Monthly Archives: October 2013

NYCC 2013: Day 3 – Come out and play!

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot), OnRPG Journalist

 

Day 3 of NYCC has cometh, and the participation levels were at a high pitch. Today, the convention center was PACKED with guests and cosplayers from all over. It was quite a sight, as the more serious cosplayers came to play. One old favorite that I recognized from last year’s NYCC includes the Scorpion cosplayer from Mortal Kombat.

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(Same picture from last year, but his look is just the same and just as awesome for this year.)

Me and my brother didn’t have any scheduled meetings today, so I was free to spend the day however I wanted. First things first, we sought out the Empire Theater, as they were showcasing never before seen footage for “The Legend of Korra”, the animated series on Nickelodeon.  Sure, the show may be aimed towards kids, but the animation and action is top-notch.

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As a little factoid, the animation was done by “Studio Mir” from South Korea.  They’re also freelancers that have done work on several shows and projects, including many action scenes for “The Boondocks” on Adult Swim, and more recently “The Road to the Cup” promo for the League of Legends Season 3 World Championship.

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When I finally arrived at the empire theater, the place was packed!  From where I was standing, the theater was already full, and yet there was still a huge line at the end of it. Many people, including myself, had to shuffle and skip through the lines just to get a peek at the presentation. Luckily enough, some of the security staff allowed people to watch the presentation from the waiting line. From there, I was able to watch an early screening of the origin story for the series, featuring Avatar Wan.

Several voice actors for the show made an appearance at the presentation, but I had to cut out before the Q&A session started.

Next up, I browsed around for any games that were worth playing. Capcom had yet another presence at NYCC this year, featuring a playable demo of their new “Strider (2013)” game.

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I was able to get on line and start playing within a couple of minutes, since the public’s attention for the game wasn’t all that high. The overall pacing of Strider 2013 seemed to be faster than the original Strider 1, but slower than Strider 2. The movement and dashing abilities were all in tack, and they even threw in some new moves including throw-able kunai and a launcher attack to set enemies up for air combos. One thing I did dislike about the game was how close the camera was focused on Hiryu, which made it hard to deal with incoming enemies. After a quick 10 minute play session, I got a good feel for what Double Helix was trying to achieve with the game. Despite the dirty track record that Double Helix has, it could easily be a worthy addition to the series.

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Next up was the Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate booth, where fans of the game could meet up with other fans to group up and participate in a few hunts. There were also a few kiosks set up for people to demo the game. I tried out the WII U version, and was able to get my hands on a Wii U control for the very first time. Since I already had experience playing previous Monster Hunter games, I was able to get the hang of gameplay pretty quickly, but I still needed to adjust to how wide the controller was.

While I was hunting, two fans were watching me play, and we got into an interesting discussion over the series, mainly regarding the PC versions of Monster Hunter Frontier and Monster Hunter Online. Apparently, they’ve been looking forward to a PC version of Monster Hunter for years, and they would kill to see either one get released in the West. Good to know that I’m not the only one that would drop every other online game ever just to play it!

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QUIT HOLDING OUT ON YOUR FANS, CAPCOM. RELEASE IT IN THE WEST, ALREADY.

Next up was a trip back to the Intel Extreme booth, where they were demoing the incredible Oculus Rift headset. The demo available for the headset was an F1 racing simulator where guests would ride shotgun in a moving F1 race car. I was only looking to try out the Oculus Rift out for a few minutes, but once I put it on, I was instantly blown away by the device. The headset really covers every bit of your field of vision, and with the inclusion of head tracking, it really felt like I was in the car. When I finally took the headset off, I took a look at my watch and realized that it was 30 minutes since I tried the demo out. Oculus Rift is a device that really lives up to expectations, and I can’t wait for the consumer version to be released, so I can finally say “Good bye, reality!”

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Other than that, today was a rather slow day. I searched around for any other booths related to PC or F2P gaming, but came up empty.

Sunday is also looking to be a pretty slow day, and will also be the shortest. I’ll be giving up a re-cap of my experience at NYCC 2013, as well as posting a gallery of my favorite cosplays. Stay tuned.

Guild Wars 2 – Train to Nowhere

By Jonathan Doyle (Ardua)

There is a hush across the land. All you can hear is the low noise of the wind in these northern climes and the gentle sound of settling snow.

Closer to the shore there is the lap of frigid waves and the crystalline shock of ice splitting. All around you there is peace.

Kodan, having arrived on their mighty ships fashioned from ice, are finding the time to settle down. Brave, tall, bearlike people, they can work on carving out a sanctuary in this stillness. Finally the air, though the light still distorts through dragon ice, the air is like their own spirits. Strong, silent, ever present.

In the water around the Frostgorge Sound, Quaggan also finally know peace. No longer are they faced with frozen and twisted remains of their own corrupted brethren or warped fish. No longer do they panic and fret their little roly poly lives away. There is as much peace below the waves as there is above. A quiet blankets the land and nothing disturbs it any more.

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Across the world of Tyria there is a land that could not be more different. The green rolling hills of Queensdale are warm and inviting. Where Frostgorge sports mountains of snow and ice, Queensdale displays mounds with rolling paths and trees. Where the northern Shiverpeaks are frozen, this jewel of Kryta is warm.

 

Where there is silence now in Frostgorge, a final seeming victory of peace and righteousness over Jormag, here there are shouts and exclamations.

“Is there a train?”

“No noob, Boar then spider”

“Troll up?”

 

These shouts echo over the land, crossing the full span of a map of Queensdale. Where once the villages had to fear the presence of champions, now all they must do is wait. Frostgorge has fallen silent but Queensdale roars with battle. Not indiscriminate slaughter, nor unfocused mayhem. This is the roar of industry, of what is lovingly called a train.

Like the finest Charr clockwork, heroes will descend upon these toughest foes of the land. A blurred mass of spells and weapons reduce even the hardiest champion spider or giant boar to a corpse in moments. On and on they circle through the land, never resting, never pausing, always rushing onwards.

The silence of Frostgorge and the noise of Queensdale lay at the feet of Arenanet. This is the price of progress.

 

 GW2Train2

All Aboard.

Florid prose aside, both stories are true. At my last check, Frostgorge Sound is truly won by the heroes. Specifically everything is dead. There are no mobs wandering the wilderness, there are no Champions to slay or hordes of Icebrood to fight through to resurrect foolhardy Kodan. Anything that gets killed by the forces of good seems to stay dead. There is silence there now, where once the train circles, there is an absence.

For anyone wanting to gather higher level resources, could you ask for anything more? A completely dead zone devoid of danger. Need Orichalcum ore? Ancient wood? Knock yourself out. It’s not just on my home of Piken Square, this victory over the minions of Jormag has allegedly spread to a number of servers.

On the flip side, I recently had a bit of trouble sleeping. So too did my wife and so in proper and sensible adulthood, we figured we’d log on and play. What else are you going to do at 5am after all? Map continued to bark out directions. No matter the time of day or night, round and round the train goes. Occasionally dramatic as people don’t follow the shaky leadership of those already on board, it never seems to stop. I have logged into Queensdale almost religiously in the past two weeks and any time I do, there they are.

The changes to magic find and champions mean no matter what level the champion they will drop a box of goodies. Sure it may not contain the finest loot on average nor the most interesting of crafting materials, but the law of averages will swing in your favour when you have enough. More often than not it will be useless tat but slowly and surely you will score gold and eventually success.

Both of these issues are troubling. First a zone that isn’t respawning? For days on end? ArenaNet is apparently silent on the issue. Perhaps that means, or if it is fixed before this is read it meant, they are hard at work on it. Maybe it’s an unusual quirk and the fix isn’t easy.

However the only reason I am even aware of it is because the “train” of Champion farming has stalled there. There is no progress for people on the finest of loot boxes because there are no mobs to kill. Maybe that has increased the riders of the train in Queensdale, maybe not. What it is though is two zones damaged by the decisions recently.

Ultimately, in my opinion, it’s worse than a bug or an unusual social construct. It’s a sign that the Living Story is a sham.

 

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Sham

The constant train, which I can probably rightly assume isn’t just a Piken Square particular, has got to be having some small impact on the economy. Are exotics truly exotic rarity when they drop and are sold so frequently? Perhaps we should magically have the stats degrade on the item as the amount available increases.

The zone sitting without a fix for even more than a day, or if it is complex, without an announcement? ArenaNet has stretched themselves too thin with the Living Story update schedule.

Broken content begets broken content. Bugs are generally ignored because they won’t last. Two weeks here, two weeks there then they’re gone.

It may be time for ArenaNet to take stock of where Guild Wars 2 is and where it is going. This pace that they have set has its problems, clearly. A slower progression into the future could be the way to go.

If not that, then they need more people on board. They need to react faster to bugs and squash them.

Otherwise this is the world we are left with Tyria. An endless meaningless merry go round on one extreme and the utter silence of a defeated and depopulated zone on the other.

Choo choo.

Magicka: Wizard Wars

Magicka: Wizard Wars is a multi-player action PvP game, tapping into the classic humor and dynamic spellcasting of the Magicka series. Each player’s wizard can be personalized with hundreds of items and a selection of offensive and defensive spells. Designed for quick rounds and chaos, Wizard Wars promises a MOBA experience unique to both veterans and novices alike.

Features:

Friendly Fire: Staying true to the Magicka tradition, you can “accidentally” kill your friends.

Four on Four: Intense four-versus-four battles require on the fly thinking and quick tactic changes.

Chaos Delivered: Hardcore game mechanics, hard-punching humor, and a battlefield riddled with dangers from enemy and friend alike will keep you on your toes.

League of Legends Announces Long Awaited Team Builder Queue

Tired of getting trolled out of your preferred champion pick in Riot Games’ League of Legends? Wish you could just log in, group up with randoms, and play your role and character without a hassle? This has been the cause of large amounts of negative vibes in the League of Legends community but now Riot Games is beginning to beta test a new solution that will allow players to queue with a specific team strategy and character choice in mind. In addition, it will also help pair up players selecting champions they are new with alongside more experienced players to help keep things balanced beyond just account level elo.

League of Legends Team Builder PBE

Full details on the plans as well as additional commentary from Riot Games employees can be found in the official announcement thread.