3 Days to Diablo 3!: Where are they now?

Posted by ProxyV on

Finally after what seemed like a lifetime waiting for the 3rd installment of Diablo, the release is only 3 days away (after waiting 12 years of couse)! It’s been a long time since most of us have played the original Diablo game that sparked our love of diving into dungeons to save mankind, meaning you may have not noticed, or forgot what happened to some of the characters we loved playing then. So we’re doing a “Where are they now?” Segment of the hero classes you could play in the original Diablo.

The Warrior

What happened to the Warrior is not a secret and pretty straight forward. Basically, Diablo couldn’t overpower Leoric and convinced Lazurus to kidnap the King’s son, Prince Albrecht. Since the Prince is only a child, it’s very easy for Diablo to warp his mind and corrupt him – however since Albrecht is only a child, Diablo could never reach his full potential. Diablo doesn’t care though, he’s like “I’M FREAKING DIABLO! I RULE HELL!” and monsters from the underworld begin to flood the depths of Tristram’s Cathedral in order to bring Hell to the living realm. Enter the warrior who dives into the dungeon head first making his way to Diablo. Once he defeats Diablo and removes the soulstone Albrecht returns to his original child body. But this is a game about demons and evil, so there is no happy ending – though the Prince has reverted back to his original form, he’s clearly dead. In some crazy attempt to seal the evil within him to prevent further destruction caused by Diablo, the warrior rams the soulstone into his forehead. Thinking he’s can overcome corruption the Warrior leaves Tristram, and eventually becomes the new Diablo you must defeat in Diablo II.

So where is the warrior now?

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MMO 101 – Quest Flow

Posted by KT on

One of the things that kind of baffles me to this day about MMOs, especially in a post-World of WarCraft setting, is that so few of them seem to get questing down right. One of the biggest reasons that MMOs took off the way they did was that Blizzard made it far simpler to get into them by pulling back the ultra-boring grinds and pushing in the slightly-less-boring quest line. In essense, what Blizzard discovered during the development of WoW’s quest system boiled down to two main things:

1) Quests can be used to direct players to different parts of the world and help them orient themselves in an otherwise intimidating environment.

2) Quests can really minimize the agony of the grind with thoughtful placement and a bit of variety.

The first point was one of their goals all along, if their interviews after the fact can be believed. They allegedly saw the vast potential of creating these massive online worlds but struggled to find an answer to get the more casual player to dive in. Quests were their answer to that, a lot of them.

The second point came a little more slowly. Over time Blizz noticed that simply arranging the order and location of each quest can greatly increase a player’s productivity and thus keeps them engaged for longer. The tedious grind, while still tedious, feels like less of a hassle if you know you can sit down and, with a bit of planning, stamp around a certain portion of the map and blot out quests all in a row and return to the local hub to enjoy sight of your experience bar filling up dramatically faster. The most common (and easiest) way to do this is by simply arranging a bunch of quests in a recognizable and easily travelled sequence.

For example, you ride in to a new quest area and make your way to the first hub. You grab all the quests available to you and open up your map to start figuring out where they all lead. To your surprise they actually appear as a neatly arranged dotted line! This means you can simply go to the furthest point and work your way back. You’re not away from town for too long, you have a clear and definite path, and you stay in roughly the same area, allowing you to orient yourself to your surroundings. Perfect!

This is where I begin to get confused when I look at other MMOs that have come out since this amazing discovery.

Earlier in this blog Proxy had some not-so-nice things to say about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don’t have the highest opinion of that game either. Her primary complaints centered about the absurdities found within the class system (getting to the “end” with a class only to find out you played it “wrong” and can’t access sweet loot has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard), my first thought when I recount my time with SWTOR is how horrid their quest flow was. So horrid, in fact, I’m not entirely convinced it had a flow at all.

Far too often I’d reach a new quest hub, pick up all the quests, and open my map not to see an intelligently laid out plan of how my experience in that zone was going to play out but a chaotic mess of dots scattered around the playing area seemingly at random. And so far apart! Just looking at my imaginary path made me want to drink glass. And it was especially heart-breaking for me because I felt like at least some people on the BioWare team knew what they were doing, namely the people in charge of bringing these areas to life through the game’s admittedly awesome story. It was a damn shame that I couldn’t be assed to visit all those interesting characters and help them out of their interesting predicaments – I’m a goddamn sith marauder, not a marathon runner!

I remain cautiously optimistic that BioWare will right these wrongs somewhere down the line and might earn some of my money again. Jury’s still out on that, they don’t even seem to acknowledge that this is even an issue.

SWTOR: Sad Face…

Posted by ProxyV on

I was one of the most excited people ever waiting for SWTOR to finally be released. Sadly, it did not live up to my expectations or the Hype. While there were some good aspects to the game, basically it just turned into one of the most expensive regrets I’ve ever made (worse than buying the POPCAP collection on steam).

A fate better than spending the $160 to buy the Collectors Edition.

I rolled a bounty hunter and made the horrible mistake of playing mostly good. Come to find out when you go to the light side vendor – there was no gear for my hunter. So, what was good about going light side and playing a bounty hunter? Nothing.

Next I tried rolling a smuggler, but there was this giant particle floating around my character (looked like a bunch of stretched metal) which hindered what I was looking at and made me too frustrated to play. I tried restarting and reinstalling, but nothing fixed it.

Then I tried a marauder, which to be honest – was pretty amazingly fun! Nothing like dual wielding lightsabers to make you feel like you belong in the movies.

The PvP was… interesting to say the least. Hutta ball (kinda like stealing a flag and scoring) was fun, Civil War was confusing.

I haven’t completely written SWTOR off. I’m interested to see if they make any changes that pique my interest, but who knows how long that will take.

On another positive, I enjoyed the customization!

Steam Holiday Sales Begin!

Posted by ProxyV on

Image Via Steam

It’s that time of year where you think you’re not spending a lot of money, but you really spend a ton to get all those deeply discounted games on Steam. Oh, I’m certainly no exception to this rule, as last year’s black Friday sale took a great deal of my money. At about 1:00 PM pacific I visited steam, and not to my surprise the website was down from all the anxious gamers checking out all the latest and greatest digital deals. Todays deals include Portal, Portal 2, Fable III, Orcs Must Die, Singularity, Amnesisa, Just Cause, Max Payne, Rift and many others at 75% off. The deals don’t end there, there are other publisher catalogs for up to 90% off!

 

What will you be spending your money on?

Proxy Heart takes a moment of silence for Will Townsend

Posted by ProxyV on

My official gaming career began at Activision, working on Guitar Hero. The picture above is that of Will Townsend, we worked together at Activision, where he was a producer for various Guitar Hero titles and for DJ Hero, and later we worked together at Nexon America. I got the unfortunate news this morning of his passing and could not believe it. The world today lost a bright light and a brilliant smile. Many people knew and loved Will very much – so it’s to no surprise that even those who  were merely acquainted with him felt his loss this morning. We are taking a moment of silence for our dear friend, and I’m sure in the next life we will meet again… and he will point out my sparkly shoes and laugh at me once more.

R.I.P Will Townsend, may your joyful spirit live on through your friends and loved ones.

*Update* Gamasutra has posted an obituary for our beloved Will Townsend.

Star Wars The Old Republic: Early Access Date

Posted by ProxyV on

I, like probably many others, learned the hard way that Star Wars The Old Republic only has a limited quantity of Early Access codes. The head start is said to begin on December 13th, 2011 only 7 days before the official launch of the game.

Star Wars The Old Republic is widely speculated to be the last true “Subscription” based game to be released, as many companies are starting to fall into the Free to Play (F2P) business model.  The game is still available for pre-order via EA’s digital store Origin  – for $20 more you can purchase the Digital Deluxe version and have access to a few extra goodies.

What side are you choosing? Republic or  Empire?

SOE’s Everquest II Becomes F2P

Posted by ProxyV on

Image: www.everquest2.com

The free to play phenomenon is catching on as Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) MMORPG Everquest II went free to play on December 7th 2011, though after researching it a bit, it’s not in the true spirit of most free to play games. The free or “Bronze” members will have only 2 character slots, limited access of content including character races (you still have to purchase newer expansion packs for EQ II ), limited bag slots, equipment, and spell tiers. The other memberships include:

Silver – A silver membership can be purchased for a one-time fee of  $5, which includes increased amount of character slots, spell tiers, bag and bank slots.

Gold – Gold membership is available for $14.99 per month and provides full access to the game as you would imagine any subscription type game would.

Something I noted as a bit of a downside aside from limited content for bronze and silver users is the in-game mail system. Bronze and Silver users will only be able to receive mail – while gold members will be able to send AND receive.

EQ’s change to Free to play seems more like an extended demo than an actual move to the Free to Play system.

Will you be trying out F2P Everquest?

AutoFlix – Instant Netflix Marathon

Posted by ProxyV on

Recently I was sick and like anyone who is bedridden, I decided the best thing was to take some medicine and conk out to a marathon of some show. Seeing as I have a netflix account I instantly figured, “Well hey! They have whole runs of shows here.” The only problem was, I had to get up every time the episode ended just to watch the next one. When you’re sick you don’t want to have to keep getting up and eventually just want to fall into a sweet drug induced sleep while your show plays.

 

Enter – Autoflix. Autoflix is an awesome little app that instantly hits “play next” for you on Netflix. This nifty little thing is only $1 and well worth it!