A Weekend of TERA
I’ve spent most of the weekend playing TERA, in the last stages of the mmo’s closed beta stage.
TERA has been touted as a new breed of MMO, with enhanced combat and tactics, relying on timing and position, as well as aiming. The game world is massive, with gorgeous graphics, and there are seven character races and eight classes to choose from.
TERA has been in the news for their races and clothing designs, though.. with the European version of the game having censored versions of some models. I’ll come back to that..
Rediscovering Old Games: Diablo II
We were talking about old games during our lan week, and ended up heading for the spare room and the piles of older games stored in boxes up there. There was excitement as we found copies of Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital, Homeworld 2 and others.. and more mockery from the guys as it turned out I had a copy of Supreme Commander, after saying no, I didn’t know the game. In my defense, it was in a multipack which I had picked up for Titan Quest and its Immortal Throne expansion, and the Company of Heroes Anthology.. ;)
I also found my copy of Diablo II, plus the Lord of Destruction expansion, which I had thought lost when we moved house! After a bit of messing around.. updates, copying files to allow the game to run without the CD, registration to Battlenet.. I rolled a Sorceress and went out into the world..
Serious Completion
We’ve had a friend round for a holiday this last week, so there was more gaming time than usual.. time to complete some games!
We completed the first in the series again a few weeks back, so went on to Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter.. with new weapons to mess around with: a chainsaw, flamethrower and a sniper rifle. Killing enemies with the flamethrower netted me the Burn, Baby, Burn achievement, and I came close, but didn’t quite make the numbers for Bird Hunter or Space Marine. Next time!
I loved the Medieval episode, with the huge cathedral.. for style as much as the huge open space. While playing, we were noting just how big some of the maps are in this game.. something which has been lost a little as games are developed with more detail.. for performance and production time, I guess.
Crazy games like these are better with friends.. especially when there are so many relentless waves of enemies to be destroyed!
Archaeology Pets
Archaeology was added to WoW as a secondary profession with the Cataclysm expansion, and one of the first things I heard about it was that I could get a pet through it. However, I was also told that the pet depended on lots of grinding and some luck..
I’ve made a few runs for Archaeology, usually combining it with herb collecting or visiting a digsite if it was on my route, and I’ve collected a couple of toys: Ancient Amber, which traps your character in a chunk of amber for a while; the Druid and Priest Statue, which produces a beam of green light, and the Haunted War Drum, which sets a ghostly drum on the ground and plays a little drum sound too. :)
Only a few days back, I completed a Fossil artifact and found that my next one would be the Fossilized Hatchling! Today, I completed it!
Noblegarden Sugar High
After going out for dinner with a friend to celebrate his birthday, it was time to get started on the Noblegarden event in WoW! The event’s main objective is to collect eggs from around certain locations; inside the eggs is chocolate, a buff that turns you into a rabbit, or a variety of other, more rare items including the Spring Rabbit which I got last year.
I managed to collect a lot of eggs.. something to do with the amount of wine drunk earlier in the evening, meaning that I was fairly content to run circuits of Bloodhoof Village grabbing eggs as I saw them. I found the pet very quickly.. this went to Tim as I already had it.. but I also found the mount: the Swift Springstrider!
Taming Troll Gods
In Northern Stranglethorn, we came across Pogeyan, the Fire Spirit! He’s a large cat with a metallic sheen to his coat, and a rare mob too.. I was about to attack him, but I was reminded that as a Hunter, I could probably tame him instead..
Back to World of Warcraft
It had to happen eventually.. I’m back playing WoW! I’ve also signed up for the Annual Pass, which will allow me to play with the beta for MoP as well as granting me a copy of Diablo III. I suspect I won’t be playing a lot of WoW when I get my hands on Diablo III, but still.. I think it’s a good deal :)
I’m levelling a Troll Hunter alongside a friend’s Priest, at a somewhat relaxed pace.. enjoying the quests, especially when they involve explosions ;)
Amazon Refunds on Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 3′s ending has apparently disappointed so many people that Amazon have apparently decided to offer full refunds on the game.. gamers have been reporting that they’ve had refunds on their games, at least. I think this is the start of a slippery slope.
Now.. I’ve not seen this ending yet. I understand that it isn’t quite what people expected, and that people are disappointed. Mass Effect 3 is, however, not broken, and people should not be expecting a refund because they didn’t like how the story turned out. It’s pathetic.
If you played the game through to the end, you’ve had what you paid for. What’s next? Demanding refunds because you didn’t like the ending of a film? A book? Can I order a three-course meal at a restaurant, but then complain that I didn’t like the sauce on my dessert, and so refuse to pay for any of the meal?
Our right to a refund is supposed to be there to protect us from shoddy goods and services, not to allow ridiculously self-entitled people to use products and then end up not paying for them by claiming they were dissatisfied. It isn’t there to allow people to cheat their way out of paying for things.
If Amazon are offering a full refund on ME3 now, they are just encouraging people to buy the game, play it through, and then claim they didn’t like it and ask for their money back. If you claim a refund for a game you have played all the way through to the end, you are worse than a pirate, because not only are you a “lost sale”, you are costing people money in handling the order in the first place; shipping, dealing with your emails and refunding you. You would be less of a burden on the gaming industry if you just downloaded it, played it and deleted it.
And what does this mean for writers? Write the ending that fans want, or risk the potential that they can cheat you out of your pay?
If writers suddenly have to start making the ending the fans want, then we all lose. There’ll be no more creativity; only the same tired storylines that have ‘proven’ themselves satisfactory in the past. Or maybe no story at all. Or we’ll have fan-fiction.. and well.. that doesn’t have a great reputation for quality, does it?
Indie Royale – The St Patrick’s Day Bundle Impressions Part 1
The latest Indie Royale bundle is The St. Patricks Day Bundle: pay what you want for five games: Hard Reset, Jolly Rover, Vertex Dispenser, DLC Quest and Lair of the Evildoer! Hard Reset, Jolly Rover and Vertex Dispenser came with Steam keys, while DLC Quest and Lair of the Evildoer were available through Desura or via download.
I played Going Loud Studios‘ DLC Quest first, a platform action game which takes a rather amusing swipe at the games industry and the increasing use of DLC, as well as gamers’ fears that we’re being exploited by DLC.
Avoiding The Indie Face Kick
Another indie bundle is due to launch soon: the Indie Face Kick, which has been put together by the guys at Gaming: All The Time. This bundle contains eight games: Booster Trooper, Dead Horde, Sol Survivor, Avencast, Runespell, Still Life 2, PAM and Greed Black Border.
I wouldn’t mind looking at the games.. but this bundle, or more specifically, the organisation of this bundle, feels far too unprofessional.. I’m unimpressed with the organisers’ attitude towards customers’ concerns and criticism.
Update: BacklogJourney has done a little more digging.. the organisers are, or were, more heavily involved with their Russian Steam Key advertiser than they were letting on, with this advertiser providing keys for their competitions, too. (more…)