Slow going

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few days.  It’s finals week and I’m hard at work keeping GPA where I want it.  It’s also been slow going for gaming.  I’ve seen a few new screenshots of Star Trek Online (looks great), heard about Valve’s ‘crafting’ for TF2, watched from a distance as WoW becomes further saturated with dungeons and dungeon fatigue, continued enjoying MW2, witnessed hell freeze over — I mean friends resub to Darkfall — and last but not least kept myself involved with Allods Online which just announced an extension of CBT2 until Dec. 21.

Winter Break will be a little bit longer for me this year (thanks for the budget cutbacks California!) and that means lots more gaming.  I’m looking forward to Star Trek Online perhaps more than anything else for what it might be, not for what is probably actually will be.  I don’t wear the uniforms or go to the conventions, but you’d be hard pressed to find someone who likes Star Trek more — I even love Voyager.  I’m also waiting with excitement for Allods Online which might … might… be the first F2P mmo I ever see myself playing long term and actually *gulp* spending money on microtransactions.  We’ll see.

Alright, that’s all I have time to write tonight.  Back to the books for me!

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  • Huge fan here, I also liked Voyager 😛

    I basically learned English by watching TNG when i was a kid.

    I specially like anything that has to do with spaceship design.

    Ill be playing it for sure.

    Now i have two questions :

    1 – Where to pre-order ?? Im thinking Direct2drive for the Joined-Trill exclusive. Jadzia Dax :O

    2 – Federation or Klingon ?
    For now i say Federation and when the Romulans become playable(so i read on some STO forums) then im not stoppping till i have my very own D’deridex warbird 😛

    What about you ?

    ~Higgr

  • I will most likely try STO because I’m a bit of a Trek geek myself. Though you’d never know by looking at me.

    Anyways, the one and only thing that will make or break it for me is if I can actually EXPLORE space/planets. So far what I’ve read I won’t get my wish, but I’m still hopeful.

    I’m also looking forward to Allods. It definitely is shaping up to be a great title and might pull me away from some great single player titles I’m getting for the holidays.

  • I even like voyager 😛

    You say this like voyager was bad! Voyager was ORSM! Shame on you 😛

    Just kidding.

    Looking forward to hearing more blogs. Try and get in the OB for STO it would be good to see some keen hype.

  • I thought I was the only person who liked Voyager. I’m really looking forward to STO. I grew up on Star Trek and I’m hoping that the game will live up to at least half of my expectations. I’m just really skeptical of Cyrptic right now because of how Champions fell flat for me.

  • My guess is this blog attracts a pretty good slice of former Voyager fans. Please pass the 7 of 9, thx.

  • You really should take another look at Darkfall. If I remember right you left before the first expansion

    http://www.darkfallonline.com/expansion/0709.html

    Since the first expansion there have been a bunch more patches and a second expansion

    http://www.darkfallonline.com/expansion/1209.html

    Some highlights since you left include

    Skilling up 6x faster in PVE
    Skilling up 2x faster in PVP
    Player Housing
    Capturable villages that pay money into your clan bank
    Spell, Archery and Melee Specialisation – You can now be a unique snowflake
    Weather introduced
    New Mount
    New powerful weapons
    Random Chests, Barrels, piles of bones spawn all over filled with loot
    Fight over MASSIVE sea fortresses
    Cheaper ships/warhulks
    Sea villages
    Overhauled Siege mechanics
    Racial skills
    Badgers, Foxes, Deer, Crabs and other wildlife now randomly spawn and can be hunted as they flee from you
    Trade Routes
    Improved animations
    More quests, including stat boosting title quests
    Lots and lots and lots up graphics updates
    and a LOT more

    These are just some of the highlights. I haven’t even mentioned that loot auto sorts when you drop it in a bag, or that you can name bags, or that they massively improved PVE or increased loot from mobs loads or even that mobs can’t be bugged (most of the time) or that most hackers/exploiters have been banned. There is SOOOOOOOOO much that is at least worth taking a look at

    Did I mention they opened a US server?

  • Agreed. Darkfall is a MUCH, much better game now.
    I’m struggling in it currently. lost all of the armor, weapons and mounts we all fought so desperately for, and I’m not allowed to do anymore starter quests becaused I finished them on EU-1.

    But the general gameplay and polish is so much better.

  • @Mcface

    If you go to another of your races starter towns you can do all the quests again. Also look into doing the title quests (in your races capital)if you haven’t before. Remember a lot of the other friendly races have easy quests you could do.

    oh and you could also find the repeatable quests. I know there are Dwarf and Gnoll quests that ask you to kill as many as you can in an hour. For each kill over 10 you get extra money.

    You could also join a guild and I am sure they would help you out.

  • I will say that Darkfall looks much better and probably fixed or is well on it way to fixing many of the problems I had with it. I just can’t try it again right now. I’m too happy with what I currently have to play + what I want to try coming soon to spend money. If I didn’t have something that I was currently playing I might give it a go – that is, if I don’t have to buy the game again.

    Quite sad that it joins the ranks of MMOs that released before they were ready (even for a MMO) but managed to fix themselves a year later. They never quite recover from that first year regardless of how good they become.

  • “Quite sad that it joins the ranks of MMOs that released before they were ready (even for a MMO) but managed to fix themselves a year later. They never quite recover from that first year regardless of how good they become.”

    Ya lots of MMO developers don’t realize that when their game launches, it’s like doing an elevator pitch. You’ve got a short time to make an impression and if you blow it, it will be twice as hard to attract the attention of that person again. That’s why a polished game can make all the difference in the world right out of the gate.

  • “Quite sad that it joins the ranks of MMOs that released before they were ready (even for a MMO) but managed to fix themselves a year later. They never quite recover from that first year regardless of how good they become.”

    I am not sure I agree with you 100%

    I think you are right in terms of Themepark MMOs. When I think of a sandbox MMO I think things are different. When themepark MMOs do an expansion they adda a little to the existing world and then add a new landmass or area with all the new content (I know the next expansion for wow is a little different) I always find in a themepark MMO the expansion replaces the existing content. The Super sword of awesome is replaced by the awesome sword of super and the hardest instance gets replaced with new one.

    The old content becomes something to skip past. They speed the leveling curve to get you past all the old content and into the new stuff.

    A sandbox MMO is different. They expand the content rather than replace it. The Sea Towers don’t replace anything they add to the world. Trade Routes don’t make something else obsolete they just add more to the world.

    In WOW once I hit max level I only ever went to a few places because the rest of the world was too low level and served no purpose to me. In DF the whole world is still useful to me. The longer the game is out the more packed that world will become.

    If one day they do add new landmass you wont find everyone moving there and leaving the old content to a few alts, it will just create a bigger world, the whole of which is still useful to everyone.

    A sandbox MMO just gets bigger with time. A themepark MMO just gets longer

  • Forgot to say that as long as your having fun somewhere else thats cool. just think of DF next time your fishing about for something different.

  • I may be completely off the mark, but I think that even the most devout Darkfall fans would have preferred the game to launch in the state its in today.

    Darkfall has done far more than expand its content. Many fixes were allegedly made to remedy some of the core mechanic’s problems.

  • You currently dont have to buy the game to transfer from EU1 to NA1, so you can still transfer for free for a limited time. If I was you I would log in DF account and just transfer now…who knows maybe by the 3rd expansion you might want to try it again but wont have the free transfer option.

    You dont have to sub to the game even…just sub when you want to start playing.

  • I would definitely echo Nacho’s sentiments. The transfer is free, for now, but the window closes in a week or so. Might as well.

    Also, of course every Darkfall fan would have rather it launched in its current state. That’s actually a whole lot more insightful than you think, I think. (:P) For example, I don’t think devout WoW fans would want WoW to launch in its current state.

  • a lot is better. small scale pvp, better melee, mobs tons. But there is still the issue with master of all trades thing. It has been remedied a lot with there specializations but still needs a good amount of refining before that fixes the problem. Once that is done though it will be one of the most unique skill system in MMO gaming, maybe almost as Unique as eves.

    Thanks for writing about allod really got me to check it out. The game is solid on most fronts but the quest are really well written its almost like using then to replace my normal fantasy reading. What i was gonna write off as a wow clone has some really unique lore and zones. I even like the art style which i thought i would dread.

  • “Many fixes were allegedly made to remedy some of the core mechanic’s problems.”

    Exactly! There is a huge difference between talking about a game’s content and its core mechanics. You can continually be adding content till you are blue in the face but it won’t matter one bit if the core mechanics are flawed. It doesn’t matter if the game is a Theme Park MMO or a Sandbox MMO. The core mechanics of an MMO can make or break it.

  • yu h8in on wow? lul?

    seriously though, the new insta-dungeon tool is the best thing that happened to wow since the battlegrounds came out and ruined countless dungeon runs with the all-too classic comment “omg! AV just popped, u guyze haev to find another tnak! k? lol. kks? bi”.