littlemute – Page 59

TL2 Hardcore Victory!

While I used the Essentials mod while pulling this off rather than vanilla, I finally got my Veteran hardcore badge for Torchlight 2. I still am only about level 34 in Elite hardcore– and I do NOT like my build very much at all. The lack of farming and the really really difficult and long fights you encounter in Elite mean it may be…ah….never before I get the elite hardcore badge.

It was a good run. I learned a lot about the berserker– I’m no expert but getting there. I used Ice with northern rage as my AOE and Raze as my 1 on 1 attack. I was doing massive amounts of damage with Northern Rage at the end there and had a power that would proc to increase casting speed by 50% or so which made Raze crazy insane.

Offense means very little in hardcore though, it’s all about the defense. Having over 600 armour and 400-500 in every resistance is an absolute must. The only way to do this efficiently is to run a shield. Always always run a shield in hardcore, regardless of your class.

That said, I lost a lot of characters pushing through to the end. Here is a list of the fatalities:

Buttdust_0 – level 32 Embermage-– died in Korari Cave (got caught in one of those bone traps and couldn’t get away).

Lipstitch – Level 8 Berserker – The Bone Gallery (oops!)

Dead Rose – Level 22 Berserker – Watchweald Temple

Poofias – Level 51 Berserker – The Broken Mines Floor 7: this one hurt emotionally since it was right near the end. I didn’t have my electric resistance high enough…

Poofias 2 – Level 22 Beserker – Watchweald Temple (again!!)

Vagisillica_0 – level 44 Berserker – Forgotten Halls floor 1. Just a bad mistake IIRC…

Vagisillica_1 – Level 44 Berserker – Blightbogs. This was on a critical hit from a champion troll. However I got overconfident and ran a pistol and sword rather than a shield. Stupid, stupid stupid.

And the final iteration of the berserker that pulled it off:

Vagisillicus 2 – the two handed sword is just for show.

1980’s

Monster Hunter for iOS

There just aren’t many good games for iOS that aren’t “free” and then try to take your cash to let you play the game. I was pretty surprised to see a port of Monster Hunter to iOS show up yesterday and grabbed it immediately. At 15$ this will set you back, but it’s worth it. The controls (I’m playing on an iphone 5) are awesome for the touch screen and the game is damn fun–it’s fighting in real time and then crafting craziness. What’s more the game has 4 player multiplayer on wifi. This is probably the closest to Dark Souls that we’ll see on iOS as well. And if you were a fan of Infinity Blade– this is just so much better.

New Mastodon video – nerd rage!!!!

Joan Cornella’

Free RPG Day : yay!

Went out to the gaming stores this morning like a true nerd and scored a 13th Age Adventure (Make your Own Luck) and one for Lamentations of the Flame Princess (Doom Cave of the Crystal Headed Children!!). Matt picked up the Dungeon Crawl Classics which looks pretty crazy. I really don’t know why this day exists, but it’s pretty damn cool.

In other D&D news, there has been a release of a pregenerated fighter character sheet for D&D5.

Some points of interest:
Looks like there is a specific set of skills that all characters have, that all characters can try to do (like Runequest or OD&D). For example, anyone can disarm a trap. Will they succeed? Likely not if they don’t have skills.

Proficiency bonus– I’m not sure what this is but it looks like a plus to EVERYTHING the character tries to do.

The character sheet looks promising especially in the bits where 3.5 sucks–skills and feats. Does it look better than 13th Age for powerful character gaming? Does it look better than Lamentations of the Flame Princess for old school style gaming? Not really sure on either counts. Definitely the 5E fighter is a lot more boring than the equavalent in 13th Age, which gives you a lot of options and various PROCs to pick from plus the one unique thing and your backgrounds (a much better way to do skills with the added punch of narrative potential) and OD&D gets down to the real deal really fast without all the mess.

Third time’s the charm

Given that the existence of the Ghanaian soccer team is to prevent the USA from advancing in the World Cup, it was amazing to see the very close victory this evening by the Yankee horde. The game looked… sloppy at best from both sides. Given Altidore’s injury, I feel the air was taken out of the USA’s offense early on, and it was all defense after that. The corner on Ghana where the second US goal was scored was beautiful but unfortunate for Ghana as that didn’t need to happen– especially when they were peppering the goal right and left during the middle of the game. Needless to say, both teams need to take it to Portugal (if possible) and then minimize their loss to Germany to advance. Ghana could still end up being the foil to USA’s chances to advance out of the group. Just you watch!

“Irrational Games was unprofitable and probably misrun”

A lot of people swung off the dicks of Bioshock and the first two thirds of the original were very good (last third was not needed) to the tune of two sequels. While I didn’t play either of the follow ups (Bioshock was not a good FPS) they were reportedly good games.

That took forever to make.
And cost more to make than they sold.

So there goes Irrational Games. Three solid games put out and a closed studio. How does that happen? Essentially it comes down to Poor project management.

I’ve been there, where a project is so fucked and my teams have been sent to die on a hill by the upper management and everyone busts ass to get the work done only to be fired a month later because the sales and management team sat around for a year on Facebook instead of bringing in new work from clients or making sure scope was reigned in so the budget wasn’t blasted to the Kuiper Belt. That looks like what happened here except in the game industry with a lot more budget dollars.

Guilty Gear XRD

From E3. This is not hand drawn. These are 3d Models. We have entered an era where the 3D 2D fighters look as good as the hand drawn ones. Just look at these guys! Some chick disgorged from the bowel of some monster and a kid that fights from a hospital bed robot. All I can say is holy shit.

Millia Rage Vs Ky.

Runequest 6 Essentials -free PDF

With D&D 5 going free in PDF form others are following suit with free PDF’s. The king of fantasy BRP (basic role playing, which powers Cthulhu and Elric) RUNEQUEST in it’s 6th version has come out with it’s own set of rules in PDF format.

This is a great set of rules that I wish I had played more when I was young enough to play a ton… (i.e. 1984) and when it was heavily supported in White Dwarf. The character creation rules may be a bit longer than normal to get going with, but the combat system is something to experience.