Tag Archives: Blizzard

Lord British is back!

  March 12, 2013 - 11:37 am | Game Development, Game Previews, Retro, RPG
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I cannot tell you how excited I am about the news I received this morning! The person who probably shaped most of my childhood, the creator of worlds, the epitome of all that is great in RPG, has decided to grace us with a new game. Richard Garriot, creator of the greatest and longest-running RPG series in the history of computer gaming, has launched a Kickstarter project for his upcoming game (Hopefully October 2014) – Shroud of the Avatar, Forsaken Virtues.

As you can see from the early preview above, and from reading the Kickstarter project details, great stuff are coming our way. A true RPG’er wants to immerse himself in the game, not just hack away to fill an experience bar, and I think that from the meagre details available at the moment, they are doing a good job of it. I especially like the trade, crafting and housing system that they are planning, as well as the fact that it’s NOT BLOODY ONLINE DEPENDENT! If you want to play single-player, you can without a connection. If you want to be able to play this game again in twenty years, you don’t have to worry if the servers are still running. Hey Blizzard, EA and all you other money-grabbing bastards – take note.

The game seems to expand upon the ideals of the Avatar, the protagonist of the Ultima series, and Ultima and I share a long history. My first meeting with the Ultima series was actually a book, more specifically a novelized walkthrough called The Avatar Adventures. A friend of mine had the book at school when I was about 10. I read it voraciously in my lunch breaks and was then overjoyed when it turned out that my neighbor had Ultima IV on his PC. I then spent the next few months firmly robbing said neighbor of the use of said PC. Then, much later, when I finally had a PC of my own with an actual graphics card (a monstrous EGA card), I was lucky enough to find the complete Ultima collection at a second-hand store – a collection I still own today, which sits proudly on my shelf of all things gaming.

Anyway, go check out the Kickstarter, give Lord British and his cohorts your money, and help shape what is sure to become a classic!

Diablo 3: Real money auction house.

  June 17, 2012 - 12:57 pm | Diablo 3, Musings, Rants
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So the European real money auction house got launched yesterday. I was initially quite excited at the prospect of being able to trade items for some extra cash, and then being able to buy others for the same.
Unfortunately the auction house seems quite crippled by a few problems at the moment, one that seriously needs to be addressed before the new auction house van become effective.
The main point is the cost involved. At the moment there is a €1 “transaction fee” on all auctions. Combine this with a 15% fee for paypal transactions and you end up with the most basic items having ridiculous prices. Midlevel or medium-specced items HAVE to be priced at at least €2-5, and good items seem to be flooding the market at €40-50.
Now don’t get me wrong, but €50 for ONE item in a game that cost a fifth of that price is a bit ridiculous.
The mere fact that Blizzard imposed that €1 minimum removes the opportunity for 99c specials, a pricepoint that most people will still happily click buy without blinking. Suddenly you really have to think about whether you really need that item or should just grind the few million gold it would cost in the normal AH.
And for sellers it’s the same problem – how do you sell your stuff at a price that will sell and still make a few cents on it?
Does Blizzard really need that extra source of income? Does it cost that much to host the AH? If there were a smaller transaction fee, perhaps a percentage or a few cents, then the sales would go up. More successful transactions would mean more revenue for them, more revenue for the sellers, and more incentive for the buyers to actually spend time on the AH looking for bargains.
Which begs the question – have any of you actually either bought or successfully sold anything on the real money auction house yet? Do you plan on buying anything? With the already dwindling player-base, can you justify spending small fortunes on virtual items? The current model may work for the very best of items, but surely not for your average yellows or midlevel legendaries…

Adventures in Nethack

  November 7, 2011 - 3:43 pm | Bored!, Retro, RPG, Wall of Text
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Basically I’ve gone utterly off 90% of the games that I own, and pretty much not looking forward to anything that’s on the shelves or coming out in the near future. The only thing that gives me a glimmer of hope at this point is Diablo 3, and that’s been set back by another few months again.

So I’ve returned to an old nightmare – Nethack. It’s one of those games that looks utterly simple on the surface yet has so many ways to kill you, so many different items, so many different ways to play that no two games ever pan out the same. I have to admit that I’ve not ever been any good at it. I’ve never ascended, I’ve never seen the Amulet of Yendor. I’ve never even gotten past the Oracle or Dwarf Town. This time is going to be different – and here’s my story:

I started off as a Chaotic Human Barbarian. I figured this would give me the biggest chance of survival. Things were pretty standard at first, with me only finding a Lawful altar and a fountain on level 2. Much to my surprise though, quaffing from the fountain gave me a Djinn, a friendly one at that. One wish later and I had a greased silver Dragon Scale Armor, albeit only +0. This would be my fighting chance! Bravely I ventured forth, clearing level 3 with ease. Sadly my wand of detect hidden doors failed to find the entrance to the Dwarf Mines, but I did manage to find a hidden vault. I let the guard escort me out, but I took note of it for the future. As soon as I find a pickaxe that gold is mine! Considering my axe is corroded, the gold will come in handy when the shop finishes taking inventory.

I descended to level 4, where a swarm of Hill Orcs made quick work of my kitten. With no time to mourn, I retreated to a tunnel and tried to take them one at a time. One of the Hill Orcs happened to have a wand of digging though, wreaking havoc on the room I had entered from. I dispatched of the Orcs (finding a cloak of invisibility in the process) and continued exploring – just to find the ghost of a previous adventurer – more specifically the highest level adventurer I’ve had. I kicked that ghost till he begged for mercy. Now I’m sitting with all his inventory, and boy was he a hoarder. Now to carry everything back up to level 2 to check for cursed items and then equip myself further, and give my hitpoints a time to regenerate.

Part 2 to follow!

In other news: My WoW account that’s been dormant for almost a year got hacked… No idea how – I’ve ignored every email from Blizzard or the hackers pretending to be Blizzard, I didn’t even have WoW on a hard drive that was plugged into my machine. Anyway, got notified about it on Facebook, quickly changed my RealID password, downloaded the MASSIVE patches and logged in. Damage wasn’t too bad, I didn’t have much to start with. The bot did leave me with a ton of ore and much more gold than what I started with, and a 30 day timecard loaded so I didn’t bother reporting it. Right after this, Blizzard sends me a “Hey, we’ve missed you, here’s 7 days free playtime” email, which turned out to be legit.

This was last week. How much have I played? A total of 7 minutes. Yup, the drug has worn off, it’s out of my system. I’m no longer driven by the WoWmachine.