Heartlessgamer.com

Boycotting E3

2012-01-19T12:29:00.000-05:00

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo Reviewed

2012-01-18T16:29:00.001-05:00

The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (KoAR) demo was released on Steam and I had a chance to put about an hour into it. I've been hard on the game in the past for it's very generic nature in the marketing spins produced by it's developer 38 Studios. Having played the demo now, I am still worried the title is a little bit too generic fantasy to rise above the field. However, there were a couple bright spots that gave me some hope for the game.

KoAR starts as almost any RPG starts by providing an origin story for the player's character. In this case, the player's avatar died on a foreign battlefield and their body dumped into the Well of Souls. As luck would have it, the Well of Souls ends up working to restore the character to life. It is a very organic introduction to the game and setting up the player's character. It also gives a blank slate entrance into the world and sets up a plausible re-spawn scenario.

Once resurrected from the pile of bodies in the Well of Souls, the player is whisked through some battles. Apparently the "bad guys" are attacking the Well of Souls. A few combat training scenarios later the player is on their way.

The combat felt very "actiony" (if such a word were to exist). However, after a while I felt like i was just left and right clicking like mad. The controls were as expected (WASD movement, click to attack), but I couldn't quite figure out how to hot key cast spells. It required a button press and then a right click. I'd much have preferred just to press a button.

One glaring problem I had with combat was targeting. Many times it looked like my avatar was targeting a specific monster only to unleash my attack in a completely different direction. Or just the opposite, I was charging an enemy down and attacked only to have the attack choose a target to the side. Fortunately, once hitting a target the game does a good job of keeping the player locked on. The combat varies a good bit based on the weapon selected and it was refreshing to see that spell casters could still handle themselves in melee combat.

Even with the targeting issue, the system showed promise. The move to action combat is a welcome sight for open RPGs and KoAR does a good job to fit the action in with the rest of the RPG goodies. There are still potions and other things to do all accessible via quick menus that work very well. The menus are well laid out and offer mouse click or hot key movement. I found most of the UI intuitive from character level ups to inventory management.

Overall I think KoAR will be a good RPG, but it still feels and looks generic. The action combat helps separate it from the crowd a little bit, but I'm not sure it will be the game's ticket to success. I think the keys to the game are locked outside of the demo. The supposed open world, non linear progression, and complex destiny ( aka class ) system may sell the game to the RPG faithful. I'm interested to see how the game does.

After playing the demo I wouldn't buy the game myself, but that's because I'm pretty spoiled by Steam sales and have a back log of great RPGs to play. At a later date with a good sale I would feel comfortable buying this.

View my screenshots here.

#blackout

2012-01-18T11:00:00.002-05:00

I didn't have enough time to redo my entire site to black it out, but I have made the theme black in my protest of SOPA/PIPA.

Phsycochild nails the whole Ilum bans thing

2012-01-02T23:20:00.000-05:00

I'll let Phsycochild do all the talking today:

Psychochild says:01/02/2012 at 22:54
Here’s the problem: MMOs are multiplayer (it’s the second M). Which means that someone’s actions have a far-reaching effect for others. As a service provider, an MMO operator operating a game like SW:tOR needs to take action to make sure that things are fair for most players.

Yes, the perfect solution is not to have such an exploit in the first place. Okay, once reality intrudes we accept that some problems, bugs, and exploits will ship. So, now you have to look at the effect that an exploit like this will have on the community as a whole. If the company allows the exploit, then it becomes like a prisoner’s dilemma; you either must exploit this cheat and game the system (likely breaking immersion for people playing the game for the story), or you will be disadvantaged.

The next best solution is to patch to remove the exploit. But, making hasty patches to an MMO is not a smart thing. This leads to server crash bugs, where people can’t play. Players certainly don’t get cranky when they can’t play an MMO this close to launch or anything…

So, the next acceptable solution is to stop people from abusing the exploit while taking the time to do a proper patch with testing to make sure the fix doesn’t break something else. That’s what they’re doing, I assume.

Of course, anyone who gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar will pitch a fit and try to win points in the court of public opinion.

TL;DR – This is the best possible solution that doesn’t screw over most of the players. Exploiters will exploit, then whine if caught.

2012, the first post

2012-01-02T00:58:00.000-05:00

2012, the first post. Where in lies a reflection on predictions of the year that was: 2011. And maybe some prognostication of the year that's just begun: 2012.

I kept the predictions light for 2011 and I'll tackle all five of them in one go:

1. World of Warcraft will maintain its dominance.

No doubt World of Warcraft is still top among MMOs, but to say its maintained its dominance is ignoring the fact that WoW took a significant hit this year and had to break out the pandas to keep people's interest. In the larger genre of persistent online games, League of Legends has soundly trumped WoW's numbers with over 30 million active users and concurrent user numbers well beyond that of WoW.

2. Free 2 Play will continue its march forward and many will consider 2011 the year that F2P becomes the dominant business model not only for MMOGs, but for any online game (MOBA, FPS, etc.)

There is no doubt that Free 2 Play has landed with most major publishers having already published or considering to publish a F2P title(s). 2011 also marked the arrival of F2P on Steam; the premier digital distribution platform for games. The subscription MMOs fell like flies to a flyswatter this year as several joined the F2P ranks and enjoyed immediate success.

3. "the game that shall not be named" will NOT launch this year.

OK, it squeaked into 2011, but just barely.

4. The "next generation" Xbox will be announced by Microsoft. Nintendo and Sony will stay with their current generation.

I was way off here. Xbox 360 is marching strong and Playstation 3 is still playing third fiddle. Nintendo, of all companies, is the one out front with news of their new Wii U console.

5. This blog will be completely different and may actually feature commentary and experiences from games I'm actually playing.

Proof: I posted about Fallout: New Vegas and I actually played that game!

Now onward and upward to my predictions for 2012 and beyond

1. The world will not end. (just wanted to get that one out of the way)

2. I will post more than I did in 2011. (just wanted to give ya'll something to look forward to)

3. "the game that shall not be named" will have a tough year, but will survive. The argument to take the game Free 2 Play will begin around July.

4. Warhammer Online will be shut down this year.

5. DOTA2 will launch, but fail to make much more than a drip into the MOBA scene.

6. League of Legends will hit 50 million players and still be flying under the radar in the online gaming market

7. A major game will "surprise launch" this year with little to no notice and possibly be Free 2 Play

8. Indie games will continue to creep into the spotlight and we will see another Minecraft-level indie break out this year

9. At least 4 of these predictions will be right :)