Torchlight 2 Hardcore. With the MAC version out where we can all play together, we have. Vanilla so far, but Synergies is likely just around the corner.
There have been, in the back-ass of ACT 1, deaths due to cold and Chillhoof and Mimics, but other than the sighing and loss of items, it’s really not a big deal since an hour or two later a new character is back in the game and lessons learned. Still– when you get over level 20, the stakes get higher and HIGHER.
Perusing, I found this on reddit as a response to a user asking “why should I hate Master of Orion 3” and it made me… well, read it yourself:
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it pretty much breaks down like this:
imagine that you love bacon. bear with me and suppose that you also love cheeseburgers. perhaps they are even your two favorite foods. now, imagine that you open a menu at a restaurant one day and are for the first time ever presented with the prospect of a bacon cheeseburger. in a highly elated state, you place an order for one and steel yourself against your barely manageable level of anticipation. you are quite possibly looking forward to this bacon cheeseburger more than any other meal of your life up to this point.
(i have to pick up the pace here, because the stunning accuracy of this analogy is forcing me to revisit feelings that, i swear this is true, i do not want to consider even so far as to continue describing them).
your bacon cheeseburger… takes four years to arrive. your server, however, pays you frequent visits to assure you that the burger is not only succulent and delicious, but that the chef has already finished preparing it and the only reason that it is not already in your hands being devoured is that it has been detained by the outpouring of praise and admiration being showered upon it by the kitchen and wait staff in the back of the restaurant, slowing the plate’s progress to your table.
but it’s (seemingly) ok: your bacon cheeseburger finally arrives. the wait has been nearly unbearable. in a haze of anticipation, joy and relief that threaten to impair basic cognition, you whisk the bacon cheeseburger off of your plate and take a ferocious bite-
-into an actual, physical piece of shit, -fecal matter-, sandwiched between two hamburger buns. there is no bacon. there is no cheese. it is disputable as to whether this can even legally be described as a “burger.”
a piece. of. shit.
it doesn’t matter who the fuck you are, or whatsoever, at this point, your experiences with or opinion of bacon or cheeseburgers are. there is no reason whatsoever to think that anybody, under any circumstances, would ever, EVER want this piece of shit sandwich.
THERE IS NO REASON.
in fact, the global repercussions are so disastrous that every single article of bacon or cheeseburger, in any format, cease to be prepared or sold anywhere in the world ever again. nobody will ever even approach the shame and awesome disgust associated with the bacon cheeseburger ever again.
try as you might, no matter what you eat or drink or pray to, you can never remove the shit taste from your mouth. or your soul. ever.
THAT, good sir, is what is wrong with Master of Orion 3.
it is literally Hitler.
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read the comments.
The Lord of Plagues and Fevers posted some ideas he’s had for a new core rulebook for Lamentations. I have the Grindhouse edition and not the newer hardcover (that steve has) and I’ve thought since reading and running that these rules for old school D&D are… perfect. This is the game I want my kids to start with (yes, I know Lamentations art and adventures are not for kids, but the rules are so clean and crisp that I can’t think of anything better to start off with). This is the game I want to perpetually run and play characters in because no matter the conditions– drunk, tired as shit, cranky players that don’t want to learn anything new (including me sometimes) this is IT. So, I approach new rules with natural trepidation. The thread mentions a couple things of importance that he is thinking about:
2 new classes – Witchhunter and Conquistador. First one I like, second one, not sure about the name.
ALL weapons do D8 damage but you might get to roll 2 and pick the best one for certain weapons
Increased effectiveness of shields. This might be really cool and simple. (and we know that’s how people fought anyway)
Anyway, some other stuff on the whole thread here:
My god–98 tracks of old stuff released by Aphex Twin on soundcloud. This is not just experimental stuff, many are full on awesome.
https://soundcloud.com/user48736353001/14-make-a-baby
Well well… while I had heard rumors of a Warhammer Total War (now confirmed via a leak– but we all knew it was coming anyway) I had no idea there would be a Battlefleet Gothic as well! BFG is one of those great rulesets from GW that I have never gotten to play. It was a huge influence on Epic40k (which tanked commercially, but I really like the rules) and many other games. I have a set of BFG with no ships that I bought off a buddy and I will have to make some out of paper or legos and try the rules out before the video game hits. This looks really great, but frankly, Warhammer games have been very hit or miss for me. Dawn of War was ok, not a great RTS by any means, and most similarly good but not great. Warhammer Quest on the ipad I thought would be amazing, but I just ZZZzzzz….
Here is a pic from the game. One to watch for sure.
Seminal artist and creative direction from Games Workshop (old school and new) has some recent pieces up here.
Oh boy, I had this article in my drafts folder since 2011 or so and just forgot about it, but at the time (and now) I feel I must crown the king of video games for the last decade. There were so many to choose from. I realize this is a bit… late. It goes without saying that 2000-2009 far outstripped any other decade for video game entertainment with the only genre I feel fell off the radar a bit were fighting games, and even those got some mega love with Virtua Fighter 4 and 5, Blazblue and Guilty Gear. There is no denying that Halflife 2 is certainly a highpoint in the decade’s games, I’m contrarian and liked Far Cry quite a bit better. I probably put more hours into Rome Total War or Morrowind than any other games, and both were contenders. Yet title can only go to the game that redefined an entire genre forever, a game that, for me, was a sleeper hit and came out of nowhere in the Spring of 2003 to be the dominant gaming addiction for almost an entire year and has remained on my various hard drives ever since: Warcraft 3.
Why? First, and probably least important on this list, the storyline. I’ve always felt as if the folks at Blizzard watched the new Star Wars movies with the same abject horror and revulsion as the rest of us and decided to show everyone how a good anti-hero story should unfold. And they did. The Arthas story line starts out a bit cheesy but then descends into madness and death and some fantastic character development. The overall plot is quite complex and intertwines through the campaigns for each of the factions running seamlessly through the base game and the expansion. However, I never once, even nearing the crazy climax of Frozen Throne, felt that I had lost it and had no idea what was going on (see Soul Nomad and the World Eaters for an example of a game that goes completely off the rails of understanding). The pacing, difficulty scaling and even character development is absolutely top drawer. Nothing I’ve played in the genre has come close. Starcraft 2 pales in comparison (they just can’t keep the cheese out of the space shit…)
Second, and most important: gameplay. Originally, Blizzard didn’t fuck around like they do now when it comes to gameplay, it has to be absolutely perfect for a game to go out the door and what’s more, it’s a moving target of perfection that was (and still is) constantly tweaked after the game was released. More that the jewel-like quality of the interface, Blizzard took on the huge risk of merging RPG elements with RTS in a way that actually works with forcing your characters into battle, either with creeps and especially with the enemy to get more powerful. This made the game reward the super aggressive, the antithesis of the lesser RTS games of the decade such as Age of Empires or Supreme Commander. You must attack the creeps, you must scout and you must harass your opponents as quickly as possible for any hope of winning. Two-player games typically last 15-45 minutes, another distinct contrast to the unfinishable games of Age of Empires or Rise of Nations RTS fans had been suffering with. Even big free-for-all games are quickly completed.
Third, in contrast to games of the time, Blizzard extricated turtling as an option. Player’s bases evaporate quickly under even a medium level attack and almost instantly with a large force. You can rely on your base for a place to quickly regroup and heal, but a base undefended by an army is one that will not be there for long. Again, unlike RTS games at the time that focused on players building up massive defenses and then throwing wave after wave of (un-microed) units at it until the resources ran out, Warcraft 3 totally shifted the focus onto the army itself. Typically you have only a handful of units of each type and with a low population cap you really can only have a single army with a few units here or there for scouting or harassment. This means that battles that take place are between one players main army and another players main army– guaranteeing that both players are not only fully engaged in the fight, but actively working to win the battle via micro during the entire engagement which brings us to micromanagement.
Warcraft 3 shifts the micromanagement focus away from the base/town/city and onto your army. I’ve heard arguments against the game that it was too much micro, but really it’s just a shift away from building units, defenses and towers to managing the movement, positioning and powers of a single army (with the accompanying heroes). Similar to base building (ugh) you have to know what to do and when to do it. The main difference is that with army micro, the management has to happen during the heat of a fight and takes, of course, a lot of practice to get down. Once you do, you realize that not only did Blizzard put the RPG into RTS but they put the Street Fighter into an RTS as well. Your heroes form the core of your ‘powers’ during battle and have to be used in conjunction with your army to pull off a series of moves. For example, I’m playing Night Elves vs Orcs. It’s about mid game and we have a dust up. He’s got a bunch of Grunts and catapults (the gruntapult tactic typical to orcs vs night elves) and I have some archers and elves riding wolves. I know that my meat (both archers and wolf elves) has light armor that takes HORRIBLE damage from Siege damage (that the catapults do very well) so I have to take them out first before they get too many shots. So I attack with my wolf ladies as a group, focus fire with my archers on a single Grunt, then teleport in with my arbiter next to one of the catapults and fire off a couple of powers (a ranged poison attack on a hero and an area effect attack) swallow a mana potion and then teleport back behind my line of Wolf-riding elf chicks. Then I check damage to my units and dance away any that are too hurt and risk going down, then refocus fire my archers onto another grunt and decide if I can press the attack or have to run away (usually in this case I’d run back home to heal up at the moon wells, then come right back and do the same thing). All of this happens in seconds. You have no time to think, you just do this out of practice. While Starcraft certainly has a level of micro similar to this, it’s so much about positioning and a lot less to do with what I feel is more fun: powers. We take a ton of things for granted these days with World of Warcraft and every copy cat game out there having powers that cost X mana and have Y cooldown period that weren’t around before Warcraft 3. Blizzard didn’t invent this, but for RTS, they perfected it. For me, every game of Warcraft 3, even against the AI, is intense, pushes my skills and best of all comes to the point of decision QUICKLY without a lot of waiting around. There is no more perfect gameplay in the genre.
Graphics. By modern standards Warcraft 3 still looks pretty damned awesome. What sold me on the game was a series of gifs made for the website in late 2002/early 2003 that showed each of the units posing and animating. Even at such low polygons, these models just ooze soul. I don’t know how Blizzard pulled it off as really there is nothing that can be compared to it at that time with such low polycounts (and yes, I am also amazed at Starcraft 2’s models as well). Again, after Warcraft 3 came out, everyone looked a what they had done and said OH YEAH, that’s how you do it.
Lastly, Warcraft three spawned an entirely new genre of games– the MOBA that has far exceeded it’s parent RTS in popularity. Unlike Diablo 3 or likely anything Blizzard ever puts out again, Warcraft 3 had huge modding capabilities and support and people took this and ran with it. Little did I know back in the day playing some weird little mod called DOTA that would spawn dozens of commercial games emulating it and that Valve would eventually own the original (and best) version while Blizzard tries to play catch up with their feeble ‘Disney-like kitchen soup of our licenses’ offering.
It’s sad where Blizzard chose to go after this game came out, but they are in this business to make money after all, and RTS games? Well likely they don’t make much money anymore. Warcraft 3 represents a time Blizzard was at their zenith of game development powers before the World of Warcraft made them billions of dollars. Like Keneda says: “Money fucked Star Wars, money fucked Diablo 3.” Nothing that has happened since can tarnish that Warcraft 3 is the best game of 2000-2009.
