Nelson Bay - Night Map

I bit the bullet and dove in head first into the Battlefield Bad Company 2 scene by pre-ordering the limited edition ($49.99) on Steam.  I’ve been playing, and loving, the Battlefield series since 1942 where I exhausted the game and all of its expansions.  From there it was BF:Vietnam (which was AWESOME), BF2+xpacs, and 2142.   I skipped Bad Company because it was console only, which didn’t sit well with me. Having to pre-order to try the game never sits well with me, but since my history with the BF series has been amazing it only took a few days of thinking about it before I realized I couldn’t miss out on the next installment.

Quick Impressions of Features

• Dedicated Servers – BOOYA!
• Destructible Environments – Great for the atmosphere/immersion and strategy, but eventually everything is destroyed.
• Gun play feels looser than MW2 but that’s the BF feel.
• Leveling and unlocking gives something to work towards.
• Maps are going to be great.

The PC Beta for Bad Company 2 is limited to one map and one mode.  The map is called Port Valdez and, like the name alludes to, it takes place on the edge of a harbor.  It’s snowy with buildings and slight terrain barriers.  The mode is called Rush and the goal is for one team to attack and the other to defend.  The attackerss have to destroy points A and B of three different sections of the map in what feels like a “push” mechanic.  The defenders have unlimited lives but the attacking side only has 100.  If the defenders can stop the attackers (by killing them 100 times) before their last 2 points are destroyed then they win.  The mode is fun and the attack/defend style lends itself nicely to the BF series.  I’m aching for some good old fashion BF though.

Laguna Presa - Jungle Map

After playing Modern Warfare 2 for so long it has become really obvious that BF and CoD feel very different.  Battlefield has almost a looser and less realistic feel to it, whereas Call of Duty is tighter and more responsive or realistic.  At first I thought that I liked CoD’s style more but the more I play BF the more I can’t decide if I really like CoD’s more of if they’re just completely different to the point of both being great in their own right.  Where MW2 feels more like staged skirmishes, Battlefield feels like a real war is going on all around me.  The destructible environments are fantastic because it all adds to the strategy and dare I say even the immersion.  The problem with the destructible environments though is that eventually the map you’re playing on is just one pile of smoldering rubble.

BFBC2 has done away with going prone.  Damn you dolphin divers!  Not being able to lay down sucks when you have a tank trying to shell you out of hiding or snipers looking for any sign of movement.   I don’t know if this was in other BF games, but ‘Hardcore’ mode is a mode that we can play in the beta where there is no minimap and several of the HUD elements are gone such as the notification medics get to revive teammates.  It takes less bullets to kill people and you need to use your iron sights/scopes.  It feels like it is somewhere between MW2’s Hardcore mode and BF’s normal mode which is actually very comfortable.

Squad play is probably one of the best BF features.  There is definitely a benefit of working with your squad and spawning on them.  Working towards to advance with ammo kits, health kits, and team tactics yields real results.  One game in particular during this beta I was working closely with my squad and we infiltrated the enemy base and took out both points.  The key was that we cleared corners, used voice chat with the whole “Clear!” “Go go go!”  “Tango 2nd story left window!” and all that cool stuff I wish happened all the time.

Overall, I really like the beta.  I can’t wait for more modes (not that Rush is bad) and more maps.  I do not regret my decision to pre-order at all.  I’ll let you know how I like the full version of the game when it comes out on March 2nd.  If any other details arise worth mentioning I’ll be sure to let you know.

Ideal: If a MT system is going to work then it must sell me items that I want to buy and not items that I feel like I have to buy.

Can such a system exist?  It just might be a paradox.  These cash shops work by giving people free to play games with a cash shop full of things they want to buy but also that they have to buy.  Worse is that the items they have to buy are consumable or temporary and will be gone quick enough that the players return to buy more because they feel compelled to continue purchasing.  Eventually the games become more expensive than a subscription model to the point of being Play to Pay.

Finding a game that uses a business model but is also worth playing because it’s a good game raises all sorts of problems.  First, why the business model instead of a subscription model?  Clearly they must feel that they can make more money with the business model.  Red flags should be going off everywhere now.  You’ll never make more than a subscription model if you can’t get people using your cash shop.  By design, cash shops require players to use them in order for them to work.

Whether it’s epic gear or mandatory consumables, the player will always be driven to the cash shop by the game in some way.  If we’re battling them purely on principle, and we stick to our guns, every business model I have ever encountered loses right here.  However, if I set the principles aside for a second (not diminishing them mind you) and look at the practical application, perhaps some form of balance might be found.

Making up a scenario (that will sound familiar) for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the most obtrusive MT a game sells is a potion.  If you buy the potion and I don’t then you’ll have a slight advantage because you will have 40% more HP.  Most people would then say this is being “forced” into using the cash shop to remain competitive.   If the cost is something like $0.05 for the item, and it’s expected that you may buy a few per day, we’re looking at two things. 1) an obtrusive cash shop but 2) Not a lot of money.  Setting aside our principles which would be screaming to be unleashed at this point, we can walk away paying less than a subscription fee.  Throw in a few more extras for yourself and you can even still pay under a subscription fee’s cost.  If players set a budget for themselves at a firm $14.99/month, is the business model workable for games that don’t blatantly cross the line?

I’m wishing that I could take a stance on this issue and say one way or another that this is workable or not.  The greater part of me is clawing at my insides to get out and scream “HERETICS! YOU SHALL ALL BURN!” at even the thought of buying anything from a cash shop.  But there’s one little part inside saying “this can work if the game is worth it…”

I guess the stance I’m taking at this point is that there are some games that defy logic.  There are business model games that should clearly be subscription model games — everything about them screams AAA subscription model with Mill+ subs, but a business model is used and one tiny little fly in the ointment is added to make people want to use the cash shop.  Do we throw out such games or do we give them some thought?  I’m truly torn.

Conceding that microtransaction models force players to use the cash shop by nature and that an ideal cash shop can never exist, is it possible that a high caliber game can come along and justify use of that cash shop as long as it remains at least somewhat reasonable?

Where once there was no room for discussion now lies a tiny crack for some rational consideration …. maybe.

I’ve been playing for the past few days and so far I’m really enjoying it. I joined the SVER faction, the others being Valor and Raven, and have raised my character to around level 18 or so.

Surprisingly there seems to be very little lag. I think I might have experienced some slight lag only a couple times, one of which being in the video I took.

Anyways, just figured I’d take a few pictures and record some footage. If I can I might write a more detailed analysis down the line.

The story in Mass Effect 2 picks up a couple of months after the events of the first game. Commander Shepard and his crew are ordered to hunt down remaining Geth when they are attacked by a mysterious race called the Collectors. In a few blasts from their ship they destroy the Normandy, killing several of its crew, including Commander Shepard himself. All of this happening in the first few minutes of the game.

Shepard is revived two years later, having been put back together and brought back to life by the organization Cerberus, led by a mysterious person known only as the Illusive Man. He brings bask Shepard and tasks him with discovering the mystery behind the Collector threat and their link to the Reapers. Thus begins the commanders mission to rally together a strong team to complete this suicide mission.

The plot has its cliche moments and a few holes here and there, but for the most part it’s pretty solid and very engaging. Several new characters are introduced that make very welcome additions to the series and more of the galaxy is opened up, letting you explore interesting new cities and locations. If you choose to import a character from the original game you will see some of the choices you made have had an impact on the universe, but for the most part these are minor, resulting in a short conversation or an in-game E-mail. It really isn’t as interesting as most people thought it would be.

The gameplay mechanics have improved a lot since Mass Effect. The gunplay feels tighter and more like a third person shooter. It no longer has that disconnected feeling that existed in the first. Character abilities also seem improved, a lot of them actually being noticeably useful. The cover system, which is similar to Gears if War, doesn’t feel as good as it could, however. Getting from cover to cover can be difficult and accidentally sticking to cover when you don’t mean to can get annoying, but it doesn’t really happen so often.

With the game shifting more over to action elements it loses some of its RPG elements. Your inventory is essentially gone. You will no longer find tons of different weapons and armor lying about. There is actually only a handful of guns in the game, none of which gave visible stats which makes it difficult when trying to figure out which gun is superior. You can buy different pieces if armor to switch around how you look and and slight bonuses, but there aren’t different sets if armor to acquire, unless you count pre-order and collector edition content. Most people find these things to be positive, claiming the inventory system in the original game was horrible. I slightly agree, but why choose to streamline a feature down to non-existence instead of just fixing it and making it better?

Several people, including myself, will be glad to hear that traversing planets in the Mako is a thing if the past. However what replaces it isn’t any better. In order to find resources in the game, which are very important for upgrades, you have to scan planets. This involves dragging a slow-moving reticule around a planet until a graph spikes, indicating the presence of a needed mineral. The task quickly grows tedious and you’ll find yourself dreading the prospect when your resources run low.

The games visuals are pretty nice. Doesn’t seem like much improvement over the first, but everything is pleasing to look at and rarely are you caught off guard by a hideous character model. Being a Bioware game it features a large amount of voice work, which is quality as usual. Unfortunately the music doesn’t seem too different. Maybe its just me, but a lot of it sounds just Like the music in its predecessor. Not that its necessarily bad, but I get kind of sick of listening to a lot of it.

As my mission ended and the credits rolled I found myself satisfied. Mass Effect 2 had been a fun and exciting trip while it lasted, which was around 42 hours for me. I’d highly recommend it.

We give Mass Effect 2 a 4 out of 5.
ME2 vastly improves upon its predecessor in most areas, but is not without its flaws.

To view our scoring system please visit our reviews page.

Dawnwarden (left) and Keen (right) posing at the end of CB4.

Update: An hour after this was published Gpotato released news announcing that beta has been extended one week until the 10th. Time to play an alt and help friends I guess. If you’re interested in playing you can just make a gpotato account and play now since they do not require a beta key anymore.

Closed Beta ends in three hours and I think all of us playing can’t wait with hopes that Open Beta (considered launch) will follow shortly.  It’s been a journey.  In fact, it’s been a magnificent journey.  I’ve been praising the game for some time now so I won’t slobber all over the details which you can find by browsing my Allods entries.  However, there’s something special I want to share with you guys to conclude my closed beta testing entries.

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to test out Astral Ships! I’ve made a lot of friends in this beta and today a couple of them surprised me with an invitation to crew a brand new Astral ship.  I met them in the hangar at Novograd where the ship was docked and the crew (my group members) were finalizing preparations for departure.  Decisions had to be made about who was going to take the helm, who would use the visor, who would monitor the scanner, who would handle repairs, and who would defend the ship.  In a few minutes jobs were handed out.  I was tasked with repairs — a job that I’ve never done (not that I’ve done any) but one I was excited about.  We departed from our hangar and warped rather quickly to the Astral.

Engines warmed up, which I could actually hear, and we began to move.  I got chills.  Someone was actually controlling this massive ship that I was on!  I watched him turn the wheel and we began to move at an angle… in real time!  There’s a bit of a learning curve.  The crew member on the visor gave him instructions on where to go and it took about 15 minutes to learn to work together and navigate the Astral, but we eventually got a little bit of a handle on it.  We saw allods in the distance and sailed by a couple of them.   We were actually sailing and working together to move this massive ship.

We eventually sailed into an area and the astral turned red.  We couldn’t tell if we ran aground on one of those astral thingies or if we had sailed into an area we shouldn’t have, but the ship started sending warnings.  The shields started draining and the adrenaline kicked in.  I ran to the basement, grabbed the goblin by the hair, and dragged him to the area that the ship indicated was damaged.  How do I use this thing?! Warnings were going off everywhere and everything was breaking and I ran as fast as I could to the next station but it was too late and we were doomed.  We blew up and were sent back to the hangar.  Repairing the ship would cost 40g and 10 hours or we could do a quest and lower it to 3 hours.

The video I’ve attached highlights my journey into the Astral for the first time and I hope it captures the feelings that I tried to portray.  This was really unlike anything I have done in a MMO before.  I’ve never been able to set sail in a vessel with team members that each had to play their own role.  I’ve never seen, in 3d, a world move around me as -I- am in control.  I’ve never experienced being apart of a crew that has to defend its own ship and fire cannons at others controlling their own ships. It’s different than something like STO or even Darkfall where you can sail ships.  The depth that this type of gameplay can add to exploration is immense.  While Allods has done an extraordinary job, I can’t help but imagine the power this could have in future games.

Who would have thought that Allods Online, a free to play game, could accomplish what so many have wanted for years?  Regardless of how the game ends up with its cash shop or whatever may happen, these accomplishments can not be diminished.  We were all a bunch of noobs and had no clue what we were doing, but the epic feeling of crewing a ship with 6 people — real people working together — was unmistakably unique and just as amazing as you could ever imagine.  Getting them at launch and sailing with a guild crew, perhaps even in an armada, is my dream right now.

Watch the Video!

This is a fine example of what NOT to do with your Cash Shop and what NOT to do with your newly released licensed IP MMO.

Know what insults me more than the nickel and diming?  Not the fact that Ferengi are only 1/3 the cost of Klingons.  Nope.  It’s that the female Ferengi are…*wince* wearing CLOTHES!    That’s a crime I tell you.

Unfortunately I wish I had resisted.  I take no pleasure in speaking poorly about this title out of respect for its namesake.  The game feels like a mediocre mod for Half-life.  The only word that can describe how it feels is ‘wonky’.  The graphics are just alright and the maps, while not terrible, were pretty uninspired for what I would expect in a Stargate game.  The sounds were pretty bad and, again, like you’d expect from a mod.   The front-end, such as the menu system and UI, and presentation of the gameare really under par and do not reflect a polished product coming to market.  There are balance issues with classes like the Ashrak and its nearly unstoppable stealth sprinting and knifing.  As a Goa’uld I walked up to a SG-1 infantry soldier and used my hand device on him.  He pops two shots on me with his pistol and I’m dead.  Not. Canon. At. All.

I do like the Stargate feel.  Deja vu.  Seeing the Jaffa and their staff weapons, the SG uniforms, the P90’s, the Goa’uld, and many other SG related things was all a real pleasure.  However, like Star Trek Online, my love for an IP is not enough to keep me playing when the game itself just isn’t up to snuff.  The sad part is that I can tell this would have made a good MMO.  Perhaps the wonky feel comes from translating a MMO to a FPS.  The scale of Stargate is not being represented in this game, or at least not in the preview.  I want big maps, vehicles, and big battles like something in BF2142 or even BF2.  The IP is capable of supporting that type of gameplay tenfold.   My advice for them is to take it further and do more with the game.

Maybe this game will earn them the money they need to continue with Stargate World.  If so, I regret that I’ll be benefiting at the expense of others but I can’t deny that part of me hopes it all works out for them and they continue with the game that should have been made instead of plan B.

What is a death penalty?  I like the word penalty for a few reasons.  It implies a negative.  Just by the definition alone, a penalty is a punishment, a required payment, a painful consequence, a disadvantage, or a handicap.  That about sums up what we know about every penalty in MMO’s, right?  LOTRO will give you dread, Darkfall you lose your stuff, EQ you lose experience and have to find your corpse if you want your stuff back, WoW you get sent back to a graveyard for a ghostly-corpse run and item damage, DAOC you lost exp but could mitigate it by returning to your gravestone, in Allods you’re debuffed and all your stats are lowered by 25% for a period of time, and so on.

Death penalties in MMO’s are needed because they add tension and they make the player think about what he is doing instead of rushing in.  As I’ve always said, no one should want to die.  Death should be feared, unwelcomed, inconvenient, and it should bring with it a sting that would make you not want to experience it again any time soon.   Without a penalty like this, death would be meaningless and it would trivialize everything in the game that has to do with death.  If you lost nothing, including time (which is the most valuable commodity that everything comes back to in a MMO), then facing a dragon would not scare you; exploring deep into unknown territory would not be as exciting; defying the odds would be less satisfying.

Finding the right penalty for each game is important.  Obviously losing your gear permanently in a game like World of Warcraft is inappropriately harsh.  Likewise, having to run back to your body in Darkfall would be equally inappropriate.  When does it cross the line?  In Allods Online, a game currently in closed beta at the time of this entry, the death penalty was changed to be harsher.  The original death penalty took the player to a waiting area called purgatory where they could wait a period of time based on their level and frequency of death.  To leave purgatory early they could bribe their way out by spending a reagent called myrrh which they could purchase from a vendor.  The new death penalty keeps the purgatory system but adds onto it a debuff that lowers stats by 25% and can stack up to 4x based on the frequency of death and lasts longer based on the level of the player (~50 min at level 40).  To remove the debuff, players can spend additional myrrh.  When all is said and done, a max level player will lose ~3.5g and be sent back to a respawn point.  To give you some sort of frame of reference to go by, I have an average of 200g on me right now at level 40, Astral Ships cost 1500 gold, and an average green item can vendor for 10-20g.

Have the developers in Allods Onlone gone too far, or is the death penalty now just right?  As someone who plays the game at max level, I hate dying now.  I don’t like losing my money and I don’t like having to pay a lot or get a debuff.  I don’t like being sent back to a respawn point.  I do not want to die and I want to avoid it at all costs.  Yet, I acknowledge that death can be overcome and does not stop the forward motion of my character’s progression.  As much as I hate it, I have to admit it accomplishes what a death penalty should.

Some people want no death penalty at all in every MMO they play and others want perma-death.  The perfect solution is somewhere between those two extremes.  Here are some of the death penalties that I think work well.  Feel free to comment with yours.

Exp Loss – Works well in a game like DAOC.  You lose exp but regain some when you get back to your gravestone (corpse) or get rez’d by a cleric.

Exp Debt – You go into debt and must work off the debt with half your experience before you start gaining exp again.  It doesn’t work well in a strictly quest-to-level game unless there is an enormous excess of quests.  Works very well in sandbox games and games with more kill-to-level systems.

Item Damage – This works hand in hand with many death penalties to boost the sting.  Repairing gear costs money.

Debuffs – Whether you work it into the lore or not, a debuff can be a way of charging people coin or making them wait and both of those things hurt.  These tend to be considered cheap death penalties if they do not cost coin or last a short period of time.

My absolute ideal death penalty works hand in hand with my skill system.  My ideal MMO is a psuedo-sandbox and has a skill system masking experience gain.  To explain it as simple as possible, you basically gain experience for what you use and then allocate that into corresponding trees.  If I use a sword I gain sword experience.  There is also another form of exp called pvp experience which can be allocated to gain points in the PvP tree.  When you die in PvE combat you take on a hefty exp debt that must be worked off.  If you die in PvP, you lose PvP experience which is allocated to unlock abilities useful in PvP but do not incur any exp debt.   The higher up you are in the PvP tree (the more exp you have) the more you lose.

I’m very curious to hear other ideas on death penalties and how you would go about implementing them.

Allods Online is a finished game full of polished content.  Logging in each day I found myself prioritizing the things that I would do because I knew I could not accomplish everything.  From the moment I logged til the moment I logged out there was always a load of activities filling my plate and at times it was even overwhelming… in a wonderful way.  Here’s the best part:  I’ve only scratched the surface!  That’s right, all of the things I did were things that we all get to do while leveling up.  At the max level there are heroic daily dungeons, world raid bosses, world PvP (yes, even with the new pvp flags it happens), and most importantly an Astral world to explore in ships that can sail a vast open world full of bosses, loot, and PvP.

The adventure is just beginning in Allods Online and I’m excited to play everything I just finished all over again.   I’m excited that my community has a polished and finished MMO to call home and I’m excited that I actually know it this time because I reached the max level instead of holding back.  Sometimes spoilers are a good thing.  If you’re looking for a guild you’re welcome to check out ours!

Below is a video with some clips of a few things and places I saw in CBT4. 

Christmas in... January?

“Version 5″, as this patch is called, rolled out on the Allods Online NA servers this afternoon and with it came many major changes to the game.  Being level 38.5, and leveling and playing with what is essentially the vanguard of beta testers, I want to comment on how these changes will affect the game.  I won’t be addressing every major change but you can view all the changes on our forums.

PvP Flagging – The new flagging system switches the game from being a “WoW PvP Server” to a “WoW PvE Server”.  If you don’t know what those are, essentially your character was vulnerable to PvP in level 23+ zones.  You used to be able to attack anyone or be attacked unless inside of a quest hub.  The new system enables a flagging system where you can opt in/out of PvP.  When your flag is on you’re vulnerable.  When your flag is off you’re safe.   However, there’s more to it.  EXP with the PvP flag on is boosted to 110% and EXP with the flag off is dropped to 90%.

Does this change the feel of the game?  YES.  Going from a completely open PvP system to a guarded one makes an enormous difference because it changes the feel of the game.  Here is where the exp boost and penalty come into play though.  I want the exp boost.  By taking the risk of having my PvP flag on I am being rewarded with 20% more experience than someone who plays it safe.  If you’re truly against being vulnerable when you don’t want to be then turn your flag off, but accept that you’re sacrificing for that safety.  This truly may be the best of both worlds and a very nice take on the flagging system.  There -will- be people flagging for the bonus and there -will- be people playing it safe.  Which side will outweigh the other… time will tell.  One comforting thing about it all though is that the Astral PvP will be open pvp regardless of your flag, and that’s where the “endgame” happens.

Death Penalty – In addition to the wait time in purgatory, you now receive a debuff that renders you basically a potato.  You’re not going to kill anything with the debuffed stats.  You now have to spend Myrrh to remove this debuff in addition to any Myrrh you spend to bribe your way out of Purgatory.  Myrrh costs gold and gets used faster than you think.  The debuff also stacks if you die back to back — up to four times.  At level 40 a single death will cost you ~3.5 gold.  That’s not exactly chump change given how much I die.  Does this ruin the game?  Not at all.  Death wasn’t bad enough and it played into the game.  People would zerg rush attackers by dying and respawning quickly.  There needed to be some sting added.

Fortune Tellers added to the Capital City

Zone Fixes – Coba Plateu has been fixed along with a few other quests and zone problems.  I have heard nothing but rejoicing after the patch from everyone when questing because more quests were added to the 30-35 areas and the quest rewards are functioning properly.

Polish and Additions – A massive wave of polish and updates to much of the game were brought about in the patch.   The capital city received a few updates, the UI received numerous updates, the chat functionality was updates, the quest system was changed, and overall the polish of the delivery in regards to much of the information was updated.  For example, my combat log is functioning much better now and my ability to track quest progress and know what I need to complete world mysteries has been improved.  There are now Fortune Tellers in the capital city that will give you hint at where you should be leveling or major things you should be doing at your level.    It’s a very clever way of helping people and making it blend into the city.  NPC’s, gear, graphics, ui, and other visual changes were added that simply improved the game further.

It’s Christmas! – Since this patch was released in Russia in December, the devs decided to leave in the Christmas event for us so that we could have fun.  Fun masks, cute quests, nice cosmetic gear, and actually some very good gear that you can get if you work your Holiday Rep up to Respected.  It’s nice to see that they’re going to support events like this in-game and give the community some attention.

There was a definite swing towards the cash shop in this patch.  I’m not going to lie and say it means nothing either.  The ever-so-slight drift scares the crap out of me.  They changed the treasure chest system to be 1 per day instead of being able to get a treasure chest from each zone thus making it more enticing to buy chests from the shop (remember, random items in them).  They improved the usefulness of stat potions (buffs you can buy from the cash shop), made “perfume” more important, and just overall made it more enticing for people to spend money.  Does any of this break the game?  No, it really doesn’t.  The perfume changes have me really wondering though, but I feel too ignorant about it to really comment one way or another.

The patch itself provides the potential to leave the game in a petter position than it was before.  The polish and additions to the game are all -good- things.  It’s simply the changes to the core of the game, such as the PvP flagging, that I want to see play out before I declare an absolute success.  I’m going to reach level 40 sometime tomorrow and I’ll bring you more of my thoughts as I experience (hopefully) the Astral ships as well as high level dungeons.