Forbin

Yeah the servers are a bit hit and miss. I rolled on a server because my friend had picked it randomly, and I'm finding out that it's pretty dead. I've been thinking of re-rolling an alt, because the game really just isn't that focused on end-game right now anyways and I'm not really in a race to hit 50. I'm tempted to make a tank, there is a bit of a shortage of them it seems.

That was a great moment in co-op gameplay. I have seen people casually spoil it in short little videos teasing Portal 2, and I don't understand why.

Just downloaded wordfeud: aproctor

SWTOR is a late write in for me. I am digging it more, the more I play. People dismissing it as too WoW-like are failing to see that those are implicit requirements for this field. You can't just ignore certain things because Blizzard does them that way, they're things that work and are expected by the players. Also, chances are they've come from existing games before WoW, or after WoW, or from player mods that have been built into the game. The second half of that comparison is that MMOs trying to be WoW are hitting some uncanny valley of WoW simulacra. And I was really afraid that SWTOR was diving into that. It's certainly not as polished in certain areas that WoW is, but on the other hand, it's unbelievably polished in areas that WoW isn't. And it has potential that WoW cannot achieve without making major changes to their game. BioWare didn't just go down a list of things that are in WoW, and things they'd like to see in WoW. They made their own game, and cut out their own space. And really, the most important thing. Is that they delivered on the promise of story driven MMO content. I was a huge skeptic when I saw what they were going to try to do. It just seemed like they'd be spending time on something that didn't scale gracefully, and it'd either cost a ridiculous amount of money to produce or it'd be a mess. But now that I've seen the framework, I can see how they've pulled it off. The comparison of it being KOTOR 3-7 (or something like that) is fairly apt. This game has 8 unique story lines, that are different and drive the player forward and are frankly more polished than other single player RPGs I've played this year. And while some of the alien subtitled dialogue can be a chore to read, the cinematics and actual English voice acting bring the game up to a point where I actually know what I'm doing most of the time on side quests. Also, the game can look absolutely beautiful. It doesn't put it's best foot forward with the starting zones. I get the impression that they were trying to optimize the hell out of the load times for those areas. But when you get to places like Alderaan, it starts to take shape. Also, Huttball is a lot of fun.

I was feeling that way up till about level 10. But especially later, around the mid 20s, it starts feeling like a better MMO. There are little nice touches like having your inactive companions crafting while you're leveling, and them being able to use materials out of a combination of your bank and inventory just make it feel super slick. They start using cut scenes less for story, and more for visual association with the quest at hand. And there's less loading times and real massive areas. Taris is a great traditional MMO zone. It's open, and massive and the quest design reminds me of the newer WoW expansions. As for it's unique features, aside from the minor conveniences, I think the companion system is really working out. You have the traditional Bioware companion alignment system, apparently some companion quests. They make solo'ing easy and fun, as well as making incomplete instance groups possible. I've been playing with a friend of mine that's a healer, and we've been 2 manning most 4 player content. That's an unbelievably important feature, that other games can't really just adopt without major overhauls. A player with a well geared companion, can save a group when it's losing it's tank half way through an instance. Or can start early when they're having trouble filling a spot. They can run things undermanned in the hopes of getting better loot. They provide a sink so that pretty much any gear you get is considered viable, as one of your companions will use it. The crafting system is excellent. Though I wonder if there's a way to craft your own things when you choose, because if you want to dedicate some down time to power leveling, it can be a bit slow. Still, being able to send out multiple companions on gathering quests while you're actually playing the game makes up for it by far. I'm curious what the end-game content is going to look like. The combat is at it's weakest when you're spending a few minutes grinding down a boss. But that's purely an aesthetics problem, the mechanics are solid and I really enjoy the way they've implemented the cooldown timer so that you can be sure your ability will be ready on the next attack. The talent trees look well thought out as well.

Started playing yesterday. I'm alliance on Cho Mai. One thing that just feels weird about this game is the dialogue wheel. When you're not free to reload a poor decision, there's a degree of permanence to it. Which I believe has lead to them creating a bunch of trivial decisions. They do a pretty good job at making them seem important, but once you play a bit, you'll probably just find yourself mashing the light or dark side keys without paying attention to the situation. I was running an instance last night and ended up skipping all the dialogue with my party and always mashing "1". We're all experienced MMO players, so it's really a failing on Bioware's part, but it just feels like something that's in the way. Anyways, it was good enough for me to re-roll a few times because I didn't relate to my character, and once I found a good voice actor and story line it was a lot better. It does narrow the field a bit though, people who want to min-max their stats or play style may have to suffer through sequences that don't interest them. The starting areas made me a bit worried that they had gone too far in the single player direction. But once I hit level 10, got to the main hub, and saw "Jedi Spiderman" it started feeling like a proper MMO. The crafting system is cool. You can send companions away to find resources. And they also do vendor trash runs like Torchlight.

Thanks. I should say, we've also got a holiday package available for the next few weeks. Play through the tutorial before Jan 1st and you can get some extra loot and fight an xmas boss.

http://playmightymonsters.com/ So this is the game I've been working on recently. It's a monster training RPG for the iPhone. We built it using HTML and CSS3 (no canvas, pure DOM). We've had the game in a bit of a beta mode recently, soft-launching in Canada and then opening up to the world. Since it's pure HTML, it's extremely easy for us to support and release content on the fly. Fair warning. It's a freemium game, and may not be up your alley.

When we're ready to start looking for servers, there is an official forum where people post to attract players: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum/45-minecraft-survival-servers/ It'd be nice to find a pure legit world, I find playing single player doesn't have much appeal anymore.

That's got to be a GDC conf grenade doesn't it?

Portal 2 is my hands down goty. Single player was awesome, and co-op was amazingly fun. It was a good Minecraft year too, but I think I've ended up watching more of that than I have playing it. LP videos of Vech's super hostile and race for the wool maps are the best. Thumbs server was a bit empty near the end when I started playing, but still fun.

Decided to play through the main quest and the civil war quests today since people assured me that it wouldn't break the rest of the quests. Then I went to a city I'd never been to before, and everyone was talking to me as if they knew me already. It seems to be from the civil war chain that's ruined me. I'm going to have to reroll another character to play through those areas.

i've got a lot of money, was thinking of buying a house, then I did and rolledback because it was such a shithole and I had other places to sleep. What's this about house decorating?

Thanks I'll post more later.

So I've been working on an RPG for iOS for the past few months. It's all made with HTML and CSS3. We'll be releasing it in a few weeks, which means that I may get to sleep for christmas. But not for long, it's a freemium game that we'll be supporting for a while afterwards.

I wouldn't worry about losing the companion on a horse. They sometimes get stuck on geometry, but generally keep up. If you do lose them, they should eventually warp to you, but failing that the next time you zone or fast travel they'll be right there with you. Also they seem invulnerable (one guy joining me for a quest wasn't, but he wasn't a proper companion either). As for the helm, I was talking about visual variety yeah. As a warrior I don't care about sneak or magic effects. They gave me an amazing helm immediately, and I put it on my head. But if you're going to make a game with any loot whatsoever, I think it's insane to not focus on helms. Even if you're not making Diablo, you should put the variety where it matters. Chest pieces, boots and hands will never show up nearly as prominently as a helmet. Mine looks stupid, and I've seen no others with equivalent stats let alone better.

Something's really been bugging me. The first corpse I looted in this game, gave me the best helmet I've seen the entire playthrough so far. I know loot distribution in a non-linear game can be a bit hard to manage, but why do so many RPGs ignore that certain pieces of gear have much more significance than others. The helmet is the most visible piece of gear, and other than weapons it's the most important loot.

It doesn't seem to matter. I've hit a few friendlies in the swinging madness of 2h melee, and they've even gone so far as to aggro on me. But once you put away your weapons they leave you alone.

Well yeah that's the idea.

Yeah I've got to say that there's an excellent level of stability compared to all other Bethesda games. I had one sketchy moment where I zoned into a new area, it auto-saved and i hit quick save at the same time, but I feel like that was somewhat reasonable. The fact that I felt comfortable doing something like that should be an indicator of their improvements. I'm trying to debate the benefits of becoming a warewolf. I'm fairly certain that if I do, I'll end up fighting vampires. I do not want to catch vampirism.

I wonder why nobody's done dragons the way this game does. They're always portrayed as deep dark dungeon bosses, that you approach with purpose, or scripted set pieces as they attack a town. In Skyrim, you're subject to drive-by dragon attacks, and it feels like their most natural setting. I had a great moment this morning when I was attacked by some giant tiger bear thing, and then all of a sudden DRAGON! My horse ran off only to return being chased by wolves, who ate a flame breath from the dragon which caused my horse to run off again.

Who does the voice acting for the Jarl's wizard? Sounds like they left in developer placeholder voice. Really enjoying myself, but I feel like my headphones aren't the optimal audio setup. Unless they've modified the audio to make it sound like i'm really wearing a helmet.

hashed and salted. I wouldn't bother.

I feel like the Move controllers would be the hard thing to find.\ edit: http://www.copenhagengamecollective.org/unimove/