Quest Hard!

I am afraid in the future we may all be (X)boned

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Fri, 24 May 2013 06:44:00 +0000

I, like I suspect many of you, was distinctly underwhelmed by the Xbox One (can we please make Xbone it's proper nickname). While it showed the tech, which seemed pretty decent, it didn't really show many exciting games. However I am not going to write a blog moaning about the presentation, which was clearly for Joe Average, and plenty has been talk of this elsewhere, and talk about a feature that bothered me about the new console.

As you are probably aware the kinect is now an integral part of the console, coming bundled as standard. In the presentation it clearly showed the console turning on via voice command. This was confirmed by Microsoft that the console and kinect is always on in a low power state, ready to respond to the command to come on. You know what I took away from that? That the Xbone (seriously lets make it a thing), and in turn Microsoft, is always listening to your conversations, regardless of whether your console is on or off.

I don't want to seem paranoid, but the current generation of Xbox has become somewhat notorious already for advertising. But just imagine if they could, unbeknownst to you, pick up on your casual conversations and next time you turn on your Xbone, there front and centre is an ad for whatever you were talking about. Hell it is feasible that they could programme your xbox to come on at mention of various words. Imagine mentioning pizza and, as if by magic an ad for Domino's magically pops up on the TV. Not too many steps away from the sci-fi shopping world portrayed in the Minority Report.

Hell to take the paranoia one step further, Microsoft are asking their consumers to put a listening device into their living room. Something that could easily put to nefarious use by either companies, governments and perhaps even a clever hacker. Living in a connected world is fine, but I don't fancy having a console, and potentially someone else, listening to my, admittedly largely inane, conversation.

Finally found a (e)Sport I like

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:33:00 +0000

I don't watch sport, or partake for that matter. Being a male this somehow makes me in a minority with my gender, for reasons that I don't quite understand. However I am going to MCM Expo again this year, they are having a LoL tournament finals there. Given my recent attempt to play the game, we thought that we would watch the livestream of the quarter finals over the weekend, with the semi's and final on the con weekend. Given my relative inexperience with LoL (I know the basics principle but not the interagency, much like real sport I suppose), it was fascinating and exciting to watch, in a way that I have never found sport to be.

Given the small amount of LoL I had played I couldn't help but being impressed with the players, and almost found myself up on my feet at exciting moments. I could really see me watching replays of matches. So why was this exciting to me in a way that I never found "real" sports to me. I guess it is because I can understand the skill and organisation of a LoL team facing off against each other. However with sport, like our national sport football, it just looks like a couple of dozen people running around after a ball. Hell I know football fans that would willingly agree that a lot of matches are boring, with not much happening.

I think that is the trick with something like LoL, there is always something happening. Surprise ganking, teasing opposing players and snagging the dragons from the opposite team. With so much of what is happening tactics and strategy as well as reacting to the opposite team. It puts me in awe of the players, as with my limited experience, I can't fathom how I would ever be that good. Humm maybe that's why people seem to worship sports player, for being able to do things they never can.

It is odd that recently Hex tried to get me into NHL, without a lot of success. Heh, it was again people on a areana chasing after a thing, only this time they were on ice and after a puck not a ball. Wow I am bored with the whole idea, though I am looking forward to spectating a live LoL match, there is a good chance I will be on my feet.

Oh and these are the quarterfinals I watched if you are interested.

http://www.twitch.tv/mcmesports/b/405541479

http://www.twitch.tv/mcmesports/c/2301321

http://www.twitch.tv/mcmesports/c/2305766

http://www.twitch.tv/mcmesports/c/2301080

Got the competitive itch for Guild Wars 2

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 19 May 2013 07:16:00 +0000

Following a conversation with my co-blogger Hex I decided to start playing Guild Wars 2 again. I have always had a great deal of affection for GW2, but I haven’t touched it in months. This was down to a mixture of other things to play and it being fun but uncompelling. But when Hex tells me that he is now level 75 (of 80), I think, “wow I need to get back into this”.

I have to confess that the urge to play GW2 again has little to do with the game, though I have had fun playing it again, it is down to the urge to beat, or at least catch up with Hex. I am far from a competitive gamer, however when me and my BFF Hex are concerned, I have always been, if not better, then at least ahead of the curve. Take Skyrim for an example, he only started playing it a couple of months ago, I finished it a year ago. The only exception really being LOTRO, which he is much further along in, but I don’t really like, so I can ignore.

And I understand the reasoning behind me usually having played more than him, because he is a proper grown up with responsibilities, and I am a douche who spends most of his spare time gaming. So for the first time that I can think of, Hex is much further along in a game we both like. And the asshole in me kicks in, thinking that I need to get a shift on, I can’t let him get to max level before me. I am a little ashamed of this. I know that gaming is meant to be a competitive thing, but usually leaderboards and achievements and other such trite methods of getting a rise out of me usually fail to get a reaction. However finding out my best friend is much higher level than my characters in GW2 prompts me to action.

I guess this is not a bad thing, I have been meaning to get around to playing it again, and I do really like it. Guess I just feel like a scumbag because of my motivations.

I am happy that Winter is Never coming

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 12 May 2013 05:55:00 +0000

Cryptic aren't a great developer, I really truly believe this. Champions Online was mediocre, especially after the starting zone and Star Trek Online is so unappealing that I never even bothered. They are trite and unoriginal, and I have no enthusiasm for their games. So I am now really confused. Why do I like Neverwinter, the new mmo based on the D&D system, and to a lesser extent the pc games Neverwinter nights. It makes no sense, they are journeyman developers at best, but they have crafted such an amazing world (and tools, more on that later), that I really don't understand.

Neverwinter is currently in open beta, so everyone can try it, and there is a free to play store that you can buy the usual xp potions and such from. At the moment at least it has not been very money grabbing, though this may change as I get further into it. In many respects it is very similar to a lot of mmo's there are traditional roles like clerics, mages and rogues, who level up gaining skills. This is unsurprising given the fact that all mmo's and rpg's generally owe a debt to D&D. However the combat is a little different. Rather than tab targeting, you hit what you are pointed at, with a third person shooter style reticle, with no power bars aside from cooldowns and a dodge power bar similar to GW2's. As you level you get points to unlock new skills or improve existing ones. Interestingly to give the game a more action feel, attacks are keyed to mouse buttons and the Q, E, and R buttons, to make using them and moving easier. It is such a simple idea it is amazing more games don't do it. The number keys are for potions and daily abilities (which confusingly can be used more than once a day). These are super attacks that you build up resources to us.

All This leads to some fairly simple but quite satisfying combat. This in conjunction with some fairly heavy use of instancing leads to some quite dramatic and exciting gameplay. Playing with my wife there are open areas but many of the story quests take you into instanced area's for just your party. This gives them an almost dungeon like quality I rather enjoy (though I suspect there are those who will be put off by the fact that it isn't really an open game world).

Once you are out of the tutorial bit you get access to all the usual pvp and dungeon stuff, and perhaps more importantly the user created content. We plumped for a highly rated quest and played it out, and without spoilers, we were very impressed. An action pack, interesting multi tiered quest set in an instance area of a normally shared environment.If this was an indication of what can be done in a relatively short period of time, then I think the community may end up generating some very special stuff for this game.

As you can tell I am fairly enamoured with this game, considering it is still in beta (not sure that even means much these days) it seems pretty rock solid and we have not suffered any significant problems. I, very much to my surprise, urge you all to check it out, because a generic D&D mmo from a mediocre developer is pretty damn exciting.

Played League of Legends, there were no lol's

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:17:00 +0000

League of Legends is pretty popular, or so the numbers say. 40 million odd accounts and a million people playing at any given time. I have always been a bit put off from trying it though, for two reasons. One being that it has a notoriously abrasive player base, and that there is a lot to learn and master in the game (these two are probably related). However, at Hex's urging, we gave it a go. We took the wussy option and set up a 5v5 game versus the AI bots, with three random players on our side, with the difficulty firmly set to beginner.

Suffice to say that 20 minutes later and me and Hex are struggling to hold our own, let alone win. Face with another 20 minutes or so of slowly losing, and being quite bored by this time, we reach the decision, quite easily, to log out and play Diablo 3 instead. On exiting we get a severe warning from the game, stating quitting a match results in a temporary ban. We have no problem with this, as it seems pretty damn unlikely we play it again.

It is safe to say they we have both given up on LoL and Moba's in general. I certainly don't have the patience to play (and lose) potentially hundred of games in order to get good. That is a lot of time, literally days of play. It does make me wonder how so many people managed to get into it in the first place. It takes a certain type of determination to overcome the odds and become good, hell even just competitive.

Then it hits me, I have seen that kind of determination before, in World of Warcraft. I have seen people in raids try and try to defeat bosses, and get killed time and time again and keep on trying. And as my recent final (probably, not guaranteeing anything) WoW quitting shows, I don't have the patience for it. But I also get why people do it. I have felt the wave of joy and satisfaction that finally bringing down a hard boss brings. It is a feeling that not many non gamers would experience. I would imagine that winning your first competitive LoL match would bring on a similar joygasm. Perhaps that is why the occasional very difficult game always finds a following, the harder the game the greater the climax. Hence the abrasive nature of LoL's players, if you mess up and your side loses, you are depriving your team mates of their hit.

Wow I have implied that gaming is addictive and used them to metaphor sex, nice.

A walk down hardware memory lane...

noreply@blogger.com (Hex DSL) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:46:00 +0000

After a morning coffee conversation with BAPEsta on IRC about old hardware I sat and remembered my hardware wins over the years. Those moments when my hardware was totally pimp and buddies looked on in envy! (or not, lol)

After I got my first job out of school I managed to afford two, not one but 2 3DFX Voodoo 2 cards! I had 24MB of graphics memory and my buddies were blown away! I had to have a silly pass through VGA cable hanging out the back and it got SUPER hot at times! eventually I threw in this thing that didn't even have a monitor connector on the back called a POWER GRAPHICS card. It worked along side a regular card and offered as much of a boost as a single 3DFX card. It was pants but did awesome things with smoke effects. I kept both my Voodoo's AND the power graphics card in there at the same time and switched between them. My rig was crammed full and all running off a 400W power supply that at the time was pretty cool!

I can't really remember much else about the rig but it was an AMD FX chip (super socket 7 lol!) and i had like 64MB of RAM! I was running windows NT and Suse linux 2.0 (or was it Redhat... cant remember)

Tomb Raider 2 on it ALL the time!

That was pretty much the only time that my hardware blew people away and it was all in an old school case. i printed out the pattern from the Borg cube in star trek and covered my FULL tower in it (the tower actually had a leather handle on the top lol.) I assure you at the time that was modding at its best! (that episode had literally JUST come out!)

Even now i have fond memory's of actually calling a friend with my external 56K modem and playing duke nukem 3D one on one like it was cutting edge!

anyway i probably have ll these memory's jumbled up and it may have been two different rigs but either way, just thought i would share. I wish i had taken some pictures of that beast!

BTW if anyone wants to join me on IRC I hang out on:

Server: Rizon (irc.rizon.net)

Channel: #linustechtips

User: HexDSL (registered. So you cant have it, lol)

CS:GO you want my wallet?

noreply@blogger.com (Hex DSL) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:08:00 +0000

I play a lot of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive an am happy in general to pay for DLC if I want it. I do try to stay out of the debates about content pricing when it comes to shooters, its not like they charge a subscription. For me its a s simple as 'so I want that? is that price reasonable?' so when I saw the new 'Payback' map playlists for CS:GO I reached for my wallet. Imagine my surprise when I clicked it and was not taken to the usual checkout but instead to select a value to put into my steam wallet.

What?

Steam wallet?

why?

I am happy top spent money on games but I already have a wallet. I want to spent the £2.49 they want for these maps but why do I have to pay £4 just to keep a few quid in a steam wallet that I have never used? this is the sort of irritation that I try to avoid by using a PC to game on. I honestly don't get why they are trying to get me to use a steam wallet system. Just show me a PayPal window!

Oh good, this looks crap

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 17:10:00 +0000

I may not have been entirely honest with you regarding my lack of excitement with new games. There is a small section of games that I have found pretty exciting recently. It seems lately that if developers/publishers put a decent amount of time and effort into a game, chances are you will end up with something pretty decent. Obviously there will always be games that turn out to be a bit crap, but it is not usually from bigger companies. Hell even the bigger games I didn't really like, such as Hitman Absolution and Assassin's Creed 3, were polished and smooth experiences, I just didn't like the gameplay.

So I have become a little obsessed with playing the high profile failures. I have already played Aliens Colonial Marines and Walking Dead Survival Instinct (I rent them, no way am I buying them), and played them with a morbid fascination With Aliens being very bland and unattractive, with some truly hilarious animations and voice acting. Walking Dead actually had some nice idea's, which were terribly implemented, was dull as hell and pretty damn broken. Yet in each case when i found out they are on the way, I have a little jolt of excitement The same jolt I got last night when I found out the new Star Trek game was on the way, apparently it's fucking awful. I can barely wait.

I never get this excited feeling when a decent new game turns up, Crysis 3 was on my desk for a couple of days before I even loaded it. I am so accustomed to good, that it doesn't get my (gaming) juices flowing. And I never play these crap games for very long, Aliens being the longest at 3 or 4 hours. Just enough to get a stong taste of the shittyness. For so many years I have just played good stuff I don't even know what crap games are like. Hell, stuff I didn't even take to, like fighting games, I realised they were good games, just not my cup of gaming tea.

So you look forward to the new consoles and the next Battlefield, I will look forward to the next trite movie game tie in.

Games no longer excite me

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 07:30:00 +0000

Over the last few months a weird thing has happened to me. I no longer get excited about new games. Don't get me wrong I still love playing games and it is my overriding passion, however I no longer wait with bated breath for the big new releases. Take the new Bioshock for instance, I didn't pre-order it, and didn't really intend to pick it up when it came out. The only reason I caved was because literally everyone on twitter was talking about it.

And I enjoyed it very much, playing it pretty much constantly until I finished it. It was very good, but not that exciting. The game plays quite similarly to previous Bioshock games and the plot does some very clever (if perhaps nonsensical) things. But that is what I expected. I expected the game to be reliably excellent, and it was. Maybe I am becoming a jaded old man but reliably excellent is not that excited any more. So why buy games brand new when I can wait and get good games cheap within months (sometimes weeks) of release. Perhaps this is why I rent a lot of games rather than buy them, because I can play a good but unexciting game, like Crysis 3 which I currently going through. And I reward those games that I rent and do excite me by buying them, like Yakuza and Binary Domain.

I am sure that there are those that would argue that as the current console generation is on it's last legs, a lack of enthusiasm is to be expected. I think that is not the case, I think that people are lacking excitement because of the lack of new ideas. Recently new Gears of War and God of War games were released and both sold pretty poorly. I genuinely believe this was not because they are bad games, just because they are very familiar ones. Hell I think had Bioshock Infinite had not had the big marketing push, people would have actually been put off by yet another Bioshock sequel, despite the fact that aside from the name, infinite has very little in common with 1 and 2.

I think that is why the indie market is going from strength to strength, as people latch onto innovation. When the new consoles come out, I think that the same problem with continue. Big games, particularly sequels, will cost a fortune to make and will fail to ignite any massive passion in the game buying public. I think there will still be a market for big sequels, things like Skyrim and Bioshock show that, but I think there will not be the margin for anything less than excellent (I really hope that COD starts to suffer).

So will I buy a new console? Yeah probably a PS4, and I will keep renting games and only occasionally buying games that turn out to be exciting.

Battleyawn 4

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:31:00 +0000

Watching the Battlefield 4 trailer I had one overriding thought, aside from that is the prettiest construction site I have ever seen, was how completely lacking in choice it is. Essentially pushing forwards and shooting things that pop up, much like many modern day shooters, or indeed those light gun games you get in arcades. The only choice you have is what you shoot them with, in the case of the video an assault rifle or shotgun, or assault rifle or grenade launchers. You know what, it looked boring. Despite all the explosions and beautifully rendered debris, hell despite the amputations and Bonnie Tyler, it looked dull.

It looked dull because it looked like a film. As previously blogged, my attention span for films is pretty terrible, however I can enjoyed a good action movie as much as the next guy. However that is where games like Battlefield and Call of Duty fail as action movies. A good action movie, like Die Hard (one of the best) works because the hero is likeable and the bad guy is evil, and you find yourself routing for the good guys. However in a lot of shooters this gets very muddled and you find yourself playing multiple protagonists and having no connection or liking of any of them (this is an expectation that Spec Ops brilliantly subverts). So when the terrible things happen you feel no connection because they are all happening to bland army men, like Modern Warfare 2 which kills the guy you are playing on more than one occasion. This is meant to prompt an emotional response but doesn't.

Good games get around this by offering choice, I am fond of my Far Cry 3 character not because he is likeable in cut scenes. I like him because he has a habit of sniping enemies from a far then getting close with his bow. I like that because it is my choice. I could go in all guns blazing, I could plant explosives and mines all over the place, but I don't because that is not my choice. All the games I have loved recently, like XCOM, Dishonored and Dragon's Dogma, have offered me a wide range of choices and left me up to how I play, the polar opposite of what BF4 looked like. Hell choice is one of the defining features of Battflefield multi-player.

So while some might be impressed with the bombastic trailer for BF4, I find this significant more enticing.

Thoughts: Corsair M65 Mouse.

noreply@blogger.com (Hex DSL) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:57:00 +0000

A Manually Operated User Selection Equipment, or a Mouse as its more commonly known is 50% of the way you interact with everything you do on a desktop computer (don't start with me about touch) so it is important (for me at least) to get an even build quality and experience in each hand. There's nothing worse than a great mouse in one hand and a £2 keyboard under the other or the reverse.

And so, After recently buying a Ducky 9087 keyboard I quickly realised just how plasticy (that's a word I'm sure) my Razer Lachesis was. I had also had a few problems with it occasionally 'stopping' and needing to be unplugged and reconnected to bring it back to an operational state. With it being pay-day I figured it was time for a change.
I wanted a mouse that was of a comparable build quality to my keyboard to give me an even experience with each hand, this was my main requirement, the rest of my criteria for a mouse was simple.

At least 4000 DPI (I know its 'wrong' but I like to game at this DPI)
No fiddly 'gamer' buttons that would never get used.
A sensor that wouldn't go insane if there was dust on my mat (as Razer owner this happened a lot.)
No driver or software requirements, I'm always switching between windows and Linux.

Amazon product reviews are fantastic for getting a mix of thoughts on any product as they range from average PC users to high end enthusiasts and the occasional crazy super attentive reviewers who pick the product to pieces. Still, if you take an average you get a good feel for the product you are looking at. After some Amazon research time I found some mice that I liked the look of and didn't have bad reviews.

Then it was time to check You-tube. The mice I was looking at all had both user reviews and unboxing video's from many users. Again narrowing down my choices.

Next on my list was hardware review websites. Hardware review websites are my least trusted source of opinions as they can be very bias as often don't give you 'real world' usage thoughts. Finally though I found the mouse that would be perfect for me (in theory anyway) the Corsair M65.

The only difference between the M65 and M60 seems to be the DPI, the M65 offers 8200 DPI against 5700 DPI and the buttons (it is claimed) on the M65 are of a higher quality offering a longer life to the mouse.

I visited my local computer retailer (the big one in Coventry, England. If you wondered) and snagged the last M65 they had in black (to match everything else on my desk) and after two days of use here are my thoughts on the device.

Design:
The design of the mouse is deceiving at first glance it looks like an open design and you expect to be able to see the 'guts' through the metal fins at the back and the 'gap' in the front but thankfully its actually all sealed away in plastic housing.

The mouse has a blue light emitting from the front (the underside of the wheel) and blue lights on the top that indicate DPI setting (and the buttons to change it.) The forward and back buttons are thin on the side and at a glance can be missed but they are very obvious when you hold the mouse (in a good way) the only design choice I don't like is that the 'sniper button' is red spoiling the black and blue motif of the device. There is the usual Corsair logo on the rear in grey, very tasteful.

Build Quality:
The base of the mouse is a solid piece of metal with a brushed look and an open fin look to the rear. The five 'feet' are a very 'slippy' material and they work great on my Razer Sphex gaming surface (thinking of changing that to one of the plastic Corsair MM400, thought's welcome) The main two buttons are very sold and have a large operational area. The Wheel is just great its heavy and bears a rubber band for excellent gripping.

The mouse's cord is braided and thing. Compared to my old Razer mouse it's also a very light weight cord.

The sides of the mouse are a very grippy feeling rough plastic that I much prefer to the rubber that other mice I have owned have had. The plastic does not get slippy as rubber does if you get a little 'moist' while playing.

My only criticism when it comes to actual build choices is that the forward and back buttons are a lot lighter than I am used to and has caused many a miss click but this is not to say that they are bad, just not what I am accustomed to.

The actual sensor on the mouse is set in a clean hole in that solid mental base and has no silly plastic ending that could gather dust of fluff (again like my previous mouse)

The mouse has three adjustable weights (two front, one rear) that allow it to range from solid feeling to 'a little heavy', personally I took out the two front weights and its just about perfect but this is very much personal preference.

Software:
As I said, I didn't really want software as a requirement but as with most mice you need the software to set up those DPI and polling choices. The software works well and gives you options to change the 'lift cut off ' I set mine to the lest possible so my mouse only has to leave the surface and my cursor stops responding. I assume that this is for fine tuning operation against surface. There are three DPI settings that can be altered and the sniper button separately. The software also offers a firmware update tool (that I used but am not sure what improvements it made.) Once set-up the software can be ignored and I presume removed but I'll leave it on my windows install as its not really intrusive in any way.

Usage:
The mouse is nice. I really like it and its exactly what I was after. Its responsive and comfortable to use. None of the buttons have been an issue but I doubt I'll ever even touch that sniper button, maybe its my play style but I don't really see its value.

Its hard to say much more about a mouse really. It works as expected and does not have any really odd button choices. I have had no pain or discomfort while using it and it 'feels' nice and high quality. The sensor seems rock solid and it doesn't suffer from overly loud buttons (not that it would really matter as I use an MX Blue keyboard)

Criticisms:
I don't have any actual criticism as such but Corsair could improve the right most side buy adding a pinky guard as there is no ridge to rest it on. This wouldn't usually be something I would notice but as it has a thumb rest it seems odd not to look after the little fella too.

I would also have liked slightly firmer forward and back buttons but again, design choices on the part of Corsair shouldn't really be critisisms. Everything operates excellently and at this point I really am just picking faults.

Final thoughts:
Its a great mouse for around £50 and is a substantial step up from my Razer Lachesis that cost substantially more at the time of purchase.

The tale of Crazy Joe

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:02:00 +0000

Hex has been getting back into Diablo 3, so last night I joined him, me playing my Witch Doctor and him his Wizard, both about level 35 playing nightmare difficultly. We get the point where you meet the Scoundrel, a recruitable henchman, who is trying to fleece a farmers daughter of a prized artefact We are set about by bandits, which we deal with quickly, including their boss. It is at this point that I notice a lone bandit was stood there, stabbing me, fairly ineffectually, with his little knife. So I hit him with a couple of firebombs, and he kept standing there stabbing me, seemingly unfazed.

It was at this point I squealed for hex, whose lightening bolts proved equally useless. At this point we started running around being chasing by a guy in a green tunic brandishing a small blade, whilst we waited for the gate to open. It looked very much like Blizzard's take on Benny Hill (if you don't know Benny Hill, youtube is your friend). The gate opened an we ran through, more terrified of Crazy Joe, as we had now named the unkillable bloke, than any of the other monstrosities we had seen in the game.

He followed, we made it to a quick travel point and zapped back to town and safety. We took our breath, sold sold stuff and ported back. Joe was waiting for us, his maddened eyes and pathetic blade glinting in the moonlight. We ploughed on entering dungeons and forest but Joe was always waiting when we came out. We finally went back to town and let out a breath of relief. We were safe, and more importantly the next section takes us in the opposite direction to Crazy Joe. Still I am a little afraid to play Diablo 3 again, I can't shake the feeling he will be waiting for us, possibly sharpening his blade.

A little tale of how a bug in a game changed the way we played. Would love to hear any stories you might have of bugs breaking your games, but, y'know, in a good way.

I think I have a problem

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:38:00 +0000

Ever since the Sony PS4 reveal, I have been tempted to pick up a PS Vita. I was pretty impressed with the remote play and it was enough nudge the Vita into the "I want one." section of my brain. And then yesterday I see that HMV are selling Wii U premium for £200 with Zombie U, and again my brain interrupts with constant chants of "Want one". I am force to look at this practically. I have dozens of pc games I haven't even scratched, I am barely half way through Ni No Kuni and Dragons Dogma. And here I am looking at buying more games machines, one with nothing I especially want to play (the vita) and one with literally 3 interesting titles (Zombie U, Monster Hunter and Lego City).

What is wrong with me, I have loads of cool stuff to play, yet I am always looking at new stuff, like it is somehow better. I know it is not, and yet this doesn't stop me from wanting it. If I played each game that I haven't even touched yet for 5 hours each, then I probably looking at 50 odd hours. Maybe I am just hard wired to go after the shiny new stuff, not sure that this is a good thing.

Maybe it is just an achievement thing. I don't get any joy from getting achievements in game, but when I get a new game, or especially a device, I get a wave of satisfaction and joy which I guess is what people get from achievements. Maybe I am so addicted to it that I need a bigger hit. Heh I recently teased my co-blogger Hex about his new comic obsession, and the fact that he can't miss a single issue of an event or run. But it occurs to me that maybe I am just as bad with games, always looking for the new purchase (or hit I suppose), regardless of whether it is required or not.

This is why I tend to be interested in all games, regardless of what they are. I don't want to miss out on anything. Sometimes this is a boon, ending up with an awesome game like XCOM, and sometimes ending up with stuff I never touch, like that copy of Street Fighter 2 I have on steam. I DON'T EVEN LIKE FIGHTING GAMES! Regardless of whether I love the games in the end, I still enjoy buying them. Humm if I was a shitty stand up comic I would make a gag about women buying shoes right now.

A Rant about PC gamers.

noreply@blogger.com (Hex DSL) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:33:00 +0000

After a somewhat intense You-tube based evening I stumbled across this video from a man who calls himself 'BaldAtGames' he basically bashed PC gamers who use Steam for being 'soft' and claims that some how his gaming time is more relevant than other because he used to download patches from websites and presumably remembers Frontier: Elite 2.

This is a single video that aptly covers a certain opinion that I keep running into as I wonder around the internet aimlessly. There seems to be quite a few console gamers coming to PC at the moment. This happens whenever there is a large gap in the release cycles of consoles. Many gamers simply gravitate to the the PC for better graphics and when they begin to immerse themselves in PC communities they begin to get 'told off' for being a new comer to the platform. People appear to resent them because they have good rigs and no idea how to use them.

The obvious argument to have is that if we're not nice to new comers then we'll drive them away but I think it goes a little deeper than this. I remember when a game came out a long time ago called outcast, the game was pretty good but one of the strange things about it was that there was a bug in the installer that would cause it to appear to install the game then at the very end crash and you would find no game on your hard drive. Back then you would have to manually unpack the game, if you were lucky enough to have access to the internet at the time you could easily find information on how to do this. I have many memories of gaming leading to learning and at times some pretty hard core tinkering. One of those things for me was learning to use the subst command to get a game to run from a hard drive because my CD-ROM was only single speed and it slow as hell.

Flashing forwards to 2013 I can buy a game on Steam or a box copy and install it with fully automatic patching and if something does go wrong I simply ask Google how to fix it. I learn less this way but I have more time to actually play the games I buy. The teenage me envies Steam and even Origin to certain extent. In many ways gamers are less 'hardcore' than they used to be but who cares. Think about a console gamer experiencing a fully modded PC Skyrim install for the first time, then come back a hundred hours of game play later while the console gathers dust and tell me he's not hardcore.

Hardcore is a stupid word. If we insist on using it we have to remember that its not what rig we have, not what peripherals we use but its how deeply we soak ourselves in the actual games. If you don't want to talk to the newcomers then don't but don't tell them they are too late just because you feel too old.

/Rant over.

Lara could use a little less raiding

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 20:53:00 +0000

Given my last post about which was, in part, inspired by the writer of Tomb Raider (the 2013 one), now seemed to be an excellent time to talk about that game. As one of the very few game series featuring a lead female character (the only other franchises I could think of with more than a couple of titles to their name was Metroid, and she is in an armour suit most of the time). Lara Croft has been through many adventures and the games have all been at least pretty decent (except the terrible mis-step of Angel of Darkness). So how does this stack up?

It is an odd game, as there is the game that it thinks it is, and the game it actually is. It starts out being pretty damn harrowing. Lara is alone, injured and freezing on a mysterious island following a shipwreck, and it turns out that the island has plenty of people on it that would happily kill her. This is a young Lara that has not yet explored tombs and gunned down thousands of animals and men alike. She is has never had to be violent in any way, and at the beginning she finds a bow and kills a deer so she can eat and survive. It soon becomes clear that there are bad man who are out to get and this culminates in a scene where she has to kill or be killed (not raped as you may have heard).

This is a pretty emotional part that takes place about an hour or so into this game. Unfortunately, much like the needing to eat, the emotional punch of killing is soon forgotten as half hour later Lara had killed another 10 men without batting an eyelid. The game then turns into, a pretty good, action game in the tomb raider/uncharted mode, with Lara happily murdering hundreds of men. And as a game it is fine, despite some annoying quick time events and instant death sections, and I finished it having quite enjoyed.

But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to play the game it seemed to think it was. I wanted to play an open world Tomb Raider where I had to avoid enemies by climbing trees, where I had to kill and eat animals to restore health, were sneaking and distraction were more important than head-shots An most importantly I wanted the game to only let me kill people as a very last resort. For it to be messy and brutal and hard to kill someone. The Tomb Raider I played was decent, the one I describe would have been amazing.

A keyboard with a Duck on it.

noreply@blogger.com (Hex DSL) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:09:00 +0000

For those who don't know, the keyboard you are using on your PC is probably using a rubber membrane with individual keys on top. Even if its a gaming keyboard there is a pretty good chance that its one of these membrane keyboards. The elegant alternative to this rather squishy style is a mechanical keyboard. A mechanical keyboard uses individual switches for each key giving a very solid typing experience.

I decided I wanted a mechanical keyboard after using an old buckling spring keyboard at work. I also wanted something a little smaller on my desk, finally, as the back light on my G19 was very washed out looking I figured it was time to spend some pounds.

Looking for a mechanical keyboard in the UK is a pain in the proverbial posterior. You can't go anywhere to try one (outside of some pretty high end stores in London as far as I can tell) and when you do find a place that will even sell you one you have to wait because they don't keep them in stock at all, maybe the mechanical craze has not yet hit our fair tea drinking nation.

I went with Kustompcs.com for my order. I knew that I wanted MX Blue keys (I love clicks damn it!) and I wanted a blue back light (to match the theme of my gaming hole) after some browsing I realised that the Ducky brand made solid and reliable keyboards, there were other options obviously but it was the Ducky that had had the most positive reviews overall (100% mechanical design, very good build quality, bright light, high quality plastics on the keys) - I opted for a TKL ('tenkeyless', that's a keyboard with no number pad) to save on desk space as well as have a more portable board in case I get hooked on blues and have to take the little fella everywhere with me... also, and lets be honest who uses the number pad on a home PC? - not me.

Moments after placing my order I received an e-mail telling me that I would be in for a wait because they don't keep them in stock (hummm) they did offer me a board with Blue keys and a pink backlight... oddly, being a 32 year old man with an all black and blue rig I decided to wait for my ideal board.

After what seems like a lifetime of waiting (it was a month just about) my board finally arrived.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS, and pictures follow....

The board is small, I know, keys are standard sizes but it's strikingly small compared to the G19 that was sitting on my desk. The build quality of this board is pretty striking as well. It's sturdy, heavy and is quality to behold.

The Duckly weighs about the same as the G19, which is crazy when you see the size of the G19 in comparison. I think this speaks a lot about the materials used in its construction. The USB cable is very nice but I would have liked a braided cable bit its instead a high quality rubber coated one. I'll probably change it for a braided one if I can find one as its totally detachable and very standard (mini USB)

The Media keys are alternate functions of the F keys, not a problem at all, I knew this before buying but one thing I will miss is my G19's volume roller. Saying that, the media keys are easy to get to and I dare say that after a few days I'll get used to them.

As someone with a love of alternative Operating Systems its nice that the keyboard comes with alternate windows key caps, no windows logo for me but instead little Duck Logo's. very hipster.

After plugging it in the next thing I noticed was that the lights are like car headlight. On full brightness they are blinding in a darkened room, lets face it though, this isn't a bad thing. You can turn them down at night and on a summers day its still going to be seen and look nice. Most lighting modes are okay but when the keyboards not in use the 'breathing' mode is the one I think I'll leave it on. when I'm using it I switch to 100% of keys lit at about a quarter intensity.

The MX Blue keys are everything I expected, boldly loud and satisfyingly tactile! - my only real criticism about the keys are that the larger ones (Space, Backspace, capslock, tab, shift) all feel a little heavier than the rest of the keys. Maybe it's me just not being used to it but they do feel heavier to me.

One of the concerns I had about buying a Blue was key return (travel) speed. As a gamer I was worried that they blues would not return to default position fast enough for me when in the heat of action, this turns out to be no problem at all. I'm not even sure why this was in my head in the first place. Blues are so nice for my gaming and typing style.

If I had to pick faults with the keyboard I would say that the Cherry Stabilisers on the space bar are a little too stiff and could do with being quieter, the blue keys are find but when the space bar is pushed it sound like I've hit two keys at once (due to the nature of those stabilisers) built saying that it works flawlessly and the illuminated Ducky logo on the front of the bar is a nice touch. Dedicated media keys would have been nice as an extra but not really needed and its a snug board.

I would recommend anyone to buy a mechanical keyboard but do some research regarding the MX key types before you do, it would be an expensive mistake to get a key type you ended up hating. if in doubt the Red's and brown's appear to be the more 'standard' key types.

All I have to do now is get some custom key caps for WSAD and an escape button that has the word panic on it.... the options are endless but whatever crazy designs those keys have the Cherry MX Blues under them will still give me a wonderful typing experience.

Male gamers aren't nice (except me of course)

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:01:00 +0000

Lately I have been feeling a little ashamed of being a gamer, not because I play games, but because I am a man. There have been a fair number of high profile news stories lately that have lead to very negative reaction from my fellow gamers. I am talking about sexist asshats who seem to react to anything that suggests women have been put upon or overlooked in the games industry as unworthy of attention.

There have been backlash of comments on various news articles regarding anything that shows women in video games as a positive. A prime example is the twitter hashtag #1reasontobe, started off by the Tomb Raider scribe Rhianna Pratchett. This was created following some examples on twitter turning up of women in the games industry being treated pretty badly. The fact that women seem to not get equal treatment in the games industry is bad enough, but what really makes me ashamed of being a male gamer is my fellow gamers reaction. Go to any major games website and do a search for this new story. Find it and scroll down to the comments sections. In my case read the comments and find yourself having a sense of revulsion and shame that these commenters are my gaming compatriots.

What really brought this thinking to a head was that I watched this last night.

It was quite an interesting look at gaming history and the fact that it has been, literally, objectifying women for years. This is a the start of a series, famously funded by kickstarter, by a woman called Anita Sarkeesian, who has had no end of abuse for simply trying to get her point across. You may notice that the video has had it's comments disabled. However browsing Reddit this morning I came across a video, by a man, who had made it purely to disagree and criticise her.

Up until recently I sort of assumed that sexism was no longer an issue, that it was something that had died out 80's like shoulderpads and perms. Now I am faced with the realisation that not only is it still very real, but seemingly those I play games with online are a big part of it. I guess that the stuff found on fatuglyslutty is the rule rather that the exception. Fuck, now I am sad about the state of humanity.

Reviews are essentially broken

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:00:00 +0000

We here at Quest Hard don't review games. We may occasionally spout off about how much we might love, or indeed hate, a game, however we don't rate or recommend games. I have been wondering of late about if game reviews have any real value any more. A couple of games have kicked off this thinking. The first being Hitman Absolution, which is a fairly linear stealth game that is, at best, OK However it had a strange mix of reviews, some really high, that loved the stealth and more action approach, along with great visuals and sound design. And those that bemoaned the lack of freedom and options that the game has, compared to previous titles. I clearly fall on the disappointed side, with the linearity boring, with only a couple of levels opening up to the point where they are interesting. Unfortunately in this case, both review types are essentially correct.

The other game that got me wondering is Halo 4, a game that was pretty universally praised. I have played a fair amount of the single player and find myself conflicted. The visuals are very impressive for an Xbox game and sounds lovely. All the weapons are cool to use, even the new alien ones, which are very much just reskinned pistol, shotgun, assault rifle and sniper rifle. And most importantly they have nailed the game-play, it is quick and meaty in a way that only Halo games are. At it's core it is fun and satisfying to play. But the story is rubbish (so far at least), the level design hasn't got the spark that the earlier Halo games did and aside from the shooting the game is essentially go from point A to point B and press X. Hell on more than one occasion it asked me to do the clichéd "three of something", in this case destroy shield and power generators.

This is why reviews are flawed, because Halo 4 the game is excellent, smooth, exciting and fun. Halo 4 the overall experience is a bit rubbish, the plot is hokum, the level design pedestrian and it is linear to a fault. And a review is an opinion as to whether you should buy a game or not. It strikes me as a bit of a scary prospect being a game reviewer, as I would have given Halo 4 a 7, maybe 7.5 out of 10. "Great game-play barely hides the cracks in the story and world." Wow that would get me flamed.

What I thought of the PS4

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 08:52:00 +0000

PS4, that's officially a thing now, so I guess I should do a blog about it. I watched the whole presentation and on the whole I was pretty damn impressed. Now I am not going to go into all the reveals, because if you are reading this, you probably already know them. I am instead going to take about what excited me. Being honest I was probably most happy to see the new Killzone game. It looked pretty damn stunning, and while it didn't seem to offer many new innovations in game-play it still got my blood pumping. As far as other games go, I am glad that the Infamous franchise is returning, with a nice new, almost x-men like, game. Now that I think of it, all stuff I got excited about, not a lot of it was games. I mean Watch Dogs still looks great, but that would probably be a PC purchase, same goes for the likes of Project Destiny (Activison may be a horrible company but they have a strong tradition of bringing IP's to the PC). Krank looked like fun but was more interesting in that it showed what the PS4 can do with physics.

In fact probably the most interesting game (and I use the term very loosely) was what Media Molecule were doing, using the Move as a 3D sculpting and creation tool. Little Big Planet already has very inventive audience and I would be fascinated at what could be created. The fact that they are bigging up the computing power makes me happy, no, the CPU doesn't seem that fast but with clever programming, you can get the GPU to do things easily.

I was quite taken with the pad, more of a refinement than a reinvention. I am certainly glad that they haven't got to extremes like the Wii U. The touch pad is a nice addition, though I suspect it will get most use in menus, almost like a cursor. The motion tracking on the pad is an odd one, but I can see the uses, such as leaning to the side in a first person shooter. The improved shape and triggers are a bonus. It took me a long time to get use to the PS3 pad after a 360 one, and even now the 360 is still, marginally, more comfortable.

I have to confess that some of the new features seemed more like obvious stuff that consoles should do, but don’t at the moment, like the instant restarting. Yes being able to pick up a game from exactly where you left it is cool; however this is something the PSP did years ago. The same goes for the behind the scenes downloading and patching, something Steam has also been doing for years. I think it is a little hard to justify these as cool new features.

I am less convinced about all the social sharing stuff, being able to instantly upload video and screenshots is cool, but not something the vast majority of people will use. Or at least I won't, but maybe I am an anti-social bastard. I am also not sure I would like someone on my friends list watching me suck balls at a game, I sure as hell wouldn't want them to take over playing for me. Still hopefully this means that the online play and communication has been significantly improved on the PS3. I know that it mentions you could chat cross game now, and the inclusion of a mic port in the pad should mean more voice use.

All in all I remain impressed, but still a lot of questions. What games will be out at launch. When will it be out? How much will it be? How much hard drive space does it have? Hell, what does it look like? Still seems like a long way off, though some companies are already taking pre-orders. I think Microsoft will have to make a big impact when they do there reveal (rumoured to be in April). Though for Microsoft to get my attention, they will have to do 1 thing, scrap the Xbox live subscription.

My Return to Skyrim

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:45:00 +0000

It’s about this time last year I have finished my first play through or Skyrim, so 12 months on and 1000’s of mods later I am returning to the land of the Nords. I have installed 240+ various mods, mostly at random off the Top Collections on Steam Workshop. Looking through, most are graphical upgrades or enhancements, gameplay and npc tweaks, new quests and mobs etc. So I start a new game, with the new random beginning mod, seen as I have been through the normal beginning a fair few times before.

I awake in a cave, it’s black as all hell and I can’t see a thing, a quick check of the map shows an exit not far. The only light is the occasional ghost mushroom cluster. I find the exit slowly groping my way through the cave. No mobs so far, thank the 7, as I can’t see shit. I emerge into the beautiful land of Skyrim and OMG! Skyrim was beautiful before, but with the multitude of graphical, flora and fauna enhancements its now f***ing gorgeous. I remember to check my inventory. I have 1 small iron dagger and roughspun clothes. Great! I’m a walking meal waiting to happen.

White writing pops up “A rumour of dragons has emerged, head to Helgen to find out if the rumours are true.” I check the map I’m not that far away. Its bright and sunny and lovely looking, I start my journey, picking lots of flowers along the way. This walk to Helgen is rather uneventful. wolves are easily avoided as they howl as you get close, sneaking and skirting around them works. Its getting late now, shadows are longer. I reach Helgen and a very large Dragon flies over. More white words. “Head to Jarl Balgruff and tell him of that the rumours are true.” Okies I’ve done this trek before, easy enough.

It’s getting towards dusk now and I don’t consider this an issue and head out. I easily dispatch some spiderlings along the way thanks to a baby creature mod, and again avoid most of the wolves I come across, things are going well. Then I notice its getting dark, really, really dark. Crap! I’m not even to Riverun and it’s now pitch black. I can’t see the road or the foliage at the sides. Somewhere along the way I lose the road. I check the map and head towards the river. Riverrun is on the river so I deduce heading north west along the river will get me to Riverrun eventually.

Then there is a growl, Shit! Sounds like a bear, but seen as I can’t see anything now, I have no idea where it is or how close. I edge towards the river. Another growl, Yup definitely a bear. I can say for definite as I hear it come charging, I turn as I see a 500 lb ball of fur and death come at me from behind full speed, a bear paw swipes my face and my lovely 100% health bar gets squished to about 5% I turn and flee towards the river than I can hear but can’t see.

I wade in praying to Talos that it dosn’t follow. Thankfully it dosn’t. I remain facing it as i back up deeper into the river. That rushing sound is loud. I turn away from the furball of doom and can just about make out spray and mist, a yawning abyss of a waterfall. I can’t see how deep it is or how far it is in front of me. But I can hear it. I try and wade towards the opposite river side, but I’m blind. I find a small rock to perch on. I’m cold, wet and mostly dead. The rock I’m on backs onto what I think its more rock. I can’t see it and nor can I move off my rock. The ball of claws and teeth is still growling from the other side. Bugger, I’m now perched on a rock in the middle of a river on the edge of a waterfall and still can’t see anything, just hear the sounds of my death on the other side awaiting me.

Then remember I’m half mage. I resto up and wait for magika to return and swap to duel flames. Yey! light. not much but enough to see the rocks behind me and I scramble up them to reach the other side of the river. I AM INVINCIBLE! It is at this point a Giant Frostbite spider spits and lunges at me. I experience my first and probably least grisly death in the this new deadly world of Skyrim.

The mods have essentially made Skyrim, Dragons Dogma. Mobs are now utterly lethal, dark means dark, night means that if you have no torch, you literally can’t see. It’s suicide to start a journey at night as this is when creatures of the night hunt. Going into a dungeon without a torch means you are blind unless there are braziers and torches already down there. Believe me there is nothing quite as scary as hearing a restless drauger awake and all you can see are two orbs of blue light in the absolute black.....I love it!! 7 help me if I come across a dragon in the night.

Luckily for my Nord newb I quick saved when I escaped death at the paws of the bear. So now I’m back perched on my small rock looking at the very pretty modded milky-way night sky, cold, wet, in the all consuming darkness, knowing that a giant spider waits above and a devil spawn cave bear awaits me on the other side. …....
I sit and wait for dawn.

This is my first half an hour in my all new modded Skyrim and its amazingly brutal, scary as shit and just what I wanted for my next proper play through.

The yin and yang of mmo's

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 07:26:00 +0000

Since quitting WoW I have played a total of 2 other mmo's. One of these games actively
tries to intrigue the player and get them involved in a dark and interesting world. The
other game is Tera. I will do a quick bit about Tera, because that is all it warrants. It
went free to play on the 5th February 2013, so I had a play. It is a gorgeous world, with
decent combat in, completely ruined by the grindy quests and monotony of play. Oh
and the characters (particularly females, including some very uncomfortable little girl
analogues) are so under-dress and sexualised that it is borderline softcore porn.

The "proper" mmo I have been playing is The Secret World, which has really grown
on me. Essentially it is set in the world we live in today, but with all the monsters from
legend and myth are real. And you play an average Joe given powers by swallowing a
magic bee (OK yes I know that bit is stupid). So you side with one of 3 factions, in my
case the Templars based in London, and off you go. I have just about finished the starting
area, which is full of zombies. I know what you are thinking, "sigh more zombies",
which is not unfair, however the game is reasonably complicated and I guess they wanted
something very accessible to start with.

So complicated then? Yeah, but in a good way. They famously say that there are no
levels in this game, which is only partly true. Your character itself never gets any
stronger or faster, however as you go through the game you pick up items that give
increases in your core stats. The other levelling aspect is that you get 2 sets of points as you play, skill points which are used to unlock active and passive abilities, of which you can have 7
of each at any time, and Ability Points which improve your effectiveness with a weapon.
It is a system that allows your character to progress in a much more organic way. There are
suggested archetypes but you have no obligation to follow then and can use any weapon
types and combinations you want (you can have skills for 2 weapons types at a time).

The starting area you travel to is call Kingsmouth, which is a New England town full of
mystery (and the aforementioned zombies), it is an attractive game, and manages the mix
of giant monster and real world very well. The environment reminds me a great deal of
Alan Wake. Some of the quests are still essentially fetch or kill quests, however many
actually ask you to complete puzzles, follow trails or even hack computers. This is the
only mmo I have played were I have found myself scribbling down notes on a piece of
paper. Special mention must be given to the voice acting. All the main quests are fully
voice acted, and it is all really well done, probably some of the best I have heard in
gaming, let alone mmo's.

I think I have really taken to it because it feels adult, like this is not a game for
everybody, like WoW or LOTRO, but for adults (and not in a Age of Conan "it's got
boobies in it" way). It feels like it has a respect for the intelligence of the player, and is
happy to let them explore. Hell most of the side quests are found on objects on the floor,
and these aren't marked on the map, you have to literally stumble over them.

Another thing I like about it, is the payment model that now exists. Like Guild Wars 2 you
buy the game and you are free to play it without a subscription (you can sub if you want).
And like GW2 I have found the item store to be unobtrusive and the game has yet to
block me off in anyway in order to get some money out of me. Unlike GW2 I am actually
considering buying some in game stuff. Because the game is set in the real world (after a fashion), and my character actually looks (a bit) like me, I feel far more inclined to buy cosmetic items for him, as clothes have not bearing on stats at all. Whereas stuff like sunglasses for a Charr in GW2 just felt wrong to me.

I still have concerns about The Secret World, will the world continue to be this interesting? Will the store continue to be as unobtrusive? What happens when you get to the "end game"? I will see, however I have always been more of a leveller and I am finding The Secret World absorbing. Incidentally I think Hex would hate it.

DLC ain't going no where

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 06:27:00 +0000

I have a serious question about DLC, who is buying it? Chatting to Hex, it becomes apparent that between the two of us, we have brought all of a dozen pieces of DLC. Yet we are now in the position where pretty much every single game released has some form of post release content, hell half the time it is being revealed before the game is even out. For the developers/publishers to keep churning it out, there must surely be a decent market for it.

Is it a case of optimistic publishers seeing Activision selling over priced map packs for their titan like Call of Duty series, and thinking that they could easily sell as many. I have no real figures to go on but surely the average game DLC isn't going to get picked up by more than 20% of the the people who brought the game. Surely something like the Skyrim DLC is not picking up vast numbers. Maybe I am looking at this the wrong way.

Let's pick on Skyrim shall we. It has 3 pieces of DLC, with the slightest being Hearthfire, which is essentially a nice house for your character. They we're charging 4 pounds for this. If the mod scene on the PC is anything to go by, this DLC probably took a handful of guys a month or so to make. Even if it only had a 5% take up of the DLC, still assuming they make #3 for every one sold, you are probably still looking at a couple of hundred thousand pounds. The bigger expansions netting in money in the region of millions for 4 or 5 months work. It is easy to see the appeal.

Especially when they can use dlc as an incentive to pre-order games, the as in the recently released Borderlands 2. This is them selling stuff that they very clearly had nearly, if not completely finished by the time the game launched. So they pick up a few more pre-order sales, which are good for them and a few people pick up the DLC later on. Humm maybe I am missing the point. Games are expensive to make, and perhaps a couple of hundred grand made from DLC is enough to turn a disappointing result into a success. Hell maybe a good piece of DLC is all that stands between a developer closing and staying open, even if it doesn't make a fortune.

I suppose looking again at the long road, many games also have a, well soft relaunch, when they release the game of the year (or whatever silly title they give it) edition. Dozens of these come out, with all the DLC and usually a decent price, like Arkham City Game of the Year, and people who may not have thought about buying it will pick up, as it seems like a good deal. Hell I picked up Darksiders 2 in the Steam Sale over Christmas, and I paid an extra couple of quid to include all the DLC. I guess it must be worth doing, with some companies even allowing people to buy DLC in advance, at a small discount. This is something publishing giants like EA and Activision do as standard now.

Maybe most people don't pick up DLC, it is something that still keeps publishers and developers happy, and I can't see it going away.

Valve Founder Gabe Newell "A View on the Next Steps"

noreply@blogger.com (Hex DSL) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:49:00 +0000

I present to you, Gabe... King of the gamers.

I just couldn't take the responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 09:15:00 +0000

I think I may not have been entirely honest with you, or myself, over why I quit WoW. The more that I think about about it, the more I realise that I was spooked by the responsibility. This
goes back to the compulsion to log in on a daily basis, just to
essentially do WoW chores. I felt responsible for my character, as if I was letting him
down if I didn't log in and do some farming (literally looking after his farm). I realised
that I never felt this way in any other mmo, I always log in, have some fun and log out.
I don't feel obligated to play, perhaps this is why I haven't touched GW2 in months.

But this sense of obligation and responsibility only escalated when I started the raiding.
Not just the raids themselves, but knowing that I had to grind reputation and unlock
points to get better items. I am not criticising the game, it grabbed me in a way that very
few games have, but I ultimately recoiled from that, well, sense of duty to my character
and other players.

Anybody who knows me well would be hard pushed to list responsible high on the list of
positive traits. Hell one of the reasons I game is to leave behind the cares of world behind
me, and if a game does get too demanding or tense, then you are free to stop playing
whenever you want. And for me this is almost always true, except when I got to the end
game of WoW, where everyday that you don't log is, is another day that you are behind
on everyone else. I just didn't want that, admittedly largely self in-forced, pressure. And
so I wussed out and quit. I am sure that there are many out there that happily thrive on
that level of responsibility, I am just not one of them.

I suppose this responsibility has moved onto other online games, to a certain extent.
Those that play a lot of online shooters, tend to have the upper hand over those that play
a little, as many games have (usually superior) unlocks as you level. However with these
games it is usually a case of it has to stay fair otherwise people don't play (sigh ok yes
COD breaks the model). However games like WoW trick you into responsibility, you
spend so long levelling up this character, that by the time you hit maximum level you
already have a strong affection for your little guy. So when it seems viable to log in each
and every day for a few hours, to make him better, you feel compelled to do so. And so
I did for a couple of months, but the responsibility of it became tiresome, and a tedious
raid broke through the affection and I lost interest in caring for this digital pet.

Perhaps that's why I have always preferred levelling to end game stuff. You get to see
your character expand and improve as you play, but you don't have the same sense of
responsibility. The same fun without any of the guilt I guess.

I let the Mists veil my view for long enough

noreply@blogger.com (Laurence Cook) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:20:00 +0000

Last night I made the choice to quit WoW (sigh yes, I know, again). This was following a ten man raid and prior to that a conversation with the guild leader that my dps was not all it could be. Don't misunderstand me, she was lovely about it and everyone in the guild is really nice, made up of a mixture of people I used to know and new people. However it brought home for me that the underlying problems of WoW (and the genre as a whole I guess) are still there. I can't just log in and play the way I want to and happily continue to progress. Up to this point I had been pretty much just guessing as to what was right, and I certainly find it easy to believe that I had been playing, well wrong.

But I think that's what bothered me, the idea of playing right or wrong. This was my game and I should play it the way I want. The thought of reading up on theorycrafting and the right enchants and bonuses was not appealing. Of course I could have just taken the step of stopping raiding or playing another character, however I had become a little disenfranchised even prior to last night. I kept feeling compelled to complete daily's, do dungeons and grind reputation, even though I knew that I was literally completing tasks as an excuse to keep logging in.

And I would keep logging in regardless of being aware of this, there was always another quest to complete, a few more reward points to get and weirdly for me, more achievements to unlock. Normally I couldn't give a rat's ass about achievements, however in WoW each time you get one, it announces it to your entire guild, which would usually lead to a round of "Gratz" from guildmates for even the most mundane of accomplishments. I guess if I had to describe it, I would say the whole thing is hollowly satisfying.

I think the raid brought this into focus, as the raid was in no way easy and there was plenty of dying. And it made me realise that in reality this was the meat to the game and the rest is the, well pastry of the WoW pie. I could have kept doing dailies and dungeons and it would have been fun but never satisfying, or I could dive into raiding 3 or 4 nights a week, working on spell rotations and looking at class forums. And potentially the satisfaction of that exists, finally defeating that boss you have been trying for weeks. Well the satisfaction of that is one of the highest you can find in gaming, I know I have been there. But I ultimately decided that neither option held any great appeal, so that's why I quit.

To anybody from my guild that is reading (Release and Run), you are all lovely people and I thank you for the time I spent with you.