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Graev

PS4 vs Xbox One

June 13, 2013 by 26 Comments

PS4 Vs. Xbox One

I hate E3. Seriously, I do. People act like it’s gamer Christmas for some reason that is entirely beyond my comprehension. The entire week is a stressful mess full of whining, screaming children throwing tantrums and insults at each other over the stupidest things. Well now it does sound like Christmas.

One thing that makes me embarrassed to be a “gamer”, labels aside, would be all the bickering that goes on between fanboys on any side of the arena. I still cant understand why some people act like it is illegal or a moral sin to like more than one video game brand. The only thing I can come up with would have to be justification and reassurance for their own product of choice because that’s all they can afford to own. There’s nothing wrong with only owning one console, though, but when you have to tear other people down just to build yourself up then you have some serious issues.

But yeah, E3… Lots of news about PS4 and Xbox One. I’ve been a fan of both brands for the past several years and thought I’d share my opinion on both systems. Continue reading “PS4 vs Xbox One” »

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Graev

Thoughts on State of Decay

June 12, 2013 by 3 Comments

State of Recay Review

Zombie games are rapidly approaching levels of overexposure similar to WWII games. Of course I can still enjoy them just like I could all the old WWII shooters, but even I’m starting to feel like I want something else to shoot at. State of Decay does do some interesting things to shake up the formula, though. Well, at least from my perspective. I’ve heard people mention it’s somewhat similar to Day Z but I wouldn’t know since I’ve never tried that particular game.

In State of Decay you aren’t just looking out for yourself. Sure you can run around killing zombies and collect useful weapons and supplies but you also have to help take care of the people holed up in your home base. This means keeping them stocked with food, medicine, ammo, construction supplies, etc. The numbers tick down every day and while I’m not entirely sure what happens if you run out, I do know that it obviously can’t be a good thing. You will also need to use these resources to upgrade your base and create various objects. The tricky part is that supplies don’t respawn so after you’ve already looted all the surrounding houses and sacked the local diner you are kind of a little screwed, forcing you to move on. It kind of creates the feeling that you aren’t necessarily trying to win so much as trying to hold out as long as you can before you lose. Continue reading “Thoughts on State of Decay” »

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Keen

All Raids Should Be Flexible

June 11, 2013 by 15 Comments

wow flexible raids

Three days ago Blizzard announced a new raiding difficulty: Flexible Raids.  Flexible falls between Looking for Raid and Normal difficulty, and scales depending on the number of players you bring along. You can bring 11, 12, 13, etc., and the content will scale in difficulty.  I think flexible raiding is a wonderful idea, and I wish it would replace the entire themepark raiding system.

I know I’m probably alone where I stand on themepark MMOs and their end-game content. I think that if I can bring 12 people to a raid, and you can bring 20, that doesn’t entitle you to better loot.  Blizzard obviously agreed when they equalized all loot drops between 10 and 25 man modes.

I would love if every raid was equal difficulty: Challenging.  Why should anyone feel forced to take more people for better loot?  Why should anyone feel forced to only have 10 people they want to raid with?  No matter the size of your group of friends, I think the difficulty should scale and be flexible, but the loot should all be the same — after all, if the difficulty is equal regardless of numbers, the loot should equal the challenge and be equal for everyone.  I think the only exception is a looking for raid environment where you throw a bunch of people together who don’t know each other; this one I’m okay with being significantly easier with a lower grade of loot.  Let that be a learning tier or an ultra casual tier.

Hard modes can and should still exist.  Hard modes should provide better loot.  They are hard and should provide a challenge for groups to aspire toward.  These shouldn’t be 40-man raids, or designed to be inaccessible.  If one group can bring 14 people to a hard mode then that 14 people should be challenged just as hard as a group who with 25, and if a group of 100 wants to do a hard mode together then they should be challenged at the same level as the hard mode 10.  That is the beauty of flexible raiding.

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Graev

MMO Trailblazers

June 10, 2013 by 8 Comments

MMO TrailblazersI mentioned in an earlier post about the “guys who knew the dungeons” and how I wanted to talk about it later. Well this is it. I wanted to call them MMO Rangers, but that would probably just confuse people and make them think of the class and not the type of guy I was going for. So anyways, let’s get into it.

Do you remember back in school that one kid who seemed to know EVERYTHING game related? Of course this was all pre-internet (Or maybe not, depending on your age) so the only info we got was spread around. If you needed to know how to get to a secret world in Mario or how to perform a fatality in Mortal Kombat then this was your guy. Or maybe it was the dude at the arcade who had this seemingly arcane knowledge of everything about the game and could give you mind-blowing tips. Regardless, these sages of early gaming wisdom guided us and imparted sacred knowledge unto us and had a huge impact on our gaming lives. In reality these were the kids with the right magazine subscriptions but still… I try not to look behind the curtain.

Back in the days of early and more difficult MMOs we had similar players. These guys were digital missionaries who spread their gospel of world geography, dungeon pathways, and so on. Keen has recounted his tale about his first experience in EQ and migrating from the frigid north to the scorching deserts of Freeport. The player who took him there was one such person, whom to my recollection appeared out of the mists with out-streched hand and whispered, “Lo, let me safely guide you unto the promised land of North Ro.” Or something like that at least. I was 10-year-old kid who gnawed on wooden countertops; maybe I don’t have the best memory. Continue reading “MMO Trailblazers” »

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