Blue Kae

There were two really cool Minecraft events over the weekend that I wanted to commemorate.

First was this post on Reddit:

On May 17th 2009 a little known user of the Tigsource forums made a post…

The link is to the first post by Notch about Minecraft Alpha 0.0.11a. I really enjoyed reading through the first dozen pages of the Tigsource forum post. Seeing how much people enjoyed the game way back in its primitive initial state. Looking at screenshots of the first builds and seeing how cool everyone thought they were while knowing the kinds of massive builds that people are doing now.

It’s a weird faux nostalgia. I wasn’t around at that early point in the game’s history, but their excitement about the game was the same as mine when first playing the game months later.

The second milestone was this tweet from Lydia Winters, Mojang’s Director of Fun, also known as MinecraftChick on Youtube:

Wow! Over 4 million sales. Congrats @MojangTeam. I am so proud to be part of such an awesome company! #Mojangstas4Lyfe

That’s amazing for any game, let alone an indy game, and especially for an indy game still in beta (although only for ten more days or so).

I have been tempted several times to rant a little more about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but I’ve usually been able to let it go and move on. This last bit of news has provided a bit too much temptation though.

“We knew that it would be a weakness for the game, that we had to make a compromise to deliver it [on] two levels. First, the boss fights were forced, which is not the Deus Ex experience. Second, there is no mix [of] solutions to tackle the boss fights, which is not Deus Ex either.

“We knew that before the release of the game, but there had to be some compromise. It [was] our decision.”

If you know that a part of your game is not up to par. If it is a part of the game that’s not integral. Why not cut it? Especially when it becomes a road block to finishing the game. I understand not being able to take more time, that takes money which they probably didn’t have. But surely they could’ve designed around it. Replaced the boss fights with a cut-scene or quicktime event. It couldn’t possibly have caused them more grief than the boss fights have.

One side note, since I’m venting about this anyway. I’ve read a few reviews and comments that question why it’s such a big deal, since the boss fights were such a small part of the game. The problem with that reasoning is that the fights are unskippable. So if you’re like me and get frustrated on the very first one, then you’re done. For me, DX:HR was a five hour game. Plus, if the first fight is that irritating, why would I want to try and plow through it when I know that after getting deeper into the story there’s another roadblock waiting for me, and likely several more after that.

I may be sitting around in my N7 hoodie playing with my new Normandy replica and making spaceship noises.

I am a procrastinator, I just finished Batman: Arkham Asylum last night. I’ve been meaning to finish the game for months, yet every night when I sat down to play I always ended up firing up the PC first and losing my night to a game there instead of turning on my 360.

Despite my tardiness in finishing, Arkham Asylum is an amazing game. It completely nails the feeling of being Batman. I could say it’s the best Batman game ever, but that’s hardly an achievement. Instead I’ll say that Arkham Asylum does for Batman what Spiderman 2 and Hulk: Incredible Destruction did for their respective heroes. If you’re a Batman fan, go play it. Except if you’re a Batman fan you probably already have.

So now, I can play Arkham City tonight guilt free when St. Amazon brings my present, although I’ll have to set an alarm so I don’t forget about the Adventure Company roleplaying session.

The other cool thing for me about finishing Arkham Asylum: this is the first time, as far as I can remember, that I’ve ever picked up a game I’d stopped playing and finished it.

Raptr doesn’t track it, but I have been playing quite a bit of Star Trek Online recently, it’s just all been on the Tribble server. This is where the F2P testing is being done and I’ve been working on getting a new officer up to Lieutenant Commander so I can start playing around with the Duty Officer system.

If you’re interested in the game and you haven’t been reading the Path to F2P Dev Blogs, they’re worth checking out. For the most part, they’ve not contained a lot of new information, but they have been a good way to get a feel for the new interim Executive Producer, Stephen D’Angelo. The latest one, part 5, is about to cause a drama storm on the forums. Cryptic is planning to open the C-store for testing on Thursday, and as part of that testing they’re setting up Test Points for people to use to test out some of the F2P changes. Anyone with a character on Tribble will get some free points to spend, which is standard procedure. The other way people will get Test Points, is to buy Cryptic Points. Basically, if you buy a 500 point bundle for $6.25, you also get a matching 500 point bundle for Tribble.

Stephen explains this as a way for Cryptic to get a realistic idea of how well they’re doing with pricing for F2P, since if players had an unlimited pool of free points then they would just buy everything. Since they’ll be using points they actually paid for, then they’ll value Tribble purchases just as much as Holodeck purchases.

I can see the logic in that, but I don’t think it’s worth the bad PR that’s bound to come from it. The thread is here if you want to keep tabs on the community reaction.

Today marks three years of blogging!

I have to say, I never expected to still be writing this long. I hoped I would be, but I don’t think I actually believed it. I’ve lost count of the number of abandoned writing project I’ve started over the years and despite my best intentions, a part of me didn’t expect this endeavor to be any different.

Like I did last year, I wanted to mention a few numbers (for my own reference later on if no other reason). I’ve published 309 posts and 1,724 comments (doubling last years numbers for both). My Red Dead Redemption post is still the most popular post on the site by a ridiculous margin (7,674 hits versus 1,170 for a Minecraft post) and I wish I knew why. My final hit count for 2010 was 21,939 (up from the YTD of 12,284 on last year’s anniversary), and 2011 has already busted that at 23,177.

Not bad for someone who vacillates between daily rambles to sporadic rants.

I wanted to send out a special “Thank you!” to the people who stop by regularly an leave comments: MMOGamerchick, Yeebo,  Anjin, Longasc, xXJayDuBXx,  Tesh, and Rowan. While the recognition is nice, it’s the chance to engage in conversations that I really enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

I didn’t play the originals, so the XCOM remake was disappointing but not upsetting. But now Syndicate is getting the same treatment. The marketing dross calls it a “visceral FPS experience” and I’ll agree the news gives me a visceral experience, but not in a positive way. Don’t we have enough FPS games already?

I know, I said I was giving up on the game, but Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted about a mod that allows all kinds of cheating. I don’t actually want to cheat, but the boss battles feel so out of place in the game. It really comes down to cheat past this block, or not play the game at all.

My plan is to use the debug mode to bypass the boss battles, but that’s it. I may even go as far as disabling the mod after each boss battle is over so I’m not tempted to cheat. I’m thinking of it as editing Eidos’ rough draft.

Following up on their promises from last week, Cryptic published their current F2P plans for STO today. There’s the standard feature matrix giving an overview of their F2P model and an FAW page. There’s also a new subforum to handle questions from current subscribers. There’s no mention of a date or timeframe beyond the “this year” in the initial leak.

The features list and FAQ both mention several times that the details of F2P are subject to change depending on testing and feedback. Overall though, I imagine most of what they’ve outlined will be how the change happens.

The C-store is getting an itemization and price review. The FAQ says that ship prices will not go up, but I assume that consumable prices will based on how Champions Online’s store changed. A few of the premium species will become free (Ferengi, Rigelian, Pakled, and Tellarite) and some will become earnable in-game (Liberated Borg, Joined Trill, and Federation Klingon).

Lifetime and monthly subscribers will become gold players and still have access to everything they do now. They’ll start receiving a stipend of 400 C-store points every month, as long as they continue to subscribe.

New players and former subscribers will be silver players. Silver players will have access to all content: sectors, missions, foundry missions, fleet actions, featured episode series, and special task forces. They can join fleets. There are no restrictions on Federation character career paths, and they will be able to roll a Klingon Empire character. Silver players are limited to two characters slots, will not be able to create Foundry missions, and will not qualify for Veteran Rewards. Former subscribers can keep any existing Veteran unlocks. They will have limits on their in-game chat and mail until they’ve played twenty hours total across all characters on the account or bought C-store points. This is one of the limitations that may change depending on how well it handles problems with spammers.

The initial level unlock for the Klingon faction is being changed from level six (pretty sure about that) to level 25. This means the starting level for Klingon Empire characters will be 25 and existing characters under that level will get bumped to 25 (no one will lose low-level characters). Cryptic states this is to improve the Klingon faction experience, and I assume this is a temporary change until Cryptic and Perfect World develop enough Klingon content to make it a full-fledged faction. It’s honestly not a large speed bump as it’s less than a week of effort to hit level 25, but I can imagine this being one change that the community doesn’t like.

Overall, I think Cryptic’s plan is pretty solid. Existing subscribers will see very little change except for whatever happens with C-store pricing, and free players will be able to access all of the content in the game without paying a penny. The limitations all revolve around customization and convenience items.

Personally being a lifetime subscriber, I’m happy to start accruing some free points to spend in the C-store. Were I a monthly subscriber, I’m not sure if I would drop to silver or not. Overall the only benefits to staying subscribed are the stipend and the Veteran rewards, everything else can be unlocked via purchase except the Foundry editor. It really comes down to whether or not I feel that $15 a month is worth it to support further development in the game, and that’s something I’ve always felt strongly about since I bought a lifetime subscription.

I never played the original game or the sequel, and I wasn’t following DX:HR any more closely than to be aware it was in development and planned for release this year. When it came out and was getting rave reviews from the press and more importantly from internet friends, I decided to buy it through Steam.

About five hours into the game and I’ve stalled out.

Why?

Initially, I thought it was going to love this game. With the strong story, hacking mini-games, and shooter combat, I was getting a strong Mass Effect vibe. But I switched to playing a few other games over the weekend and haven’t had any burning desire to go back. That usually means I’m done with the game. I have an awful track record for picking up games again and doing more than dabbling.

So what happened? Why did DX:HR fizzle when ME has kept me enthralled enough to play two games to completion?

Characters. ME 1 and 2 are not just the story of Sheppard. It’s the story of his crew and teammates. Were it not for Sheppard’s interactions with Tali, Miranda, Mordin, Wrex, and the rest, I don’t think I would’ve finished either game. DX:HR has none of that. Jensen is a loner with only minimal contact with others via comms and some face to face with his helicopter pilot.

I wrote the above during lunch Monday and then that night decided to give it another shot. I had apparently nearly gotten to the first boss battle in the game, which should explain why my playtime on Monday was sixteen minutes. After ten minutes of running in, skipping the cutscene (I did watch it the first time), and then getting plugged full of lead, I quit. It was not fun. It’s pretty disappointing to me to leave yet another game unfinished, but I have too many other demands on my time to play something I’m not enjoying.

Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to put a boss battle in which you fight a heavily armored maniac with an automatic rifle in a game that’s all about stealth and cover? I really, really hate it when a game switches gears like that. If the first five hours of a game are training you to play carefully and stealthily, you don’t then drop the player into a sealed room with scant cover and your enemy standing ten feet away and perfectly aware of you.

Anyway, I quit in frustration and went and played some nice relaxing Star Trek Online instead. Klingons made an excellent target for my frustration.

After getting a good night’s sleep, I was thinking about trying again and just bumping the difficulty down a notch (I’ve been playing on the middle/normal setting). But after reading Jon’s experiences with the game at howtomurdertime.com, I don’t think I’ll bother.