To add a bit more discussion to our weekends we’ve decided to start a new segment on the blog that will run every Saturday morning called Keen and Graev’s  ‘Weekend of Gaming’. We’ll tell you what we’re playing or doing that’s gaming related.  We hope that you’ll find it interesting, perhaps informative, and want to share what you’re playing with us.

Keen

This weekend is packed full of great games.  My first priority is to finish up my StarCraft 2 Campaign.  I’ve already begun to play some multiplayer matches and I can’t wait until I can start working on a solid win ratio to unlock some portraits.  The campaign is full of replayability which only makes my desire to finish it stronger so that I can start again.  There are parts in the campaign where you have to make choices about actions you take and these choices change how missions play.  Great stuff.

I’ll also be playing Mount & Blade.  This game has really taken me by surprise.  I ended up playing for something like five hours yesterday.  I love medieval combat (I’m one of those guys who would dress up like a Knight and go to renaissance fairs if I had the time) and being able to play out giant battles is something currently unavailable in any other game out there.

To round off a nice weekend of gaming I’ll be playing World of WarCraft.  My Paladin is floating around 4900gs and I can get him a few easy upgrades.  This week’s raid is Marrowgar, which is tough since that’s ICC.  Our guild is going to try an ICC 10 alt run which should give me plenty of opportunity.  If I can find any time at all to squeeze in a 25-ICC then I’ll take my druid for the badges and perhaps a few upgrades.  Since the Lich King was slain by my guild there really isn’t this huge drive to get better gear.  I just like having fun and enjoying the content.

Graev

I beat the campaign for StarCraft 2 already.  I liked it a lot and decided to go back through and play again.  I’m not playing on Hard Mode this time because I’m just going back through to get all the achievements.  Once I get the achievements then I’ll move up.

I’ll also be playing some multiplayer as well.

Other than StarCraft 2 there’s Mount & Blade and Hydro Thunder Hurricane.  Hydro Thunder is a game we mentioned in our Game Watch this month.  It’s a kick back to the old Hydro Thunder arcade games and it’s really worth the value on XBLA.

This summer is turning out to be a great one.  We’re already looking at a summer poised to be the first without a slump in three years and there’s still a few months of game releases ahead of us.   Tell us what you’re playing this weekend or planning to play this summer.

The Lich King has fallen!

The Lich King has fallen. Happy Fun Guyz prevail!

Happy Fun Guyz took down the Lich King tonight in a terrific battle.  We extended our lockout from last week and decided to give him two solid nights.  Last night we got him to 23% (only 13% from winning since you need to get him to 10%) and ended up calling it.  We came back tonight and wiped three times (once was a freak accident) and then came through at the last second.

Phase one went perfectly.  We did our first transition and the horrors died instantly.  We took out the raging spirits quickly with focus fire then transitioned into phase two with only one spirit up.  We dodged all of our defiles and downed that raging spirit quickly.  Graev was almost swept off the edge by a valk who grabbed him but we pulled him back at the last second to save him.

Transition two was a bit shaky. Defile had us spread out big time and we had to adjust our strategy on the fly with a quick call for a relocation of the raid to the side instead of near where we originally tanked and gathered.  Everyone adjusted and we managed to quickly down our raging spirits.  Transitioning into phase three was sketchy.  Right as we got into phase three one of the raging spirits smacked a healer and we struggled to keep up on heals.

The ghosts (as we call them) started to swarm around and our DPS focus fired the first of them out of the sky with enough time to switch to the raging spirit still alive.  Quickly switching back to the Lich King we were split a bit by a Defile that ticked up once and grew.  A healer ankh brought us back into the game but we had ghosts exploding everywhere.  Two DPS went down and a heals.  Combat rezzes went out and we were frantically trying to keep up with heals.

Arthas sent one of our two alive healers into Frostmourne and we were desperately popping cooldowns to survive.  We had four people down now and it was a struggle for survival.  “POPPING COOLDOWNS!” and “Defile on you, move!” went out into vent and everyone played their heart out.  18%… 16%… 13%… 11%.. “Hang in there!!!”

Then we all died.

It was the sweetest death ever as the roleplay began and the Lich King prepared to raise us as his undead slaves.  Not today Arthas!  We were revived by Tirion who finally decided it was time to bubble out of his ice cube and the Lich King was held firmly in place.  “LUST IT UP GRUZ!” The cheers were epic and we brought Arthas down and got to see our achievement spam and cutscene.

Completing the content of this expansion felt so good.  I accomplished my goal and I did it with my guildmates. I’m very proud of how well we did. Onward to Cataclysm guys!

Another one bites the dust… sorta.  It’s the snowball effect in action.  One company takes their game “Free to play” (cough BS cough) and others follow because they don’t want to miss out.  We’re seeing that here with SoE creating a “Free to play” option for EQ2 called “Everquest II Extended”.   You know that I hate this F2P garbage, so overall my opinion on this decision will be negative.  However, there are a few things to point out which SoE does differently from Turbine.

SoE is opening up entirely new servers for this “experiment”.

“Think of it as a completely separate product offering. If you had a Station Pass… EQII Extended is another game in our portfolio, kind of. Even though it’s the same content, for all intents and purposes you play one or the other (or you could play both if you wanted to).” – Dave Georgeson [Source]

This is absolutely the biggest difference.  Turbine turned their entire game upside down in order to bring their game to a new market.  SoE is at least respecting their players somewhat by leaving them be with what they’ve spent 6 years working on.  I’ll tip my hat to the idea that they’re wanting to make this come off as an entirely different game.

Looking at their Membership Matrix, it’s clearly outlined what you do and do not have access to.  Where they’ve confused me though is with the gold membership.  It’s the same price as a subscription to the regular game yet you have to pay for more races and a level cap increase.  Maybe they’re thinking that you save some money not buying the software or something?  Still doesn’t make sense to me because if you’re willing to pay $14.99 per month then why not just play the regular game?  It’s cheaper to play the normal game!

Clearly the “Extended” servers will be ones where the rich get richer.  I don’t expect their communities to be anything like the normal EQ2 community either because of how fragmented the players will be.  Yet, at the same time, this is a “new” server and that brings with it popularity. I really do expect this “experiment”, as Dave Georgeson calls it, to fail over time and it all comes down to that membership matrix.

It needs to be “more free”.  If you’re going to cash shop people, and they are since they say “You can’t buy the best items, but you can buy good items…” and even mention “self-rez potions”, then you might as well open the flood gates.  As it stands, players get to buy power.  They’ll dance around saying it in their FAQ and interviews but it’s there for anyone who knows the game to see.

Bad idea.  Decent execution of a bad idea though.  I don’t like F2P because 1) it’s a scam and 2) it’s bad for the ‘game’ part of the game but if there were ever a more widely acceptable way of creating “Free to play” games it would be to release a F2P option alongside the real thing.  Yeah, it’ll fragment the crap out of your community but oh well.  That’s the price you pay to  keep the dogs and bay and still have a game.

One of the key questions to ask right now is just how much that Bronze membership for “Free” will get you.  If it’s like LotRo you’ll get about an hour of play time before you have to start paying.   It already looks like a rip off to me since you’ll be paying more to play for “Free” than if you actually played the real game.

Cantina abord your capital ship that you can interact with. Notice the dancing Night Elf?

The title says it all.  I’ve spent the entire day playing the campaign (not even near finished) and I can’t put it down.  Blizzard has taken the RTS model that they already mastered — and were leading in the industry — and innovated on top of it and reset the bar even further out of anyone’s reach.

I’ll spoil absolutely nothing about the story here so worry not.  What I want to talk about is how Blizzard has inserted between missions this hub-like area where you see characters rendered as full models (like a MMO, if you will) and you can click on various things in the room.  I have no idea how to describe this type of interaction but imagine if you will a room where things are interactive by… clicking on them.  Okay I’m repeating myself.  Just look at the screenshot on the right.

These intractable areas are full of things to do like interact with characters, view the next missions, and the best part is that you get to customize.  Your play-through of SC2 might be different than mine.  You get to upgrade units and buildings, buy upgrades from a skill ladder, and choose the order to complete many missions.  Graev did his so different from mine that he had Vikings on a level where you have to defend a base and I had siege tanks and special turrets.  He unlocked his vikings by playing a different level first.

The Campaign is so very, very different from multiplayer.  I lost count at around 20 things that are not in multiplayer.  (SPOILER: Firebats, Medics, Goliaths) and a slew of other completely unique vehicles and building upgrades.  Why these were left out of multiplayer baffles me.  Some of them are so friggin’ amazing. You even get to buy mercenaries that you can purchase to help you during missions.

Blizzard has taken the RTS elements of the game so much further by personalizing the experience and attaching you more to the characters by having you feel like you’re apart of what goes on behind the scenes.  The story unfolds around you instead of in front of you.  As for the story itself, I’m grinning ear to ear just thinking about how awesome it is so far.  Yes, I’m gushing about it.

The achievement system worked in better than I thought.  Bonus objectives and various actions you take just while playing will reward you.  Achievements do add a layer of depth by providing you an alternative way of completing the missions.  Sometimes I don’t check the achievements and just finish the level just to find out that if I had done it differently or maybe tried just a tad harder to protect a particular building that I would have gotten an achievement for it.

Blizzard’s easter eggs are quite funny too.  I’ve found several WoW, a Pirates of the Caribbean, Office Space, and various pop culture references.

A++ on the campaign, Blizzard.  This was such an amazing purchase that I feel strongly will be my game of the year and I haven’t even touched the Multiplayer yet!

PS: Why doesn’t Blizzard take this engine that they’re using to render cutscenes and these interaction areas and create a game with it?  It would make for a phenomenal RPG or something.  The graphics are gorgeous and the game runs so well.

I’m way late to this party but I really want to let you guys know that if you haven’t given Mount&Blade Warband a try then you need to.  It plays like Pirates Vikings and Knights (half life mod) mixed with Darkfall.  There are servers with up to 222 players and various game modes. I haven’t played the same map twice yet and all of them have a different look to them.  There are several factions each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses; Mongolian types get to shoot their bows while mounted or the Nordic types have better axes, etc.

My favorite  gameplay mode so far is Siege where one team defends and the other attacks.  This is where this game really shines.  Depending on the map, the defenders could actually have a castle and the opposing team has to infiltrate it.  It plays out exactly how I wish Darkfall would have with an actual feeling of organized sieging.  It’s like the old Dark Age of Camelot Keep sieges in a way.  The Archers will all be up on the walls shooting out and the guys with shields will be watching the walls to attack those who climb ladders.

Other maps include opportunities for you to form shield walls or mount up with lances and joust.  It’s really a great mix of gameplay in a realistic medieval setting.   In a way, it’s like the Medieval Battlefield game I wish DICE would make.  There are bows/xbows, swords, axes, lances, maces, darts, halberds, javelins, and just about every weapon you would want.  You can block certain directions, counter, swing different directions, and really engage enemies in combat.  There is a slight learning curve though.

I don’t want to always be that guy saying “I wish we had a MMO like this”, but it’s a real shame we don’t.  Regardless, it’s solid on its own merits and definitely worth the $15 on Steam.

Check out the video that my friend made for a solid look at what the game plays like.  It definitely runs smooth and looks good too.  I highly recommend it.

Trailers in the gaming industry are the first step in building hype for a game.  Often the trailer will come out as a teaser years ahead of the actual game.  Nearly every trailer features zero actual gameplay and the vast majority are done in CGI with scenes having little or nothing to do with what playing the game will actually be like.  When I watch a trailer the first thing that I do is try and identify what they’re wanting to accomplish.  Are they showing me what the game will be like, setting up a story, introducing characters, or simply giving me some really flashy scene to watch and drool over?

Here’s where I ask myself whether or not trailers cause more harm than good.  Let’s quickly evaluate a few trailers.  Some of these are going to be from past releases and some will be for future releases.  We’ll be able to compare in hindsight as well as identify similar qualities in trailers for the unreleased games.

Warhammer Online Cinematic Trailer – It’s a beautiful trailer.  But it’s epic for the sake of being epic.  There’s nothing in here that matches what the actual game was like. Characters are behaving in ways unlike they did in-game.  You don’t have Shadow warriors running on rooftops or squig herders hopping inside their squig (this was even billed a feature for a while). This trailer got people excited.  It caused more harm than good.

Allods Online Trailer – Rendered with some CGI and some in-game engine.  Here’s a trailer that clearly defines what will be going on in-game.  You have two sides that will be battling on air ships in the astral.  While the game itself may have floundered this trailer certainly did not do it any injustice.  I played the game to the max level and even went into an airship.   The game was like the trailer.  This trailer did well by the game.

Aion “Vision” Trailer – This one starts of so well by giving players a look at how the game will ‘actually’ change.  However, it then quickly degrades into showing a bunch of stuff that looks nothing and plays nothing like Aion ever played.  There’s not even room for believability here.  It gives people this false sense of excitement for something that will never be like what’s shown.  More harm than good for sure.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Teaser Trailer – I wrote about this trailer yesterday.  Here we have a story being set up in the beginning with absolutely no expectations being put onto the gameplay.  When the character in plate armor begins fighting skeletons, there’s a believability to the combat.  I’ve seen combat look like this in Batman Arkham Asylum and God of War.  It’s CGI but I’m betting not too far off the mark from what the game will look like.  They’ve left me interested in the story, knowing there’s combat, but not set up to be disappointed.

StarCraft 2 Ghosts of the Past Trailer – Not once in the entire trailer was there ANYTHING close to gameplay.  SC is a RTS game!  However, the entire trailer is about the story.  If you played the original StarCraft and have any memory of what happened in the game then you’re already connected to the trailer because you’re connected to the story.  Blizzard has a magical ability to enchant the sense with their cinematic trailers that make the movie industry look like preschool.  They’re usually always about giving you a glimpse at the story to set up how you should be feeling as you go in to play.  If you’ve never played SC though and you go into the game thinking you’re playing something like this trailer… I really do feel bad for you.

SWTOR “Hope” Cinematic Trailer – Bioware’s trailers for Star Wars are starting to give Blizzard some real competition.  They’re absolutely gorgeous.  There’s some story being told here.  I’m familiar with a lot of the history and story being told about the wars between the Sith and the Republic.  At the same time, this starts to fall into the same problems that Warhammer’s trailer did and a little of SC2.  The SWTOR trailers are a little too epic for the sake of being epic and if you have no prior knowledge of how SWTOR plays then you’re probably in for a disappointment.  We’ll see.

I could go on for hours writing here with the number of trailers out there.   Trailers are supposed to get people excited but there’s definitely a line.  There’s a line for the people making them where they have to consider who is watching and what they’ll be expecting after.  There’s also a line for those watching to know that what you’re seeing is most likely not representative of the real thing.

Choosing whether or not trailers cause more harm than good, I would definitely conclude that they do indeed cause much more harm.  Regardless of how much responsibility is on the viewer not to get excited, it happens and it happens to me all the time.  I know it happens to you too because I’m not the only one buying the games that turn out nothing like the trailers.

Trailers are only a single ingredient in this enormous hype recipe, but they’re usually the first and they’re always one that appeals to the senses most.   I want to see more trailers that do a better job at either telling a story or providing us with more realistic expectations.

I’m really getting excited about 38 Studios’ RPG.  I was refreshing the official website all morning while it was my turn to watch the new puppy and I refreshed it the exact second the trailer came up and they changed websites.  Yeah, no life.  The trailer did not disappoint me.

It’s only a trailer but it does make two things clear. 1) There’s a story and 2) It’s going to be action packed. It goes along nicely with what they stated their game would be like in the press release two days ago.

The official site is also up with just a sprinkle of information.  The screenshots look great.  The music is also well done.   Maybe the most important thing is that they’ve clarified even more in their FAQ about how Amalur is the setting for Copernicus.  Also pay close attention to the ‘immortality’ part of the story and how it will play into explaining why players in their MMO do not die.  Pretty cool idea.

Keeping it consistent in one universe is EXACTLY what they should be doing.    They’ve accomplished something today and that’s getting me excited about a future title.  Games aren’t exciting me as much as they used to and it’s nice when one finally does.

Now I just have to stomach the fact that we’re a year away from release at the earliest.

When I returned to WoW back in April I started by rolling up a hunter from scratch on Emerald Dream.  I played through all of the content that I wanted to see and eventually got him to 80.  I maxed mining and skinning on him and earned about 6,000 gold.

When my hunter’s gear reached 5300 gearscore (a terrible addon that assigns a numerical value to your character’s ‘worth’) I semi-retired him because my guild needed a Druid.  I also had the urge to play a character that could fill multiple roles.  I quickly fell in love with the druid and reached 80 with him.

It was on my Druid that our guild reached the Lich King.   I’m up to just about 5400gs on my Druid and capable of completing all of ICC 10 on him as either heals or tanking (both specs are 5400+).  Reaching this point is almost a plateau of sorts, so it was time to create another character.

Here’s where my most recent 80 comes in.  I decided that a Paladin was a solid choice because I’ve wanted a solid melee dps, utility char, and one that could off-spec heal.  Turns out I actually love the healing as a main spec though.

Several years ago, back when Molten Core and Black Wing Lair were the top raids, my main character was a Paladin healer.  Paladin healers back at this time wore cloth armor mostly because plate armor was not itemized for healing at all.  I loved it then and it turns out I still love it.

My Paladin reached 4700gs and was able to go on our guild’s ICC 10 run last night.  Our plan was to down the first 6 since we were bringing a few new raiders as well as a few of our alts.  We shattered that plan.  We blew through the first wing in 30 minutes and went on to finish both the first and second in half hour.  We were shocked that we only had one wipe in the first two wings (on putricide).

We then went on to complete the ICC weekly which for us was the Blood Wing.  This quest wants you to finish the blood wing in 30 minutes total.  We were skeptical, but then we shattered that goal.  We went on to then beat Valithria.  10 Bosses down in about 2.5 hours.  In one night we did what usually takes two, and we did it with a new makeup.  I also walked away with several upgrades.

Healing on my Paladin was fantastic.  It actually feels very much like the healing I did in DAoC.  It’s all about timing your big heals and little heals to remain most efficient while keeping your tanks alive.  I really like this stype of healing over the group healing (WAR) and the HoT Healing style.  It’s oldschool like EQ and it’s really fun.

Our guild now plans to spend all the raid time allotted for tonight on Sindragosa and the Lich King.  We’re hoping to make big progress on Arthas and maybe even down him!

It’s a great feeling to succeed and continue succeeding and improving.  We’re very excited for Cataclysm and keeping this momentum.  We’re starting a second ICC 10 group as well as regular raids for ToC 10/25, ToGC, and hopefully Ulduar Heroic.