Lots of arguments about the clown-looking Diablo 3 infernal armor sets, the merits of buying Deux Ex after the second one was so bad and of course, lamenting that guardian heroes was not actually out as announced, complaining already that we weren’t in the diablo 3 beta (though no one had signed up yet of course) and a lot of links to a lot of crap.
Runic announced the price for Torchlight 2 and clearly they are trying to make people to believe they are not making an A-class title (it’s an A-class title). They also additionally mentioned that this is ALL you will have to spend. That’s 5$ more than one month of WOW for probably 50 hours of play even before you delve into mods (and there will be mega mods). And the last class was announced which looks like a more standard mage-esque type chick. Looking forward to uhhh… October?
I felt it! I was testing an app and I thought the screen had wiggled but it was everything. That was my official first earthquake (that I can remember anyway) and let’s hope that’s about as strong as they come. Thankfully Bethesda is OK and the earth rim won’t effect Skyrim.
It’s a ridiculous thing to do, and makes no sense just give your money and get nothing for a month or two before the product hits the streets– at which time there is, of course, no shortage because you’re not actually buying anything physical, just some bandwidth that the seller may provide to get you the digital asssssets at the time of release. Why would anyone do this? For some crappy in game items? bollocks. If they were that great, they’d be in the game. Remember the BF2142 debacle where the special weapon models made playing the game more difficult– but once you bought them/got them they could never be turned off? All in all just a stupid thing to do, and yet people must be doing it as tons of games, especially any A-level title, is crying out for your cash before they can deliver the goods. Who would do such a thing? Only an idiot really.
And, of course, my hypocrisy knows no bounds as I just pre-purchased Rage and for all the stupid in the world pre-purchasing a digital download is–it felt good…
I’d love to say Torchlight 2 is right around the corner, but it probably isn’t. That said, most of us will not get into the diablo 3 beta, so when Torchlight 2 comes out, we are planning on running Torchlight 2 the first time multiplayer hardcore WITHOUT having played the game before.
The Rules! (this is really on the honor system)
1) No one can have played the game before.
2) If you play, you cannot play at any other time until your hardcore character bites it (i.e.: no peeking ahead).
3) If your character dies, you are free to join again with a hardcore character. (rules 1 and 2 still apply) or quit this absolutely absurd waste of time once and for all.
4) We’ll make up many more rules as we go along if things don’t seem in the spirit of playing newb hardcore!
Of course, as much of this will be documented and posted to the tubes of you as emotionally possible.
Oh and they announced the newest TL2 class; The BERZERKER.
King of Dragon Pass is one of those amazing and unique indy titles that only a small studio could have made. At it’s core it’s a strategy title where you manage a germanic-like clan through it’s trials and tribulations, try to lump some other clans into a tribe and drive that tribe into a kingdom. While it is a strategy game with resource management and area control, it’s main goodness is a story component where random events play out over the course of years based on choices made at each point that the story is presented. If you take in some refugees for instance, it could trigger certain (random) stories where some of the new women are stealing the men from your original clan group, pissing off the incumbent women and this will have to be resolved somehow, if you didn’t take the refugees, it could path out to a different set of random stories. Given there are a mess of these stories going on at once and they all path, that’s a huge tree of story goodness to experience. It’s a given that it’s never the same game twice, but what A-sharp did was create a game with that most elusive of all elements: soul. From the way battles are managed to the aging of your clan elders to the myriad of paintings and images that go along with the stories, the game just oozes out soul from every pore.
So why bring this up now as it came out in ’99 and this game has been lost in the sands of time for awhile, at least in purchasable for? It’s coming to iOS in September! While not available on the iPad (which would be ideal), it’s going to be out on the iTouch and iPhone for what looks like OS4/5.
I actually made it to the Con this year, family in tow just off a weekend+ of strep throat for me and the missus as well as my car getting totaled in a t-bone on the way to work. We were crossing our fingers up to the last minute that the one uninfected shorty in the family would stay healthy and she did: in her body at least. After 5-6 hours at Gencon, I will never be sure if she’ll be right again. As any attendee is well aware, some of the things viewed there can never, ever be unseen. There was one moment of almost-regret when, while being dragged through the morass in the dealer hall by her and her cousin, we essayed into a dank waft a malodor the likes of which neither of their young, unblanched olfactory organs had experienced before. While I winced and imagined the sort of lifestyle choices that accompanied such a reek, they just pushed on, dragging me to whatever corner of the dealer hall their fancy took them.
Saturday I was free from the burdens of unprotected sex and I while I missed the Shadowfist world championship by 23 minutes, it gave me ample time to wander around and get some demos and shop. Here are some of the results I can remember.
Ventura: new game by Fantasy Flight dealing with the Condotierre period in Italy. Interesting take on the whole ‘hexes make up the board’ mechanic that Nexus Ops, Kings and Things and Twilight Imperium use. You draw and lay the tiles nearest your own controlled area, so the board builds out form a conflicted center. All and all, an easy, fairly elegant area control game that I would have picked up immediately had the price point not been… drum roll please: 80$ ! That’s what I would expect to pay for a big box hobby game like Descent or Ikusa. While it seemed like a good game, the price point is going to crush it.
Blood Bowl League Manager: An insta-buy when it comes out, this was the belle of the ball for me. I was highly skeptical they would be able to pull this off, and they did! It’s a little deck building a bit of bluffing, some luck and the most important part: they integrated the block dice really well into the whole game mechanic. Essentially, you have a deck of your players and you play them on different games that make up a season. It’s abstracted but essentially represents you pulling out all the stops for a game with a player position for whatever effect in that game. If you have more strength than the opponent for each game, you win and get whatever benefits the game provides. This could be more player cards, some team special abilities or special coaches (or just fan factor). Whoever has the most fan factor at the end of the league wins. Looks like it can scale with players and really easy to play a short game or a really long campaign. Can’t wait to get my hands on this one. FF ran out of their 300 copies on Friday morning, or so I heard. Damn.
Rune Age: Another new one from Fantasy Flight. I half-heartedly tried to get into a demo of this but after looking over someone’s shoulder and seeing how Dominion-esque it was, I took a pass. Some will like this a lot. Unless someone says it’s not like Dominion at all, I’ll take a pass on this one.
Talisman Dragons: it was there, but after the 10 hours worth of games a few weeks back, I was just not ready to pick this up yet. Definite purchase, just later in the Fall.
Shopping. I was tentatively looking for some Dreamblade stuff and it was found only at one booth and fairly expensive. I missed last year’s con, but there was plenty around in 2009 to be had, mostly for a song. It’s a solid area-control miniatures game and with the figures super cheap, no reason not to pick up a bunch. As they ramp up in price; not so much.
AT-43 was also on my list, and I found one booth with a couple of very cheap items I needed, and another booth with a bunch that was half off retail, but still expensive for my tastes. Again in 2009 there was a ton to be had (mostly due to Fantasy Flight’s liquidation) but that well has very much dried up. AT-43 is an excellent game and I’m quite close to having a Therian and Red Block army of some size to meddle with. Along with AT-43 is the old 3.5 Confrontation stuff– amazing minatures for the most part and one booth had a bunch, but they just didn’t have anything I really needed. I may be kicking myself someday for not breaking the bank picking some of it up. The main issue is, I paint so slowly the stuff will sit in boxes for a decade before a brush hits it at all.
Warhammer: I found a booth that had TONS of bits and I will be hitting that every year that they make it. I would literally spend the whole con going through their shit. They didn’t have anything exceptionally old, but had a mess of stuff for any and all of the big box GW games (Necromunda, Blood Bowl, BFG, Man O War, etc).
Sadly, I didn’t buy a single ‘new’ game to say, like most years, “a ha! I got this at Gencon, we must play!” This is due to blood bowl league manager being sold out and Ventura– well 80$ was just too much to spend.
"I'm not sure what that smell was my childe, let's move on quick!"
Shadowfist. Though I missed the nationals Saturday morning, I did make it to the invite-only tournament for past tournament winners, which started right after the morning tournament final concluded after a 4 hour final! I was able to pull out the win after getting a tie in my first game, winning my second game after a long slough (thank you petroglyphs!) and winning in short order the three man final. In the final against ascended and architects (least that’s what I saw), I started strong and got a High Noon face off using a foundation character (thank you Yellow Senshi Chamber!) and a ring of gates out (protecting from stuff going back into my hand which my deck hates). The Ascended player laid out bull market (5 power to all players) as a response to the end of my turn, allowing me the power to lay out a site and be at play and take for my next turn. Then he announced that he had gotten all Feng Shui in his draw. Now, getting all Feng Shui at a time like that really sucks, but to announce it in the final of a tournament–it basically said to both myself and the other player that he was pretty much out of denial cards and we needed to go for the win. The Architect player to my right brought out some little stuff, but couldn’t take a site (thank you Final Brawl!) and after gaining 4 power in addition to the 5 from the Bull Market, I was able to lay out a foundation character, a Big Brusier and have a power left for a confucian stability to stop the inevitable zzzzzap (which came in the form of an Op Killdeer). Going for the win, the brusier got redirected onto a 9 body site (he’s only 8 fighting) , but my foundation character’s damage was redirected onto that 9-body site via the yellow senshi chamber, reducing it to a feastable number for the big brusier, for which the table had no answer. All in all, I got real lucky with my draws and was able to capitalize on both the bad luck of the other players as well as some mistakes on their part.
After winning this and the Wisconsin state championship this year after many years of tournaments of just barely not making it into the finals, I’m looking at a long decade or so of getting my ass handed to me in competitive play as I well deserve. Bring it!
shoedrinker got the permadeath from a pack of assholes on the last seal opening sequence before diablo shows up. it was that pack of fast demon fuckers. i got nervous and cornered and killed. see that fast pack must be avoided at all costs and drawn out into the large open area, and AND you must have your avoid skill handy, i might have been able to leap to safty but my leap skill was buried somewhere… death came pretty damn fast.
just when i was thinking i’d get my first hardcore diablo fight, FUCKED. i think the other characters i have will get a bit of the grinding before they make an attempt.video of shoedrinker going lv20-26 here.
