Friday, November 30, 2012

Sims 3 and Chester McBrock


Good sales on Sims 3 expansions this past weekend so I grabbed Showtime, Pets and World Adventurers. 

On to the Sims 3. For right now Chester McBrock is a wanna be politician.

What am I talking about? A Sim has a lifelong goal in Sims 3, a list of the ultimate pinnacle of life that they want to strive for. Based on traits you pick you can manipulate this decision. 

Originally my plan had been to create a Sim that had the aspiration to become a published author. Before that my idea was to have a professional athlete so I could see how in depth the engine got with him becoming a star and having a lot of money and getting into trouble. I decided that I did not want to go that route and would pursue it later and made my first Sim a loner that wrote well and disliked large crowds and kids.


I started with a purchased furnished house and realized soon that that took way too much money out of my pocket and I should have gone with no furnishings and Simply added to the home as I went along. The furnishings I started out with were a little lame and for the most part unnecessary. For example, in my main room I had a book case, a single seat chair, a two seat sofa, a kitchen table and two chairs. No TV, no computer and no means to write anything and actually contact the outside world. If I was going to be a shut in recluse I needed more access to the world outside digitally. My bedroom had two end tables and two lamps, way more than a single Sim needed. I started to sell off many objects to afford a computer and television and make room for a coffee table, where I would Simply eat while watching TV.

This was all well and good except that I started to fall victim to the wrong traits I had picked. About half way in it dawned on me that I could in fact take a career as a politician then I started wondering if I could actually become mayor of the town my Sim lived in. Well my traits were set up all wrong since he had been designed as an antisocial grumpy **** it would not work for him to be a super smiley schmoozer like I would need to be if I were in politics.

In fact, my Sim hated kids so much that he actually would yell at the paper boy as part of a daily tirade. This in turn would cause the would be print hurler to run screaming away from my yard in terror but still give me a good chuckle on the inside. My Sim also had the nasty habit of going off on one particular Sim at the library that always let her screaming brat run around unattended. Needless to say on the friendship scale of things they did not get along.

With my sails down my idea boat started to run adrift and soon I found myself not focused on one career path and near broke. In the span of one week my stove caught fire and burned down during a waffle making fiasco, and then I was robbed of my shower one night by a thief that broke into my house. I called the police but in typical fashion they showed up late and before I knew it I was down a stove and shower. My hygiene score was plummeting so I had to replace the shower and I needed to eat so instead of resorting to quick meals from the fridge I got a new stove.

I honestly tried to become a writer I promise. I had increased my writing skill to 4 by hitting the library and using  my computer to practice, and was at the point that new options opened up when I selected my PC. I could now start a romance novel or a action book, but I just didnt want to do it anymore. I landed a job at the capitol building as a podium scrubber and my career in politics had begun.

My Sim was not setup to be a politician though, he would have to be recreated and turned into a people pleasing mingler. So off I will go this week to set that up and hopefully get him on the right track. Right now his life is a mess. He has the physical prowess to be an athlete but has been raising his writing skill and works in politics. He is almost broke and cannot focus. Back to the drawing board for poor old Chester Brock 1.0 I am afraid. I will follow up with more later this week.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The War Z open player killing debate continues amidst bans


The controversy about what you are really getting in the War Z as opposed to what the are advertising continues. At this point I would encourage NO ONE to pre order this game based on the advertising and how they are marketing it. What you think you get is in reality a farce once in game.

Once all the team and player killers are in the game it will lose its audience fast. That being the zombie lore fans that fall for the bait and switch of this horrible so called zombie survival mmo. The game claims to be something it is not. I thought I was getting teamwork, maybe some roaming AI controlled bandits, some hunkering down in buildings, building campfires, looting etc etc. Instead we get...what amounts to a PVP game.



What happens is you log in, hit a server browser, pick a non full 40 man server. You then set about trying to play the game you think you are getting based on their advertising and instead it turns out to be an all out fragfest of players just killing one another.

Here is the advice of players that love that kind of thing:

"Dont join populated servers until you get geared up?" 

Yeah ok. Uninstall. There are entire threads of how the game is going to hell in a hand basket.

Look, I understand that there will be killing if the Zombie thing goes down in the real world yadda yadda...but what do you think happens to a VIDEO game when you allow this kind of rampant killing in a game that sells itself as a zombie "mmo"? You guessed it. This game test was the most depressing beta invite I have ever been a part of and let me tell you I have been in a LOT of them. To top it off they now want to CHARGE YOU MONEY to form "clans" or "guilds" as we older MMO players know them.

"Now, I slept on this as well, and I'm still in shock that you are charging a core component of your game, money, and basically penalizing them for the size of their clans. I believe Sergey said $1.00 would be 142 GC, someone posted for 500 slots, since it's one per character would be $350.00 US for a 100 member clan. That would mean mine would be $700.00 for 200 members. Sergey, I ask you this straight out, how can you see this as justified. How can you justify this in any manner at all, to the large clans, small clans as well, that are helping you with this game, and help continue to grow WarZ. If I get no other answer, please, pm me, email me, or something on this issue. I would really, like a Dev to answer this. If other factors are here, let us know, i.e can use in game money, etc. for slots, people want answers, why avoid issues all the time by not releasing a statement. Clans are the foundation of any game."
"even low pop servers are no go hackers are around and yet its a sitting ducks game, i just wish we could play the game properly without the fragfesting."

The thread continues on and on. The forums are full of it. Then we have this scathing post about the devs and how the game is going to make you pay to form clans and the like:

"PvP is honestly turning the game into a big joke and being quite hated by many people im about to quit because the game is crap and will be crap  This isnt even a game you cant even call this a zombie game either its getting ridiculous i mean seriously 70 in a 100% open Colorado map is pushing it and making the zombie apoc look like a joke. Dont bother until they make it what it should prospectively be which is players vs the environment. seriously is this a zombie game or just another CoD fagfest. because to me this is a CoD fagefest, i paid to play a zombie game not this shit."

Then we have this little gem of a post from a moderator that was banned for speaking his mind:

http://www.rhinocrunch.com/forum/general-discussion-of-things-and-such/82-hey-rhino-you-were-right-about-warz

"Their anti-hack is actually functional but here's the kicker..wanna know WHY their bans are TEMPORARY the first time around? 0.8% hacking? Try an EXTREMELY LARGE PORTION of the player base is hacking. If they banned everyone they'd have a mass refund issue on their hands, and no one to play their piss poor of an excuse game."

I understand its "ALPHA". Quit using that argument. Do you honestly think drastic changes will be made to this game at this point with the engine in place? AND they have the nerve to ask us to prepay and pay full price for this game to find this out (unless you snag a beta key).

"since about 3 weeks ago I figured out that their development was in such a rudimentary stage that they had to develop pretty much every non-pvp (pvp is going straight from war inc) feature AFTER alpha was opened. When I bought the game I thought they have coded everything and will gradually put them in for testing, but it appears that they don't have those content at all."

Even Sergei admitted that "the game is pretty much out there" now, which means it's not about "alpha access by devoted fans" any more, but equivalent to a public release. They indeed have been lying all along.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Facebook links for Hudson's Hideout

We have a Gaming Geeks! Facebook group and while I am not a fan of Facebook pages or groups (due to the crappy functionality I would prefer a message board anyday of the week) we do have about 50+ members in that group that post and talk about games. They can discuss any type of game of course and I sometimes like to toss out indie games and other rare ones to break up the monotony of the posts regarding a flavor of the month title like Guild Wars 2 or Call of Duty. While I would prefer to have this group as a circle on Google + you just cannot win them all. You can find the gaming geeks website here:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/gaminggeeks/


Another Facebook page was announced by a favorite wargame publisher of mine and that is the SDC Center Facebook page. This is the Scenario Design Center that features wargaming scenarios for HPS Sims and John Tiller Software wargames. You can check them out here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scenario-Design-Center/351292604967033  (Facebook)

http://www.hist-sdc.com/  (Main Site)

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Champions Online: dailies done right

Dailies do not seem like dailies if they are done in rapid succession, in a group and finished withing 10-20 minutes each.

Champions Online lets you get a lot of Questionite Ore (the new in game currency for tradeskills and purchasing certain things) by running daily ALERTS with a random group of people.

Talk to Lt. Patil in the middle of the city and he will give you your options to do. You can get Grab missions, Nemesis missions, Smash missions, and BURST missions.

Run three of each type and you get your daily done. On the ride side of the screen by the mini map the missions available to Q for are listed. You may not have 3 grabs for example right off the bat but when you finish one mission it is replaced with a random type of another. It is a rather ingenious system and rewards a ton of XP as well. Smash alerts are the best for XP as they provide an hour long XP boost as well but you better hope your group brings its "A" game because it is a DPS race to take the villain down before time expires.

Lets face it though nothing beats joining a Q and then smashing a villains face in less than 5 minutes of waiting time.


Saturday, November 24, 2012

Pausing Rift for a bit, maybe Vanguard?

The holiday season is upon us and with that we all know will come STEAM's holiday sale as well as a pile of new games for me to focus on. Besides popping into Minecraft still as well as Skyrim I want to get back into computer wargaming and maybe pick up Dominions 3.

As you can tell from this blog I have merged all my old posts from Blunt Force Gamer (the 2010 and early 2011 posts) but no pictures came with them. That gives this blog content back to 2007.

So aside from getting into Star Trek Online again and Champions Online due to my comic book addiction I may reinstall Vanguard to see what its like in a Free To Play world.

I have level capped in RIFT and now the expansion is out forcing me to go to level 60. However right now I am not feeling it. There are too many games to play. I don't feel like the 10 level grind. I don't know what it is about Rift but sometimes it just becomes so bland I want to try other games. I want to heal in Vanguard and give it a solid chance.



When Vanguard launched in 2007 it was an epic failure of huge proportions. I played it maybe one week before I could take no more.

One thing I hate about low population MMO's is the lack of grouping. I am not one that likes to "solo" in an MMO and act like its some single player game. That is the stupidest excuse for lazy in an MMO I always hear. Players that suck and can't figure out their class or how a game works like to solo. Those that don't suck group, learn, level and later raid. The key is watching a solo'er group and seeing how bad they are. There are some that are anti elitist in a lot of MMO's and may get mad at the last few sentences. I am by far not an elitist but I also hate entitled casuals that solo to level cap and then whine when they can't hack it in raids and see all the content. I hit 50 in Rift and was fully purpled up and had many raid achievements within 3 weeks and was also in a great guild. While I may pop in from time to time I want to do that again in something that has a little more UMPH. I do NOT want to return to World of Warcraft just because of the player base.

Vanguard may be one of the WORST games to do that in but who knows until you try. The end game content in Guild Wars 2 is a joke so that is pointless. I need something a little more difficult and sometimes I have considered going back to EQ1.

The only thing that scares me is I hear the F2P launch of Vanguard was a total mess and really did nothing to promote more people to stay and try the game out.

As a quote on the Vanguard forums points out: (spelling errors left in)

Im not sure what you thought would happen. The free to play login matrix is horrible,even for a soe game. Its far worse than either eq1 or eq2, two games without the massive bugs,poor performance,low population, or tainted history. They pushed forward with the ftp launch not only having fixed virtually no bugs but actually introducing tons more and with performance the worse its been in years. If they can manage to fill one server,they will have done the near impossible. 
The vast majority who tried vg prior to ftp didnt think it was worth the price of a sub, tacking on a horrible ftp matrix while increasing bugs and decreasing performance isnt a winning formula.
FTP relaunch was pretty well botched with all the lag, bad low level class changes, and bad restrictions. 
So glad Moorgard is getting things changed! :) maybe the game will get yet another shot. still needs alot of work on the lag though

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Final Fantasy 14: an MMO so bad they had to blow it up

Yes, that is right. They actually BLEW UP Final Fantasy's lame world and are re-releasing this dung heap of an MMO later this year.

They are calling it a "Realm Reborn" but what it actually is is a kick in the nuts for all the suckers that spent the 40-50 bucks on this ridiculously stupid MMO.
If this version goes south then you can wave goodbye to any and all credibility Final Fantasy XI might have bought them, and their future in the North American MMO market probably goes out the window as well.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Hey look a dragon that destroys everything! Where have we seen that before? http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/cataclysm/


Saturday, November 10, 2012

Champions Online now a real game and no longer crap

When it launched back in 2009? Champions Online was a bit of a let down. With the failure of many Cryptic titles and their buy out by Chinese MMO pay to win conglomerate Perfect World I figured that the game was about to enter the trash bin of MMO history.

I decided to check it out recently and was quite surprised to discover that not only had the game been totally overhauled it was actually BETTER than the fail launch it had suffered.

The latest update adds "vehicles" although you do not actually get IN them. Many transform you but they have added new PVE Q's that let you take on vehicle missions with up to 10 people.

There has been more as well. Of course with the closing of City of Heroes and the console garbage that is DC Universe Online this game has probably had a boost in overall play population. The server is crowded also (it uses 1 instanced server but breaks them into areas you can port to much like GW2 servers).

It is a pretty deep game now with a revamped starting system, instant Q's, talent trees, overhauled Character UI,  vehicles and more. The new alert system is pretty neat also (well new for me at least). All players go to the city after the tutorial so no more picking one of the two start zones we all got sick of. Stats are clearly highlighted and gear has gotten a major fix.

http://co.perfectworld.com/about/onalert/onalertmain

Below are some key updates:

Systems Update - We've updated the way most Statistics, Roles, and Super Stats work to improve the way statistics work together and provide for better game balance in the future. Additionally, we've re-itemized the entire game, improving the rewards available from levels 1-40, providing not only increased power, but also more meaningful rewards from both world drops and quests. 
Specializations - These new specializations allow for even greater customization for your Champions Online character - players can become even stronger than before! Unlocked at level 10, Specializations give you all you need to make an even more unique hero 
Modifications & Fusion - Our new Modifications and Fusion Systems further enhance the customizability of Champions Online. Through this new system, players will be able to modify their gear, customizing it with new modifications to provide more of the statistics they want, as well as fuse modifications together to create even more powerful mods.
Roles - We’ve renamed the roles to more accurately describe what they are intended for, as several of the previous names were similar enough in meaning that it was difficult for new players to tell which role was for tanking, for example – Sentinel, Protector, or Guardian?
The real major change for Roles, though, is that they will now affect what your Super Stats do for you. Previously, even if you were in a Support or Tanking Role, Super Stats always provided you with more damage. While more damage is nice, it isn’t really what you want out of those roles. Now, being in a DPS role will provide you with the maximum damage bonus, while Tank and Support Roles provide bonuses targeted at those Roles. The Hybrid Role provides a mix of benefits, aimed at allowing players to fulfill more than one Role, just not quite as well as someone that picks a specific Role.
In addition to the way that Roles interact with Super Stats, we made some additional tweaks to the Roles. Several of the penalties have been removed, and several of the benefits have been increased. Here are some highlights: (of course, these are all still being tweaked, so they may change) 



The War Z is a terrible game and NOT an MMO

Tried out the War Z  beta tonight WHAT A MESS of a game and a waste of time. 

This game is nothing but CounterStrike with Zombie NPC's running around. And yes I said NPC's because at no point in the game are Zombies even a threat more than some other player that just shoots you because its "funny". AVOID this title at all costs. At this point DEAD ISLAND is more of the experience the public is looking for.

Think WW2 Online meets player killers. Wander around for 20 minutes and get shot, with a 58 minute revive time. Gee thats fun. No one even focuses on Zombies or what is going on, they just hide behind trees and kill you when you wander around. If I wanted that I would play Counterstrike,

Its not an "MMO" either. Its a shooter on a survival server that is only capable of holding 40 people at a time with an in game server browser. It's not persistent and its full of team killers wandering around looting you for bags of potato chips. 

I started off having fun until I realized that other people can shoot you dead. I explored, went to a town and then while running from zombies was shot dead by another player. What the fuck? So when I died that character was locked out for 1 hour. And I had to make a new one. Rinse repeat with all 5 of your character slots and guess what? Your done for the night. 

What a waste of a concept. It is really too bad because the engine and the in game theories looked fun. However I refuse to play a game where people grief others in lieu of the setting or the real aspect of the title. Especially one that sells itself as something else when in fact it is a simple shooter little focus on the overlying theme.




Wednesday, November 7, 2012

I got some free to play coins for SWTOR

In a desperate attempt to woo me back to the joke that is Star Wars the Old Republic MMO (free to play version) I got spammed that I have gotten a bunch of stupid "tokens" for spending real money and getting burned on the game months ago. Wow awesome! Maybe I can buy another hotbar or perhaps a mini map to place on my screen. What a bargain!

The most hilarious thing? I have to subscribe to take advantage of them. Ok....?


You have earned Complimentary Cartel Coins for your prior paid subscription months! Cartel Coins are a new virtual currency coming with the launch of the Free-to-Play option this November.
Visit the Cartel Coins Ledger page to see how many Complimentary Cartel Coins you have already earned! This new web page is located in the "My Account" section of the website.
Get ready to visit the Cartel Market loaded with coins to spend this November - and turn these golden coins into valuable items such as pets, vehicles, XP boosts, and more! Remember, you must return as a Subscriber to take advantage of this golden opportunity!