallen Earth - F2P by Reloaded Productions

2012-06-18T09:46:00.001-07:00

*YAWN* still waiting to get off the login screen, will keep you informed. Still waiting after hours. Tech support is limited and vague. So right now Fallen Earth is pretty high on the LAME GAME list. If I can get in at some point I will alter the review according to my experience at that time. For now its all thumbs down.

Well I found an article on the ports they use 3000-3020 and 80. Those are opened to the program and not it actually goes from the connecting.... screen to the authenticating....screen. So far however it gives me a connection lost please try again after about 10 minutes of staring. (Is there really a game behind this login screen?) I will probably try a few more things and see if there's success but so far its a wonder anyone plays this game at all.

OK this one is a no go for me. My PC can handle hundreds of new games just fine, my equipment is up-to-date and all my drivers have been upgraded as well. Router was worked to allow Fallen to work and still the game refuses to get out of the login screens. I'm gonna put a big two thumbs down on this one. If you can't play it it must not be worth it?

Anyways, I'm pumped up for the weekends Beta test of "The Secret World" I'm all loaded up the PC is ready and the key has been surrendered. The beta lasts from Friday to Monday and is the last (4Th) before the game goes live (MMO)

Ok Fallen Earth has fallen off the Earth as far as I'm concerned. Their support sucks and I have been trying to find help to even get the game to go past the login screen. It just changes from connecting to authenticating and then nothing happens. Fallen Earth gets a big 4 thumbs down, as poop ass game of the year.

These are the continued voyages of the Starship....

2012-05-03T07:40:00.002-07:00

Yup still playing. Currently STO has received some Kudos from me because of the recent missions which include even us usually lowly F2P players. I just 50'd my Klingon now a Lt. General and quite a fun character to play with the Klingon mission content which is almost as good as an actually episode of Star Trek fresh on the tube. I'm getting some nice gear which I hope doesn't end when the missions do? And I'm finally slowly starting to figure out the sometimes confusing very complicated system of skill sets for toon and the rest of the bridge crew and duty officers you are required to use in making your skill set. Its not easy but once you get the premise (geek who thought it up) it comes just a bit easier.

Lately however, not sure if its because of the mission content or some other reason but STO has been having downtime and allot of crashes while playing. This is annoying and I hope the boys and girls of STO figure it out soon?

I have tried out the PVP and love it. Also the instances are great where you get up to 8 people and try and reach a common objective together. Those are really cool. this last week has been fun, STO is one of my favorite online F2P games at the moment. I still have some issues with the segregation of value for the people that have the money to spend on C's and those of us who don't, IMO everything in a F2P game should be attainable as FREE even if there is more work involved to attain it. So far STO has no way in game to obtain C's for free as far as I know? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Levels are not limited to F2P, most missions aren't but i will verify that in the coming weeks and see if there is content that is purchase only. I do believe there are some ships and themes which must be purchased and there is no way to get these free, such as the old 60's bridge set up and uniforms etc. :(

Keep informed subscribe to my Free Online Game review Blog and I'll be back.

Star Trek Online Cont'd

2012-04-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

OK a bit more information about STO and it's game play. I'm now into my second week of STO and I/m still harf and harf about this game. First lemme tell you IMO playing a Klingon is far more fun that being a Fleet dweeb. First off you can't make one till your fleet dweeb is level 25 or so anyhow which is weird but OK. Then your only allowed two characters for the whole game if your F2P so duh! yeah, I'm gonna make at least the second char who has to be Klingon anyhow.

OK so I got that out of my system let's talk Klingon, not literally you PutaQ (sic) The Klingon story line is WAAAAY better than the fleet one and the quest/missions are WAAAAY more fun to play. Fleet is boring after Captain rank :(. But the whole Kahless thing is another story makes you want to sit there and do them. Kudos to the STO writer of the Klingon content (you should go give that Denevian Slime Devil Fleet writer a slap upside the head the PutaQ! *spits*) What a difference.

Anyhow leveling isn't a big problem in STO, except the boring Fleet content. The game moves along at a fair clip and you usually get some kind of recognition for achieving every level in the game except for a few. Again pack and bank room are at a premium and you have to fork over real money to get more (sux). Another cool thing: You get a ship at every rank advancement, how cool is that? Even if your a F2P like me AND at least they are not charging me for more dock space to house all these free ships.

Crappy thing: Ferengi and Cardasian Lock boxes. The boxes are free and are a random spawn on mobs BUT you have to fork over real money like roughly $2.15 for a key to open each and every one, the cheap skates couldn't even make it so at least you could open any 5 boxes with a key it JUST opens ONE! But you can't spend just $2.15 on a key anyhow, minimum is $6.25 for like 300C which is the in game money and the key is 100C. So it can add up to allot for some digital swag that disappears when the game finally does. This is a big waste of money and I now junk all my lock boxes instead of eating bank space up with them. On top of that other player have lost interest in them because the chance for good items to come from the boxes is lame, so you can't even give these away now and just last week I got 5 million energy credits from selling a gold one which are now bonded to your character which makes them useless especially to F2P players. Oh boy.

Crappy thing again: like I said before the tech support and player guides suck in this game. (Worst I've seen in a game). Something that has me foaming at the mouth is the crew training and leveling part of the game. You can train you officers with some useful skill although it seems like they all over lap and have no real way to control them. It's really, really CONFUSING! Common STO get that Klingon mission writer to write some good tutorials on crew leveling and skills.

I'm on a mission called the Vault right now and I would like to tell STO to watch it they are making this one a bit to weird. First off I won't give away the mission but these two things bug me. A) ship sensors are useless in the game they outta detect anything you want from other ships types, planet inhabitants and history and miscellaneous crap floating around in space SUCH AS the damn derelict ship in the frikin mission! B) when you make a frikin lock that needs to be opened a certain way make sure you tell the players exactly what it is they need to do without giving the answer directly away on how to open it ALSO give the frikin lock a reset button if you screw up. I screwed up and now the lock does nothing and I'm sitting in the mission, so STO what do I do next huh?

OK more to come stay tuned.

DC Universe and Star Trek Online who reigns supreme?

2012-04-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

Well lots has been going on. I have tried a few other F2P Online Games/MMO's recently including DC Universe Online @ http://www.dcuniverseonline.com/ and Star Trek Online @ https://register.perfectworld.com/sto_splash and I will tell you my take on them now. Let's start with DC since I played that one first. DC Online characters are great and I'll give them a four out of five on the graphics of the game. Nicely done! You can see they made more use of either higher poly counts here or excellent high res texture maps either way you get a good comic book feeling about the game. You get to make your character to its fullest which I thank them for, most online MMO's that are F2P limit you ability to level your toon (VERY LAME) IMO. The website is a great tool for new player of the game to learn how-to in the game, to me that's important. DC is still a traditional F2P in the sense that YES they do charge you extra for some content and although it's sad that you don't get everything that legendary players get you still get enough to enjoy the game without paying real money if you wish. The fight sequences are nice and smooth, good combos etc. AND although this is centered around DC comic characters I was able to bring my marvel favorites to life in the Character creation screen with some imagination I got some Marvels right on and some pretty close. SO, you CAN be a Marvel in DC too if you want? The PVP is Fun! The missions, some are fantastic but some get old fast unfortunately the Buster line is kinda boring but a good way to get to know the cities. I'll write more on this one later for now go download the game at the link provided above and enjoy it for a few days then come back and tell us what you think.

Star Trek Online. This one I have just started playing after a short hiatus between DC. First thing that bugged me was the graphics. On the same computer that I get wonderful unblocky characters and environments on in DC, I am getting polygonal boxes and flat color textures in Star Trek. It's disappointing that the planet environments, star bases, DS9 and other orbiting stations all have such blah textures and lame graphics its like playing something 15 years older. Another thing right off was two characters only in the F2P side. You can make one Federation and one Klingon that's it. And no way to earn in game money in the game to unlock things either, most everything requires REAL MONEY to buy Cryptic points. Yuck. Why was this F2P again? Anyhow, the space fighting is pretty cool although I think the cinematic camera operation and angles could have used some work and make flying around and targeting things a bit weird. The interface or HUD is pretty cool in space and on land they are easy to use however I still have to hold my mouse over everything because the Icons aren't very descriptive as to function. Crafting in this game since its there is terrible. Doesn't make a lick of sense and requires huge amounts of already limited bank space on F2P and pack space as well. More costs real money again and there is no in game version of cash that can be earned instead to upgrade. (That's a big bummer IMO). The website for Star Trek Online is useless as is the wiki for it. Not very helpful, does not contain instructions on all the features and very little tech support. This also didn't not please me. I'm still playing so I will give it some more time and will come back and write more and re-review them one my toons have levelled to a useful level.

Until next time folks *cheers*

Call of Duty - Not free but fun.

2011-09-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,
Currently I'm addicted to Call of Duty - Black Ops. So writing is on a short hiatus until I get back to the online free servers. But I have an idea.

How bout you the readers give me some legit, UO, WOW and other free servers information, like their URL and how you create an account and what you like about them and I'll check them out when I get back?

LotRO - my hunter elf

2011-07-08T09:58:00.002-07:00

Well i spoke a bit about the wife's Lore Master character and how weak and really kinda frustrating they are to play especially from level 28 and down so far. She is weak, her pet companions are weak, and she has hardly any combative skills at all, boring, unexciting, lame and frustrating (oh i said that already). Well you get the picture? I'm also disappointed how you can gain any level and not have some new skill or ability available to you, no matter how small, it would be something. But yesterday I reached level 29 with her and nothing no skills or anything either for her or for her pets or whatever, very disappointing to have voids in the skill gain like that. Anyhow, on to my Hunter character, more on the Lore Master later.

OK the Hunter reached level 40 now and I would have to say, compared to the Lore Master character this ones 90% more fun to play BUT still lame and weak in certain situations. First off hunter uses ranged weapons or can arm a sword or mace in each hand for two weapon fighting. The Melee fighting is OK but as a Hunter your limited to only medium armor which doesn't take a whole lot of punishment from melee mobs. Again more than two at a time and you are dead.

The bow on the other hand works great if your in a fellowship and you keep your distance from the mobs. Play by yourself which your left to most the time and the mobs will not stay at a ranged distance from you unless they are ranged fighters as well. The others, the Melee mobs just jump on you in a group and your dead. The bow is interrupted quite easily by any hit from a mob so repetitive ones kill you. Lame! Boring!

The bow cannot do well in close melee situations plain and simple unless your 10-15 levels above the mobs that is. But that's boring. Turbine needs to make adjustments they need to bring the amount of damage by arrow up and interference caused by melee down or make the melee part more advantageous to use when in close, IMO.

Or better armor or bows need to be available at lower levels. The dungeons or instances? Well the first low level one is called the Barrows - the maze. and its LAME. even with a character at level 40 and the mobs set to level 25 ( you can pick mob levels from 20 up to your level or 50 I think maybe 60 but anyways even at 25 the mobs are super powered and soloing the dungeon is almost if not impossible. Lame.

The hunter has some tracking skills but they seem repetitive, there's one for mob bugs/animals, mob animals/humanoids and one for dead stuff. The bug/animals and animal/humanoids ones seem dumb and overlap each other a waste of skill points and levels. How bout a hunter pet? or some spells to keep the mobs at ranged distance when soloing?

But over all at least this toon can run around and do SOME stuff alone without a fellowship or party or having to drag half your guild with you on quests and deeds.

Now this is not to do with skills but I just have to put my two cents worth in. Storage sucks in this game! You have to BUY extra storage if you want it (even if its what other games normally give you for free AND even if your free to play) Still there is never enough and I mean even if you do not collect allot of junk and sell everything your toons cannot directly use, like me, there is still no room for storage. Everything costs more Turbines and Turbines cost either real money (free to play my ass) or some SERIOUS time in gaining them free by doing deeds etc. Anyhow wtf Turbine? How bout you give a player unlimited resource storage for their particular trade? Like a woodcutter can store unlimited stacks of wood of one type or another or the resins etc for making bows? or the parts of the weapons that can be made for your trade? Stop being such penny pinching cheap skates! Throw us "possible" customers a bone once in awhile rather than treating us like dung.

OK I'm done later. :P

LotRO - A bit about character skills

2011-07-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well I've made two characters so far both elves, one male for myself and a female for my wife (she hates levelling). The male character is a hunter class and we'll talk about him in a later article for now, however, I wish to talk about the wife's character...she's an Elven Lore Master.

First off one thing I gotta ask is "Gadalf is a Mage right? So is Saruman? Why then is there NO mage class in LotRO? I mean a pure mage not the lore master/rune keeper types? weird. My thinking is you would want to keep it as close to real as possible if your following the novels and create a game around them? no?

Anyhow the Lore Master is definitely a "LAME" character type. They (Turbine) call the lore master the crowd control person, well, how can that be when none of the spells make sense and NONE are for area effect? Crowds=AREA :P In my books. Not a real brainer there guys so where did you go wrong? First fire the guy who made up the skill sets, he sucks.

Crowd Control? Well the Lore Master has weak spells only one or two that deal damage. Allot for healing their pet or themselves. No real group effect spells though, shouldn't there be at least some decent fighting skills/spells so you can solo the character if you wish? So far the Raven/Bear companions are weak, die easily and if you concentrate on healing them you will soon join them because of the cool downs and timers for the spells.

I'm at almost level 30 with the wife's character and still feel like a newbie when I come up against Mobs of more than one, in this game more than two will kill a lore master, at least at this level. Cloth armor only. Only one weapon choice a staff and it does nothing magical? l-a-m-e.

Oh and trade skills. Same guy I hope or fire him/her too? Lore master match up is Scholar right? makes the most sense I agree but the trades are pre-grouped (probably by that hopefully unemployed person) Here it is you have no choice if you pick Scholar then you are also a farmer and a weapon smith. Gee thanks. Something that would have made more sense is Archaeologist to find Scholar materials which incidentally is also a pain in the ass. Perhaps some kinds of skills to hone in on materials and to help you get them more efficiently? beside the little maps locating ability. How bout a way to mark locations of ruins where you find materials and being able to recall back to that spot anytime to look for more? And weapon smith? How bout enchanter of weapons instead? I'd rather have the ability to make magic spells on weapons than make them especially since weapon smith requires prospecting (for ore). To me the grouping of skill sets makes doing your profession tedious and boring and expensive since you need to deal with others who think everything in game should cost 10 gp or more when a house only costs 1gp?

Anyways I'm gonna go work on her if I can get logged in and will update as her skills increase. lets hope she becomes more exciting as a fighter/mage? Cyas!

In regards to "in Por ylem" free UO server

2011-07-05T17:49:00.001-07:00

Well I finally did get in to create an account here, and for a brief 10 minutes or so had the chance to revisit with some old UO memories. Almost brought a tear to my eye, in more ways than one.

The whole deal with Razor which has major splash screen issues not to mention giving me netframework errors and disabling my windows firewall somehow. And then IPY, making the account and having my character be born with "general Character" name instead of the one I picked ( I could later change it but what a pain.) I also received a blue screen of death. So, I've given up on In Por Ylem 2 until they figure out what it is they have screwed up or Razor does or both. Anyhow I wouldn't recommend anyone with a clean running machine go and try this one out.

Not if you like gremlins afterwards anyhow.

Ultima Online a blast to the past, or not.

2011-07-05T09:59:00.001-07:00

Well I decided to try out a free UO server called "In Por Ylem". Or at least I am trying to try them out. You know me I have patience enough to give it a concertize effort to get into the game then I start getting steamed.

Well this server claims its like the old UO before too many of the Addons and weird stuff started up. I remember those days better than most, I started playing UO when it went live right after beta. In fact I was established on the Baja shard the day it went up and I played for well over 7 years on it with 3 accounts and 15 characters so, I'm no stranger to UO and all the stuff, political and otherwise that went on in it.

I remember a time in UO when it was simpler and more enjoyable but yes even back before all the expansions there were some issues that needed addressing and most were PVP or exploit related. Really had Origin/EA just fixed those issues and left the rest be. The game would be as big as ever, instead it is dying.

Anyhow I want to talk about this free server IPY as they call themselves. So far, they are not shining my silver. I have been emailing back and forth with one of their techs I imagine? Az? Not getting anywhere seems he's reading his answers from a card or something anyhow they use Razor as part of their allowed apps to start and control the game. Well Razor is giving Framework errors and its stupid splash screen is staying on screen and above everything else. Even trying to check and unchecked the hide show intro screen button does nothing (their genius told me to do that, and oh by the way, it was unchecked to begin with?)

Anyways believe it or not you CAN create an IPY account if you log in with Razor AND its splash screen blocking everything. But without razor using IPY's own directions for logging in and creating an account? Nothing happens you just sit at the verifying account screen. Not banging my gong yet folks.

I'll fiddle a bit more I have to remove Razor its no good with a blocking splash screen plus you cant grab some of the dialog error boxes that appear underneath its cool transparent blocking UI. See ya soon.

DETHPOD WOW Free servers.

2011-06-26T11:44:00.001-07:00

WOW is all i got to say, I haven't tried the PVP server but I made a character (Warlock) on their (like retail) server and its just like retail alright. Beautiful all missions seem to work, there are people around, I found a guild quickly and the peeps are cool. This truly is my new home for WOW at least when I play WOW. It's a 1X server so skills raise at the rate they do on retail. There are some bells and whistles but not many if you vote positively for them in the WOW free server TOP 100, which is OK so long as its not done overboard which this one isn't.

Ah like original wow you have a hard time getting around as a newbie since gates are hard to find. But hook up with a guild and other people will get you around the maps.

Like I said give this one a shot, you'll like it allot. I'll keep you informed as I play. Oh and they type English and keep a clean server.