I’m a huge fan of turn-based games, and Jagged Alliance is one of my all-time favorites. I went through the game at least a dozen times and always enjoyed its flexibility and humor. With Jagged Alliance Online being released barely a week ago, I of course went in with high expectations to try it out. I was disappointed.

It’s sad to see yet another great game go down the drain; while it may have potential to be good, there’s far too many issues that I can’t overlook. Below I’ll go through some of the main issues I think the game suffers from. It’s going to be a fairly short review, as there’s not much I have to say about this game.

1. It’s online

Turning a single-player game into an online one with unnecessary multiplayer options didn’t work out well for Jagged Alliance Online. The game plays in your browser on Unity engine: while browser capabilities, especially regarding games have significantly improved over the years, that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for developing games. The game is sometimes unresponsive, I miss keyboard shortcuts, I constantly have to scroll the map with cursor keys.

Furthermore, the game sometimes simply doesn’t load — perhaps it’s just a launch issue, but it feels more like an engine problem. Worst thing, I can’t do anything else in my browser while JAO is loaded in background, as I constantly hear mouse hover and game sounds. Perhaps there’s a simple way to fix that, but frankly I don’t care, that’s just not how it should work.

2. No storyline

One of the key points in Jagged Alliance 2 was it’s story and great humor, as cheesy as it both was. In JAO the storyline is just dreadful, and there’s nothing funny about it. There’s nothing that would keep me engaged and want to play more.

Having mercenaries in JAO which also appeared in previous games is great, but that’s just not enough.

3. Free to play my ass

Obviously game developers need to make some kind of revenue, and obviously Jagged Alliance Online has a cash shop where you can purchase mercenaries and equipment. However their business model is fundamentally flawed for several reasons. You start the game with one mercenary, but every other has to be paid for: either hired for 24 hours for in-game cash earned by doing missions, or you can unlock them permanently via Gold Bars (premium currency). And gold bars are hella expensive: with about $100 worth of gold bars, you could buy a couple of low-level mercs, equip them with gear and… that’s about it. By the way, you’ll out-level the purchased gear after a couple of hours of playing.

I managed to get my mercs to level 22 at this point, and it seems in order to continue playing I either have to pay for premium equipment, or grind low-level missions for money. Repairing your equipment and healing mercenaries after nearly every quest suited for your level is a huge money drain. The problem is also the fact that you can’t play the game casually as I’d like to: playing for an hour a day makes no sense, as mercenaries are hired for 24 hours or real time, not in-game time. They quickly become yet another drain on your already stressed out balance. Buying a level 22 merc permanently would cost about $60, what the hell? Normally you’d purchase the entire game for that amount.

4. Fuel sucks

Fuel is a resource required to start missions, repair items, heal your mercenaries and craft items. Between certain missions I often spent all my fuel just to heal mercenaries, as you can fail at healing them which quickly consumes all your fuel. Healing and repairing also costs in-game money.

Fuel regenerates by 1 point every 5 minutes, so if you happen to spend it all you need to wait in order to continue playing, or of course you can purchase it for real cash. I just don’t see the logic in limiting players this way.

5. Missing game options

Thanks to some random guys in chat I know that F9 key changes toggles graphics settings. And that’s about it. There’s no “Options” button, no way to find out if I can reduce sound volume, no nothing. Even if there is a way, it should be easy to find without having to Google for it.

Closing thoughts

The game certainly gives you plenty of options to spend your hard-earned IRL money, but there’s simply no reason to do it, especially considering how bad Jagged Alliance Online actually is. I’m pretty sure I’d have to spend over $1,000 to be able to play this game as it was meant to, and that’s just not acceptable for me.

There’s no co-op gameplay, so bringing your friends to the party really makes this game no different. Unless you visit the forums first, you won’t learn that Sniper class is a must-have, and will instead build some shitty main character that serves no purpose like I did. If you want to change any weapon skills, you’ll have to pay real bucks, but you can’t change the class. Even if you do visit the forums or the official site, you’ll find a huge lack of helpful information, so good luck finding out anything that way; the only thing you will learn is that JAO is severely lacking in content.

Missions after level 20 often have high-armored opponents, and armor piercing ammunition costs real money. Don’t expect to do well in PvP if you don’t intend to spend money on equipment. Actually, if you don’t plan to pay for anything then it’s best that you skip JAO entirely. The game becomes just a tedious grind very quickly.

Frankly, if you feel nostalgic and want to give JAO a shot, don’t. Just buy Jagged Alliance 2.

Your thoughts?

Jagged Alliance Online Review is a post from: Trolr

I'm not into cosplay (or D3 anymore), but I'd wear this!

If you’re still keeping up with Diablo III  news, you’re probably happy that we’re finally getting some concrete details about the upcoming 1.0.4 patch. After 2 months of playing D3 I finally got tired of it a couple of weeks ago for various reasons, but I guess there’s still a few hundred players left that care.

Blizzard’s Wyatt Cheng wrote a lengthy blog post on the official site with a preview of things to come. Below is a TLDR version:

• Magic Find and Gold Find will no longer be averaged among players in group (you’ll get only your own)
• Monster health in multiplayer games going down
• Overall monster health going up (roll your eyes now)
• However, Elite monster health will be going down slightly
• Some monster affixes will be changed in unspecified ways; Invulnerable Minions removed
• Damage of Skull Cleavers reduced (those skeletons that one-shot you every time)
• iLvL 61 & 62 weapons will  have higher chances to get more damage to put it in line with iLvL 63 items
• Dual-wielding and two-handed weapon damage will be adjusted to be somewhat equal
• Elite monsters will no longer enrage or heal back to full health if you die
• Repair costs on high-end items going down by 25%
• Legendary items improved; no details yet
• Some class skills and skill rune improvements; also no details given

All of these changes are really great and will improve the game in my opinion. But the thing is, why did it take Blizzard so many MONTHS to make this happen? The patch is supposed to hit the last week of August, which is over 3 months after the game was released. These changes are issues that players have been dealing with since day 1. The only thing Blizz has been quick to (hot)fix are various efficient farming methods and locations.

TLDR: Too little, too late.

Blizzard Details Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.4 Changes is a post from: Trolr

Unlike previous installments of the game, Diablo 3 features a different resource system for each of its five classes: Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor and Wizard. Only one of these classes has the “classic” mana as a resource now, and this post will give you an overview of the variety of resources Blizzard introduced in D3.

Barbarian – Fury

Barbarians attacks are powered by Fury resource. It’s gained by killing enemies and taking damage. Unless you’re using the “Unforgiving” passive skill available at level 55, your Fury will deplete over time when you’re not in combat. Some of Barbarian’s primary attacks such as “Bash” or “Cleave” generate fury, but using more potent skills will deplete it.

Demon Hunter – Hatred & Discipline

Demon Hunter uses a system combining two different resources, and is the only class that does so. The first one is called Hatred, and your basic attacks generate it and more powerful offensive attacks expend it. Hatred starts at a value of 150 and regenerates by 4 points/second, not including the use of any abilities or passive skills.

The second resource is Discipline, and it has a default value of 30. The regen rate is 1/second. Discipline is used by defensive spells: basically anything that helps you survive or get away from enemies will use Discipline.

Monk – Spirit

Monk’s resource is called Spirit. It works similarly to Barb’s Fury: several of your primary attacks generate Spirit, while most others deplete it. Unlike Fury however, Spirit does not degenerate over time but instead it actually regenerates in the same way as Mana or Hatred. Monks have a decent number of abilities, ability combos, skill runes, passive skills and even items that can improve the regeneration rate of Spirit.

Witch Doctor – Mana

Surprisingly only one class in Diablo III uses Mana as a resource, and that is the Witch Doctor. It works exactly like in previous Diablo games or any other RPG game for that matter: it regenerates over time, and casting spells costs a certain amount.

Wizard – Arcane Power

Arcane Power is quite similar to Mana: it has a fixed amount of 100 (able to increase this by 20 through passive skills called “Astral Presence” though). It also regenerates by 10/second, or 12 if you use the aforementioned “Astral Presence” passive. Most of Wizard’s spells cost around 15-25 Arcane Power, so you can use a few before you run out of AP. However, Wizard has a lot of spells that have no costs at all to cast, so you need to constantly rotate these in order to make use of Arcane Power’s natural regeneration rate. Some of these so-called “Primary” spells can also replenish Arcane Power each time they hit an enemy, for example “Magic Missile“, a spell available at level 1 has an “Attunement” skill rune that gives you 4 AP each time you cast it.

Images source & more info: Barbarian’s Fury, Demon Hunter’s Hatred & Discipline, Monk’s Spirit, Witch Doctor’s Mana, Wizard’s Arcane Power.

Many old Diablo 2 and new players have been a bit confused about this stuff, so I do hope this post helped explain you the difference between these five resource systems in Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 Class Resource Mechanics Overview is a post from: Trolr

TERA’s headstart begun today, and along with that thousands of players are experiencing the game for the first time. For those of you who didn’t participate in the beta, you might want to know a thing or two about leveling speed. In this post I’ll be going over some of my impressions and opinions on leveling in Tera, as well as try to compare it with some other MMORPGs on the market.

Current level cap in Tera is level 60. It’s hard to say how much time exactly you’ll need to level up, primarily because you couldn’t level up all the way to the cap during beta testing. You can rush through the first ten levels in around 3-4 hours. After about 3-4 days you should already be level 30, but of course it depends on how much time you’re investing: a good 6-8 hours a day will easily get you there. On average, you should be level 30 after 20 hours of gameplay. If you played the game in beta before and know all quests and stuff, you can probably cut down this time, but newer players will often spend time reading up quests, setting up interface, etc.

One important thing to note is that leveling up in Tera is not as hard as you’d expect, considering the game is coming from a Korean developer. It’s been “westernized” quite a bit and that includes the leveling speed as well: you won’t run out of quests (at least as often as you’d think) and grinding really isn’t necessary. Compared to World of Warcraft however, leveling in Tera Online is significantly slower.

As expected the leveling speed slows down progressively as you reach new levels. While it is fairly easy and quick to get to level 30ish, every other level will possibly take over 2 hours of play, perhaps even over 3 hours. Unless you’re following a guide that will tell you exact locations of all quests and objectives, I don’t really see how you can do it any quicker.

Any distractions will of course even further slow down leveling, such as gathering or crafting. A good way to speed up the process however, any many players will tell you the same, is to group up with others. Join a guild or play with your friends, it doesn’t matter, but gaining experience is much faster in groups than soloing. Monsters give 20% extra experience regardless of the number of party members, and the leveling speed increases also because it’s easier to kill mobs with more players since and you have less downtime. It’s particularly effective because you can easily do group quests or BAMs (elite mobs) without wasting time finding groups when required. It’s also best if you group up with classes that have great synergy together, although I won’t get into that here. Another important thing to remember is that not all classes level up at the same pace. From my experiences leveling with a Lancer is the slowest, while obviously DPS classes will be much faster.

Overall, while I personally do think leveling in Tera should be quicker, many players disagree with me and find it quite fine. Perhaps it’s because I’m just tired of leveling characters in countless MMORPGs already, and in the end get disappointed by the lack of endgame. We’ll see if Tera will be any different.

Leveling Speed in TERA Online is a post from: Trolr

The spectator mode is one of the most anticipated features players have been expecting from League of Legends developer Riot Games. We’ve first seen it in action well over a year ago, and it’s been used ever since to cast tournament games. But to the average player, it’s been unavailable. That’s all about to change soon however, as Riot finally announced that it’s coming with a video detailing the spectator mode features.

While this company is notorious for releasing new features on an extremely slow schedule, a preview video just revealed is giving me a glimmer of hope that we’ll be seeing the fully-fledged spectator mode very soon. Up until now spectator mode didn’t exactly have any advanced features: you could spectate a (custom) game, see total gold accumulated by all players and both teams, see item builds, skill cooldowns and ranks, and of course remove the fog of war entirely. Now however some new features have been announced in addition to the aforementioned ones:

• Spectating friends – you’ll be able to right-click your friend in the game lobby and spectate the game they are currently in
• Featured games – Riot will be displaying “featured games” that players can spectate. Details are a bit vague on this at the moment, but likely it will consist of promoting top-ELO player matches, team scrims and tournament games.
• Timeshift controls – in case you missed some action, you’ll easily be able to rewind, as well as speed or slow down the match up to 8x.
• Directed camera – this camera mode will automatically switch to the part of the map where action is happening, whether it’s kills or damage. Not sure how intuitive it is, but it appears to be extremely helpful.

Even though League of Legends has well over 30 million players, I do feel the lack of a publicly available spectator mode has been hindering it’s growth as an e-sport. This will not only make tournament games easier to cast, but will also enable any player to spectate or do commentary on a game of pro players. While it is not mentioned at all, I assume that the release of spectator mode entails the inevitable release of a replay system as well, which is one of the main things that the community lacks as well.

I am just a tad bit disappointed however that we’ll only be able to spectate our friends. Streaming League of Legends games is insanely popular with some players getting up to 40,000 concurrent viewers, it would certainly be helpful if we could spectate their games, rather than just watch their point of view all the time. I’m a big fan of all LoL streamers and love to watch someone who can play better than I ever will, but their commentary is sometimes not very helpful, or even annoying.

Either way the release of spectator mode is a great addition to League of Legends. No exact release date was given, but it will be released with the next patch (Varus). My only hope is that Riot picks up the pace in the future and starts adding new features more often than once a year: replays, achievements, game modes, new maps are just some that are often requested by the community.

League of Legends Finally Releasing Spectator Mode is a post from: Trolr

However, nobody expected the microtransactions to start even during beta. As a new gaming studio it’s not surprising GGG needs the funds to develop a great game, and they actually thought of an interesting concept, one that I’m surprised no other studio thought of yet: they are selling beta keys!

you can pre-purchase Points used to buy cosmetic microtransactions. Every purchase comes with a Closed Beta key so that you (or a friend) can start playing immediately. In addition to the Points, we offer a wide selection of exclusive rewards such as in-game pets, shipped copies of the game, its soundtrack, posters and even the chance to help design a Unique item that will be added to the game.

While this concept is definitely new (at least to me), I find it quite refreshing in fact. More than often players are looking to obtain beta keys for upcoming games and sometimes it can be difficult. This way, everyone’s happy: if you can’t get into the game by other means, you can just pay $10 and get yourself a key. It also gives you an additional 100 points that can later on be used for microtransactions.

As mentioned the cheapest early access pack costs $10, but there are additional ones, going up to a mind-blowing $1,000: if you have extra money lying around this pack will give the most rewards, but I simply don’t see anyone investing this much into this game. That’s taking it a bit too far if you ask me, but who knows, perhaps someone will feel generous.

Either way, if you simply can’t wait another 6 weeks until Diablo III or if you’re just looking for an alternative, you might want to give Path of Exile a try. I managed to snag myself a beta key (free, mind you), and I really liked the game. Hopefully, you will too.

New Business Model: Selling Beta Keys is a post from: Trolr

There’s not a single Blizzard game that isn’t highly anticipated, and Diablo III is definitely no exception. After years of waiting Blizzard finally revealed the release date, and it’s set for May 15.

Unfortunately no new details have been revealed, particularly those regarding the beta. While many players participated in the beta a few months back, there are no news regarding upcoming beta events. Pre-orders have started however, so I’m assuming pre-purchasing the game will get you into the upcoming beta events, as well as some sort of early access. Alternatively, you can try your luck with some unofficial beta key giveaways.

Standard Edition of the game costs $59,99, while the Collector’s Edition is valued at $99,99. I’m sure we’ll know more details soon, so stay tuned. Just finally having a release date is good news if you ask me!

Diablo III Release Date Revealed: May 15 is a post from: Trolr

I’ve been keeping up with some developments in Star Trek Online over the past couple of years, but I never got back to playing it. While I am keeping myself fairly busy with League of Legends still, a couple of my friends are about to try out STO and I might just join them.

I’ve never considered STO to be a bad game, but I could never justify paying a monthly subscription since I played it very, very casually. Now, that barrier is gone so there’s really no reason not to fire it up occasionally. I’m guessing with some (hopefully) proper marketing Star Trek will gain a ton of new players by going freemium, something we’ve seen happen with several other games as well (DC Universe springs to mind as the prime example, Age of Conan as another).

Unless you’re still keeping yourself busy with SWTOR, be sure to head over to the official website and register for and download Star Trek Online. If you never tried it before, it’s a great way to kill some time, and you don’t have to pay for a thing. Who knows, you might even like the game.

Star Trek Online Launch Trailer:

Star Trek Online Now Free to Play is a post from: Trolr

You’ve probably already seen the Modern Warfare 3 launch trailer, and if you read my post you’ll notice I’m not very impressed by the trailer, nor the game itself lately. MW3 will get released in a week or so, and this is probably going to be one Call of Duty title that I won’t try.

I’ve never actually tried playing Battlefield before, but it does look promising. I’m not of course judging the game just with this launch trailer, but with a ton of other gameplay videos I’ve seen. It looks as if it might provide some much-needed change, and multiplayer seems to be worth a try as well.

Anyways, here’s the BF3 launch trailer:

Definitely looks better than Call of Duty right now.

Battlefield 3 Launch Trailer is a post from: Trolr

It’s questionable whether the Call of Duty franchise even has anything new to offer at this point: a few different weapon attachments and a couple of other features is hardly considered groundbreaking. The last few titles have a borderline science fiction story and extremely short single-player campaign. For me definitely not worth $60, but as always I’m sure it’ll again break sales records.

In either case, you can watch this uninspiring launch trailer below:

Your thoughts?

CoD Modern Warfare 3 Launch Trailer is a post from: Trolr