Found this in my Evernote drafts, pretend like I posted this a week ago as I’d intended to. Obviously I need to work harder on my resolution not to publish and not over-edit or leave stuff in drafts forever.
I’ve been catching up on my news feeds today and just ran across the drama about Mass Effect 3′s day one DLC, From Ashes. After listening to Total Biscuit and reading various posts, I’m left wondering why there wasn’t the same huge deal made out of the Warden’s Keep DLC for Dragon Age. I don’t remember blogging about it, but I remember being pretty pissed off that somehow there was DLC available for a game on the same day it launches.
I’m very curious to see how this DLC integrates into Mass Effect 3, but it can’t possibly be worse than Dragon Age: Origins where you actually had a quest prompt that then redirected you to the store.
Regardless of the realities of scheduling, where developers actually have time between completing a game and when the game ship to implement new content for digital distribution, it just feels like the design of the game was scaled back and I’m not getting the complete package for my initial money paid. Logical or not, it would be better for developers to hold DLC until after the first week or two as suggested by John Walker on RPS.
For myself, I had pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition from Amazon months ago (the day it was announce actually) so I’ll be getting this DLC gratis. I ordered the Collector’s Edition because I love the series. Were I waiting for launch day to pick up a regular copy, this DLC wouldn’t have changed my mind about just getting the basic edition.
I understand that some people feel like this content will be integral to the story and so they’ll be missing out unless they pay the additional dollars. This may be true, but frankly I doubt it will be that central to things, and once I’m done with the game I don’t really think I’ll miss whether or not there was one additional character on my crew. Honestly, I’m a tiny bit glad it will be available at launch, I think I would’ve enjoyed having Kasumi along on more missions rather than just the Stolen Memories DLC.
Star Trek Online went down unexpectedly last night for a few hours. I only ran into the tail end of the outage as I was working on some Enterprise model kits, so it didn’t actually impact my playtime much, but I did realize something.
There really are a lot of people playing STO since the F2P relaunch.
Now, I pretty much already knew this because there’s been a noticeable bump in the number of ships orbiting Earth Spacedock and DS9,as well as a major increase in sector space traffic. But seeing how fast the outage thread grew last night really highlighted for me how much the playerbase has grown.
Pro-tip for the next time you decide to do some Spring cleaning on your computer like I did recently. Make sure before you spend the weekend replacing your primary hard drive and reinstalling Windows and hundreds of gigabytes of games, that you are sure that the new drive is the correct speed. I mistakenly used a 2TB drive that I’d originally intended to use in my Blacx SATA dock. That’s important because I usually get 5400 RPM drives for that purpose as they generate less heat, and the speed isn’t that necessary. Unfortunately a 5400 RPM drive is noticeably slower on a Windows install, especially when launching the Skyrim Creation Kit and loading all of the required data files.
After much cursing, some drive imaging, trying a 3TB drive that couldn’t be partitioned correctly as a bootable drive, more cursing, and then reinstalling (again) on a 1.5TB drive, everything is back to the way it should be.
If you had told me a month ago that I would be watching a game pitch video and laughing, not to mention watching it multiple times, I would’ve thought you were nuts. I have been though, and I have to say if the documentary that comes out is as entertaining as the pitch, I’ll still feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth from backing the project even if the game is awful.
I’ve been thinking more about last week’s post on Star Trek Online, F2P, and lock boxes. I’ve looted a few lock boxes since then and left them sitting in my cargo bay. I’m still not planning on spending money or dilithium on keys, but I’m not as bothered by having them show up as drops as I expected.
Judging by the number of messages I’m seeing in game announcing when someone wins a Galor, there are a lot of players spending money or dilithium on keys. I’m sure that having lock boxes as drops and keys in the store generates more sales than just having the boxes in the store. A player might not think to buy a box from the store, but if their in the game and loot a lock box then they’re more likely to purchase a key.
I’m still not a fan of the practice but there are a lot of people in game having fun with it. Besides, the more money that Cryptic and Perfect World makes, the more they can reinvest in the game. More money means more content designers creating story missions, more programmers adding features to the game engine, and more systems designers working on new game features.
At least for now, I’ve decided to pass on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
In a rare case where comments from friends are echoing official reviews, the game seems to have a pretty forgettable story. That was the part that made Reckoning a questionable purchase. Then, while watching the Destructoid video review, I heard two words that sealed it’s fate: boss fights. I had two words of my own when I head that: no thanks.
Sorry, but I immediately had Deus Ex: Human Revolution flashbacks when I heard that. Also, just to prove that there’s other games where boss fights ruin things, I’ve never finished Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising because the boss at the very end is ridiculously difficult.
I would definitely be more tempted if I didn’t have Skyrim sitting on my computer waiting for my return, not to mention the fact that Bethesda just released the Creation Kit for the game, but for now I’m going to pass. Besides, I’m sure it will show up on one of Steam’s ludicrously cheap sales.
Cryptic’s announced another round of lottery boxes for Star Trek Online. I was mildly interested in them as I was reading through the Dev Diary, until I got to the part at the end where I read you need a key from the C-store in order to open them.
Blarg.
I really don’t like this. For starters, I’m not a gambler. I don’t like going to casinos or race tracks or buying scratch offs.
Beyond the gambling aspect, I prefer to have the store ties in games as minimal as possible, since I’m a subscriber. I can develop selective blindness so I can ignore the C-store and D-store buttons on the UI, they’re much more subtle than the gold bordered boxes Turbine uses in Lord of the Rings Online. But I really don’t like the idea of getting a lockbox as a loot drop from regular play and then having to go to the store to get a key to open it. Suddenly there’s something that is coming into my inventory which is directly pushing me towards the C-store. That’s okay for non-subscribers, after all Cryptic needs to make money both to stay in business and to reinvest in the game, but not for a subscriber.
Before F2P, C-store items were always nice optional things to have, and I spent money on quite a few uniforms, bridge packs, and ships. But as far as I can remember, there was never an item or mission that I came across in the game that directed me to go make a purchase, I always had to go to the store to seek it out.
So, depending on what the market looks like, I’ll either be discarding any lockboxes I get or putting them on the Exchange (too bad there’s no way to sell them for dilithium). Despite this lockbox stuff, I’m still completely excited for the start of The 2800 Feature Episode Series 4 this weekend. It’s like Star Trek is back on television!
Uh, I just got a really awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why?
Karpyshyn hasn’t been involved with Mass Effect 3 due to his work on Star Wars: The Old Republic.
That’s from a Eurogamer article about fan outrage over the canonical errors in the most recent Mass Effect book, ironically entitled Deceived.
Now, I have the book but haven’t started it yet because I’m finishing up some other reading first, so I can’t say whether or not the book is really as bad as the Internet is claiming. I imagine and hope that it’s not and that thing’s have been a bit over blown, as is often the case. But the sinking feeling I’ve gotten isn’t because of the book, it’s because the same guy who wrote the first three books and two games, didn’t write the third game. The story has been the major driving force for me in the game, and between Karpyshyn’s absense and the change late last year to delay and include multiplayer, I’m really wondering if we’ll get a strong finish to the trilogy.
I hope so, but I’m going to start planning for disappointment. I’ll be extremely happy if I’m wrong.
