5punk

There seems to be a raft of news coming out about TSW recently. My interest wanes and waxes; every time I read something I get more interested, every time I see it I get less interested. Well I just read this:

Ragnar Tornquist wrote:Don’t pretend your players are anything special: “You’re not the chosen one. You’re a cog in a wheel. You’re part of an army.”

Which sticks to the trend. I am correspondingly interested.

Otherwise known as the game that's in the way of Dreamfall Chapters.

RAGNAR STOP MAKING STUPID MMOS AND TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS TO ZOE AND APRIL GODDAMNIT.

I've been following this since 2005ish and it is definately getting a look at from me. The setting more than anything else is what appeals, but the fresh attitude from the dev team keeps me interested but like you, every time I actually see it I lose a bit of faith and everytime I read more I gain a bit.

Pass the health pots

PC Gamer have been playing it and interviewing the devs, so there's still stuff springing up on their site. I'm definitely feeling a lot more good than bad. The skill system is very interesting - I would liken it to a hugely extended talent tree system where experience counts towards each talent, rather than levels. It looks like a hybrid of WoW's talents and Eve's skills, plugged into GW's system of builds. So after a certain point, where you have achieved the optimum build you wanted, everything else you learn is versatility. If that leads to relative newbies teaming up with vets (and Tornquist has stated this is desirable), like having Tacklers in Eve, then all the better. Of course if the actual gameplay is rubbish then it will just end up another interesting case study for future MMOs to pick over (or more likely ignore and copy Warcraft)' like Warhammer Online. The piece PCG wrote on the instance sounds like they're at least trying to take things a little differently though.

Dog Pants wrote: Of course if the actual gameplay is rubbish then it will just end up another interesting case study for future MMOs to pick over (or more likely ignore and copy Warcraft)' like Warhammer Online.

Moast likely it will launch, be played then everybody will go back to Warcraft because it is what they know already and they think that they have something invested in it. Blizzard have ruined the genre with their success. FUCK YOU MORHAIME FUCK YOU!

Locations trailer; Blue Mountain. Smells like a mixture of Lovecraft (spot the Deep One) and Stephen King.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL5omig6tV0[/media]

At first I thought this was going to be about the blue mountains in Australia, but that's not a particularly eerie place.

Pre-order is open now if anyone is interested. I am, I'll have to think about whether I'm interested enough though. Game costs £40 and pre-order gives early beta access (May 11th) and a few bits and bobs like an xp boost item, in-game cosmetic item, and combat pet. The game is released on June 19th, and interestingly it looks like they might not be resetting beta characters, for better or worse. There are also 'boosters' (read: Digital Deluxe version), but I didn't even entertain those.

It's a Funcom MMO, it will not be great, and it will fade out of the zeitgeist before very long. They had one success with Anarchy Online, back when making a shitty MMO was OK because they were all really poor and broken. I don't get why they keep making them and why people still giving them chances at it.

That's the spirit!

Judging it on its own merits, it has some interesting new systems to offer. It isn't just a variation on the Ultima/Warcraft/almost every other MMO since theme. Age of Conan was a good game let down by lack of content. If they've fixed that problem then I reckon I could get a few months out of it at least and that's probably worth the money. However, if everyone decides they didn't like other games made by the publisher then yes, it will flop.

Got an email today inviting me to the beta ...

email invite wrote:Please note that The Secret War uses Facebook to power its social networking features and fuel the battle for the power to control the world. A Facebook account is required in order to participate.

kthxbye

Argh, shitpies.

Not a fan of that either.

My gut reaction is "boohiss", but it occurs to me that im not sure why. I'll tell it not to post shit on my wall, and then.... yeah, ive no idea. Why is it a bad thing again?

Because facebook is possibly evil/selling your info to advertisers?

We all have accounts anyway, worst case you could just make a burner account with bullshit info in.

I don't want to share that sort of thing with my Facebook community, which is why Battlelog is a great idea; it's separate from the rest of my social activity. I don't want the whole world seeing how much I may or may not raid, or frankly anything about how much I game.

deject wrote:I don't want the whole world seeing how much I may or may not raid, or frankly anything about how much I game.

deject wrote:I don't want the whole world seeing how much I may or may not raid, or frankly anything about how much I game.

So disable letting it post to your wall. I've got Netflix attached to my Facebook account (because it shows me in app what my Facebook friends are watching, which can sometimes be good for finding stuff to watch) and by default it posts whenever you watch anything. I set it to not do that. Problem solved.

Because facebook is possibly evil

That's just saying "They are bad because they are bad".

selling your info to advertisers

Pah, advertisers are free to have my info. Its not like the adverts go away without it, at least this way there is an increased chance of the advert being relevant to my interests.

I'm not really being convinced this isn't an illogical gut reaction so far.