Another bites the dust

Black Prophecy, one of the few MMO games based on space fighting is about to close doors, on 26 September. Can read it here.

I haven't played it more then a couple of hours when it first came out, but i always had issues with the game with constant disconnects so i end up leaving it. And i always wanted to have one mmorpg game based on space, with space exploration, battles and trade. Mind that this game only was based on fighting, lacked content, from what I've heard.

Maybe next time...

The roads to Mist of Pandaria are open!

Today went live on euro servers the last patch for World of Warcraft, 5.0.4, which sets scene for the changes coming with the imminent expansion, Mist of Pandaria. This update makes lots of changes, notably to the talent trees which were completely removed  and replaced by a much more simple talent system (dare i say, bad?), shared achievements, pets and mounts, cross-realm zones and other improvements and/or changes.

On a personal opinion, i find the change on the talents to be quite a letdown. I really don't see it being any fun, having just a new talent choice every 15 levels... Besides that, players will only get new spells per level, no more new talents. The only thing i like, is the ability to use, otherwise specific talents, independently of what gear you want to use (example, wielding two two-handed swords as dual wield and do bladestorm).

In any case, more details about this update can be read here.

World of Warcraft promotion prices

I never posted anything about the mmorpg beast World of Warcraft, since basically I've stopped playing it for nearly 2 years now. I did played a month or two in between, but nothing to make me glue back into the game.

In any case, I'm posting something about a long time complain i had about WoW. I had some friends that for one or other reason never got into the game, because when they finally decided they wanted to give the game a go, the prior investment on the game became a tad expensive. In example, a friend of mine who wanted to try the game, around the time Wrath of the Lich King was on, but he then started doing the math about how much he needed to pay, and the initial investment for a game that was around for some years then, would be over 75 euros. That was a bit expensive considering other titles were starting to come every now and then, and for someone who wasn't sure how long he would be playing it, 75 euros or more would be a no for an investment.

Now, Blizzard came with a new promotion for all the World of Warcraft content (base game + expansion) for a total of 20 euros. Players will still have to buy the next expansion coming out next month, Mists of Pandaria, but with this all together, the game would be around 55 euros, a more reasonable price but still a tad expensive for a game that is now almost 8 years old. 

The funny thing about, is that this is only a promotion that will be available for a full week until August 27,2012. Bad idea Blizzard. You wont be getting many more new players keeping this prices... Unless you don't care about getting new players, then i would assume prices are ok...

For instance, if you look at the example set by EQ or EQ2, the game is free for players, prior the last expansion, so if players want to play the full game, they would only buy the last expansion and be done. I agree games are f2p, so something must be given but still it's an idea you could look about.

In the case of World of Warcraft, keeping the price at about 20/25 euros, without the last expansion, would probably sell a few more copies. But who am i to know anything about this?

For more info you can check it here.

Paragon system for Diablo 3

The latest "surprise" for Diablo 3 came yesterday with the new Paragon system. I was going to swear someone at Blizzard reads me, and adapted my ideas i gave on my last post about the game.

So, this Paragon system basically will add 100 more levels to the game, that players will be able to gain after reaching the normal level cap at 60. Each level will give the character the normal stats as it would when the player levels up, plus 3% magic and gold find. 

I'm expecting that this new levels to be quite hard to get, since the first level players will already be asked to get around 7.000.000 exp and the final level will require the nice amount of 322.000.000. I think, if I'm not mistaken to level from 59 to 60, it's needed around 2.400.000, so you can have an idea the amount of experience and time needed to reach the cap.

Can read more about it here.

I think this will "hide" a bit the usual boring hunt for items with some extra purpose for players. Will it bring more players to the game? Doubt it. Will it bring old players back? Some. It's not about what's wrong with Diablo 3. The thing is that there is too many games to play online, and not many players are willing to take their time to grind constantly for items.

This system is going live tomorrow, 22-08-2012, on 1.04, in Europe, along with the legendary items fix (the new legendary items seem really cool). The update is already live at US. Can read about it here.

Rift - Pay a year, get free expansion

Yep from what I've seen on the expansion site, subscribe the game for a full year and you get yourself a free copy of the expansion. Could be a nice deal for some people.

This expansion will bring additional zones, 4 new souls one for each class, and.. housing? I still don't know about this. Build your own sliver makes me think it is.

For more information about it, just go here.

SWTOR new live event up

The new world event called Grand Acquisitions Race is now live on SWTOR servers. From what I've seen of this event, it doesn't look as interesting as the first one, but time will tell.

The story about it, is that Chevin Conglomerate declared the  Grand Acquisitions Race, which is basically a treasure race/hunt. Players are invited to look for traces over 2 of the planets. The first one, Nar Shadda is shared for both faction, and the second is the home world for each side, Dromund Kaas and Coruscant.

Rewards are the usual, a pet, a mount, some appearance gear, titles and achievement and a new design weapon, bowcaster (like the weapon that Chewbacca uses).

A full detailed guide can be followed here.

Vanguard f2p comes one week earlier

Well seems SOE decided to anticipate the f2p release of Vanguard by one week, so for anyone who wants to give this title a go, it's live now! You can read about the release info here.
I think this is more of a quick peak over the game and not a full release but i will give it a look.

This trailer is quite oldie, need to get a new one:

To download the game just go to the official site here, and start downloading the client. 

I would say this is a title to try if you want harder, complex mmorpg games. And also if you have an explorer vein like me.

Diablo 3, in my opinion

I know it's not an mmorpg but it's a game that I've been playing for a while now, so i decided to give my opinion over it.

Diablo 3, been waited for players for nearly 12 years or so. This been quite an anticipated title for some time. The game is out for almost 3 months and rapidly came from one of the most anticipated games of 2012, to one of the most hated. I'm still not sure if it's Diablo 3 or SWTOR that's the most hated title at the moment, but these 2 titles been in the fingers of the mmorpg community not for the shiniest reasons. 

I'm not going to say if i agree or not with what been said about what been said of Diablo 3, just going to to try to give my own opinion about it.

Diablo 3, is latest release from Blizzard in the saga (and their latest product). The game is basically, and action RPG, where players take control of an character and fight over endless hordes of enemies, killing for gold, treasure and experience. The game isn't too focused on character developing except for the usual gearing up. There are 5 classes, Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor and Wizard.

As the player levels up, new skills will be available and besides the new skill, and besides the skills gain players can also gain runes (This is I think one of the nicest features in Diablo 3). Runes are like a small upgrade added to a given spell that will allow it to perform differently depending on a given rune. As a small example, the Witch Doctor (the necromancer sort of), has this spell Zombie Charger, that sends a zombie towards the enemy. If i place a specific rune called zombie bears, this spell turns into a quite impressive stampede of zombie bears that trash everything in their path. Any spell in game has a given set of runes and players can adapt skills to their own needs.

The game focus also heavily on gear, and it will make a big difference at Inferno difficulty where the game can be really frustrating if not properly geared. Many gear will drop but very rarely players find something that is really good for their character. So one idea was to save a good item and trade it with other players for something better for the character. Here enters the second feature of the game, that some players dislikes. 

The Auction House. Neither Diablo 1 or 2, feature anything remotely similar in the game. It was all player trading. For Diablo 3, Blizzard decided to implement this system. While personally i like to fiddle around the Auction House, i understand that many players didn't like because in order to succeed in Diablo 3, you would need to go to Auction House and get the gear. All would be fine, wasn't the fact that most good gear was insanely priced for most players, making players sometimes come to brick wall they couldn't overcome. So i think in some cases the Auction House made people  turn their noses. Oh and there is also the RMAH, which is basically the Auction House but this time with real money. You would put an item in the RMAH in trade for a certain amount of money. Again another feature some players are totally against it. To me, I can't complain.

But the biggest complain, and by far the thing that drove many players away, was the Inferno difficulty. The difficulty is just over the top and in most cases totally brainless. There were packs of mobs that would be impossible to pass to most players, which made them angry towards the game, and many would just rage quit over it. I had times back when i first reached level 60 (that's the level cap), i would rage quit because there were fights that would just be totally stupid for me as a Barbarian.

Another problem, was the lack of proper end game. Blizzard expected that item hunt would do the trick but i guess players want more then just the regular run over stomping hordes of enemies for some items that in most case weren't that good. Sometimes it's really tedious, and if I fail to get anything remotely interesting, I just log off and come back another day.

Also players complained about items, because it was really hard to get something decent. Like getting a shiny knew sword, identify it just to see that the dps (damage per second) is way too low, and that the stats aren't even remotely proper for the weapon. And that happens way too often. Oh and the legendary items (uniques) are 99% of the times really really bad.

Players complained also about the no single player version for Diablo 3. Although this doesn't affect me, i can understand that some would like to have that option.

Story wise it's ok, it's not Mass Effect or anything like that but it will do for the game. And the cutscenes, well that's Blizzard quality, probably the only thing that's reminiscent of the pre-Activision Blizzard.

I can point out what i think has gone really wrong on Diablo 3 for me. 

First off, level cap. I think it was really a bad idea from Blizzard to cap it at 60 and making everyone hitting it fairly easily. I remember back in Diablo 2, it was a nightmare to get to 99 (which i only did once in the expansion). It would give something to players to come and do besides the endless item hunt. 

Second, there is no proper end game, that makes people want to come back. Blizzard already admitted this. I think one idea would be some sort of ladder, that would track players killing of champions and elites for each giving act (since there is a level cap). The first 10 players would receive as bonus, an extra stack of naphalem valor as example (oh forgot to mention, this valor basically it's a stack of magic find that increases the chance of players getting more quality items - doesn't mean they are good, just getting more magic items). 

Finally, the difficulty although I've adapted to it, i do admit it's a bit over the edge for some players. Maybe a tweaking would be nice.

In any case i enjoy playing this game from time to time. Got myself a Barbarian and recently leveled a Witch Doctor which I'm really enjoying playing with (zombie bears ftw). I like sometimes doing a small item hunt, not that I've been much luckily but I have got some decent pieces so far. I'm not doing anything remotely different i would do on Diablo 2, except that in Diablo 2 i would do either endless runs to Pindleskin or a cow run. It's a bit more refreshing doing a complete act run and i think on this Blizzard did a good change.

In any case, i would like to see more meaningful end game, but since Blizzard keeps it's lips tight about what they will do to the game, i can't foresee any bright future for the time being. But at the moment time is playing against Diablo 3.

Vanguard: SoH coming f2p on 14 August

The official release date been announced by SOE here. The waiting for Vanguard fans is almost over. 

Some mmo players, me included, consider Vanguard to be one of the best mmorpg games out there. Shame that when it was first released it was plagued by huge amount of bugs which just drove players away. But this game offers lots of qualities, from a strong PVE game, to one of the best crafting system close to already dead Star Wars Galaxies or a huge continent to explore full of dungeons (which themselves are huge), or even housing and, i don't want to be wrong, building your own boat. 

What to expect of the f2p version for this game? Well I'm expecting something closer to Everquest or Everquest 2, where f2p players can only access some classes and/or limited gear. I do believe the game will be somewhat playable for the f2p player, but players must be aware this game is strongly based on group play, so if SOE decides to block access to gear for f2p, i suspect game play will be a bit harder then the usual. The next picture can be a bit more illustrative.

I still hope SOE would allow players to gain Station Coins points for the marketplace while playing the game, much like Turbine Points. I wouldn't expect it to be much but something minimal to keep players enticed to keep on playing. Would be interesting to be awarded Station Coins on Everquest when doing achievements. 

By the way, there will be a new Vanguard: Saga of Heroes site here.

SWTOR going f2p

The news is all over the internet. And rumors were spreading for a while now. Yesterday Bioware confirmed it. Star Wars: The Old Republic is going free-to-play this fall.

For many this is like the apocalypse for this game. For others it's the only way around it. I'm with the second group. I think people nowadays don't want to spend much playing the game, mostly because they don't want to be forced to play it all the time since they payed a month for it. Being f2p, allows a player to play whenever he sees fit without the pressure of knowing that he payed for that time. That's one way to see things. Also, either we like or not, f2p is here to stay, and most games are going this formula except, in my opinion World of Warcraft. Will it be a good option for SWTOR, though?

Looking at the SWTOR Free-to-play Matrix , i feel that this model will be somewhat like the model used on Age of Conan or even Everquest 2, where players have access to many features of the game, but the main bulk, like raiding, instancing or some pvp is blocked some way. In my opinion this is like an enlarge trial version, that the player can go from level one to the cap, but if he really wants to enjoy the game, he will have to subscribe it. But time will tell.

Also veteran SWTOR players will receive some benefits from previous subscriptions, which you can see here.

In any case, for me, this means i can enjoy a bit more of the game without worrying too much about paying a subscription each month. Allow me much more freedom of play, to play whenever i want and how i see fit.