Monthly Archives: June 2016

Zelda: Breath of the Wild; non-linear?

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There is big news surrounding the Legend of Zelda franchise is “Breath of the Wild”, and we don’t cover a lot of Nintendo stuff ’round here it seems. I’m going to fix that with my thoughts below! Legend of Zelda is known for being a mostly linear game. You tend to need certain items to progress safely through areas. They aren’t generally required, but they sure help [Candle in Zelda 1, Fairy spell in Zelda 2].  Sometimes you DO need items like the ability to break boulders in Zelda 2, unless you are into glitching/speed running, in which case, to Hell with you.

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Zelda: Breath of the Wild is going to be completely open-world, where you can go anywhere and do anything in any particular order, if you can solve puzzles and such. You can go straight to the final end boss in Breath of the Wild from the start of the game if you want. But why the hell would you want to do that?  I think it’s a breath of fresh air, if you’ll pardon the expression, and the downside is if you do that, you’ll have no idea what happened to bring Link to where he is and what he’s doing. That’s not a big deal for some people but to me it is! If/when I do get to play it, I plan on doing as much of the story as I possibly can.  I honestly like this idea though. The goal of playing video games is to find what it does to entertain you. If it’s the story, you do the story missions/puzzles/et cetera.

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If you want to figure out how fast you can beat the game, and shave time off every time? You can totally do that! Sometimes, franchises have to change. There are times when this is a brilliant change of pace that everyone loves. Then there are times when the franchise is buried forever. I feel like the idea is that this will create a LOT of replayability. Depending on what you do in the game, or don’t do, will reveal more about Link and his tale in this place. At the end of the day, you play what you want, why you want. And Zelda: Breath of the Wild will definitely let players do exactly that. I’m really looking forward to it in all sincerity.

E3 2016 – Day 2 Recap: Livelock, Lego Worlds, Dawn of War III, and Mount & Blade II

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW) / Lego Worlds written by Brad Bakerman (BakermanBrad)

Mount and Blade Siege

Day 2 began as more of a traditional convention day for us at a rather non-traditional E3. The show just seemed slightly off this year. Fewer booths, far fewer booth babes, less talk of parties, and a huge condensation of the overall show as local construction had pushed nearly all events (minus an obligatory Doritos Arcade and the mysteries held within its massive tent). But if you knew where to look, and had the right contacts, the surviving members of the MMORPG community could be found. Perfect World still stands strong. Daum Games EU (Black Desert) wandered the halls. NCSoft and their never ending updates for Blade & Soul and Guild Wars 2 were there. And in what is sure to be our busiest day of the convention, we hit them all up and more. So without further fluff, here’s a small excerpt for four games from our Day 2 journey.

Table of Contents
SEGA – Dawn of War III
Perfect World Entertainment – Livelock
Warner Brothers – Lego Worlds
TaleWorlds – Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Continue to Dawn of War III

Smite: Patch 3.11 “Expelled from Hel”

Patch Notes for SMITE are now live! Want to know about them? They can be found RIGHT HERE! But, I, Ragachak, am here to talk about it a little bit, because there’s some really cool stuff happening that you should know about!  It’s the least I can do to point them out straightaway! This is a pretty big patch, but there are some specific things rolling out, some buffs/nerfs, and item stuff, so let’s get started straightaway:

Skins:

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  • THAT. CHRION. SKIN. THOUGH. CONSTABLE MOOSEJAW CHIRON: Why is this a thing? Who cares? Chiron’s a fucking Moose now!
  • Hel: Expelled Hel is adorable. And horrifying simultaneously. She’s the title of this patch after all! It stands to reason hers is amazing; and she was my first support.
  • Fancy Anhur: I just love that in the splash art, he’s slapping the absolute shit out of Fenrir with his glove! [Also, Duke Dan-De-Lyons? Damnit guys. . .]

Every skin in this patch is gorgeous and amazing, except Ratatoskr. I hate that little rodent. I DO NOT CARE HOW ADORABLE HE IS.  … Okay, his is really cool too. We also get the Susano Mastery skins, which are fancy. If you don’t want that Chiron skin, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

Achievements:

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  • New achievements for Fafnir, Ah Puch, Fenrir. I only really play Fafnir out of that bunch. None of these look terribly difficult to achieve, but I am glad they’re adding more chievos as time progresses.

Misc:

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  •  The biggest thing in the patch is in this part of the patch. The “Coupon” system is now in its beta/infancy! The idea is that certain things when purchased on the store will trigger a “coupon”. The example they give is the current one: Purchasing Infiltrator Loki, if you don’t have the Voice Pack, will trigger a coupon if you want to use it, for 50% off his Voice Pack. That’s really awesome. But I have questions: What if you unlock something with a code? Will it still trigger? Can you save the coupons? Still, I LOVE this idea.
  • Pop-up notification when you receive a chat/friend notification when Smite isn’t on your main window. I love this. I get a lot of random friend notifications from streaming, and chats that I miss because I have the game minimized. Very useful additions.

Items:

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LOTS of items changed this time around! A lot of items changed are physical damage items, but not all of them. If you want actual stat updates and explanations, you should click the above link to the full notes. Examples:

Nerfs:

  • Bloodforge, Throwing Dagger, Golden Bow, Soul Reaper

Buffs:

  • Demonic Grip, The Executioner, Mark of the Vanguard [also nerfed slightly]

Gods:

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Quite a few changes to Gods this time too! I’ll spare you the details, because again, there’s a list nearby that explains everything that you need to know. But, some really fun things that happened here:

  • Ymir: Frost Bite targets now deal 10% less damage to all targets. Love it.
  • Thanatos: Better scaling for Soul Reap. Because Thanatos doesn’t do ENOUGH damage?
  • Susano: Storm Kata took a beating, but it was probably for the best. Jet Stream was played with a bit.
  • Ratatoskr: Acorn of Yggdrasil was nerfed, and this makes me smile. Love you guys!

All told, this is a lovely patch, with a bunch of stuff going on amid the Viking Invasion. I don’t think anything in particular is out of order or unreasonable here, even though I cheered a great deal seeing Ratatoskr being nerfed, because I will never get over my dislike for that bastard. You should keep your acorns to yourself, fella.  We’ll see you next time on the Battleground of the Gods!

Battleborn Microtransactions Discussion

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I love Battleborn. I won’t deny that it feels like it’s just not doing well in the popularity polls. It is my firmly-held belief it should not have dropped ANYWHERE NEAR OVERWATCH. Not because they’re the same, but because it’s a Blizzard game, and it will make waves as well as money. Nobody really seems to care that Blizzard’s title has Microtransactions. There was no sneakiness involved in Blizzards Microtransactions. It’s a chest that you can spend real money on that has a variety of cosmetic items.  It was THERE. Months before the release we knew there would be chests you could purchase; but pretty much all Blizzard games have them, and it’s no shock or surprise. Come on, they have enough of my money. How much more could they want?

. . . Stop laughing. STOP IT DAMNIT. It’s not funny!  Anyway. . .

Amid all the flurry and talk of E3, Gearbox, a company I love, snuck in Microtransactions for Battleborn. What is the purpose? To buy skins to show off your character and feel a little unique. You can’t buy the actual skins, you buy Platinum, the in-game currency. You can earn the currency, but I have a feeling it will take for-damn-ever. There’s also whispers that it might include stuff like bank slots, loadouts, or exp boosts, which is decidedly NOT cosmetic. The level cap is 100 right now as far as I’m aware, and I’m nowhere near that. Would I spend real money to boost my exp for this game? Probably not. I have precious little of it as is, and I’m not likely to spend it in that fashion. Skins? Eh, probably. But if I can earn them otherwise, I probably will. Let’s not look at how much I’ve spent on League, please. Or Smite.

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That’s my beef with it though; it doesn’t feel honest.  It comes pretty much out of nowhere. I was on Battleborn the other day and didn’t even realize this was a thing until it was pointed out to me! Either I’m very unobservant [which is possible] or it was slid under the table at the last minute when everyone was distracted by Sony winning E3, which they absolutely did.  Yes, you can spend in-game currency to get new characters too. You can farm them. It’s not hard. But Overwatch talked about in a video where new characters/maps will be patched in, and not with a cost it appears. I have the Season Pass for Battleborn so that won’t be an issue for me, but everyone else having to spend 47k or whatever it is in currency for Alani? Whew. Again, I LOVE this game, the storytelling is so rich and entertaining. I just wish they would have aimed for a different release date. Maybe another month or so down the line and it would have blown up as it rightfully should have.

League of Legends: Enter, the “Mercy” Rule

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League of Legends is pretty well known for having one of the most toxic and vile communities on the whole of the Internet. Something about anonymity and competitive matches with points on the line turns people into rabid, hate-filled monsters. It’s worse in ranked than normal play, in just about every bracket. Sure, it’s more venomous the lower you go because a lot of Bronze players feel like they can never climb, so it’s not worth it to be good to their teammates. . . But what happens when someone disconnects, ragequits, or trolls and does nothing?  Normally, you just have to take the loss, or fight til the bitter end [I’ve seen a lot of 4v5s win, and been on several of those], or, with the current patch, there’s a new “Remake” function. If you have someone on your team that ragequits or is flagged “AFK” for at least 90 seconds during the three minute mark, AND NO FIRST BLOOD HAS BEEN CLAIMED, the short-handed team can use “/Remake”.

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What’s that do, you ask? Glad you inquired, friend! If 30% or more of the team vote yes, the person who Raged/DCed out will take full loss, be flagged by leaver buster, and everyone else can leave the game without harming their record in any way. However, they do point out that in Diamond V or higher, if you are on a premade and someone DCs, everyone on the team suffers a loss. No having one of your friends take a bullet for the team when you think you’ll be outclassed. They’re going to keep an eye on this, so apparently lower than that, they can get away with it. I would not have pointed that out..

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I think this is a brilliant addition to League of Legends, it’s kind of like a mercy rule.  I’m so glad the enemy team doesn’t get to vote; if I were on the larger team, there’s no way I’d just let them slide; I want points too, you know. So, I’m very glad they made that design choice. I cannot stress enough that FIRST BLOOD CANNOT HAVE BEEN CLAIMED. Say one of your teammates blurts out you have a DC/Ragequit, or they find out. Now that everyone knows how this system works, you can expect a LOT of teams moving on one lane, just to get that kill. Why? Because people who play this game can be really damn heartless. Would I, in their shoes? I probably would. As a player who is in a pretty bad MMR despite my rank, I’d do want whatever advantage I could get.

What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? Should it have happened back in Season 2 when the community started to really cruise aggressively towards the proverbial iceberg.

Bottom Tier News Update Vol. 3

What’s going on in the world of Bottom Tier? I’m glad you asked! Even if you actually didn’t!

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Over at Bottom Tier this week a few new videos came up. We did a lot of recording over the weekend and I’m pretty glad to be able to share it with you guys! I highly recommend watching all of it! We recorded two “First to Five” videos where we played SNES fighting games, in “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie: The Game: Fighting Edition” and “TMNT: Tournament Fighters”.  Lots more Pokémon too! Two episodes are live as we get caught up on the Nuzlocke run of Soul Silver!

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A video on ESO: Dark Brotherhood DLC is on the way, as is more Battleborn! We’ll be tackling Mission 3 next.  What’s next on the Patreon front? This month expect Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, as well as Saturday Morning RPG! It’s gonna be a blast! And where can you find all the Bottom Tier action you can possibly stand? At that first clickable link of course!  We recently broke the 250 follower landmark and could not be happier about it. I never thought we’d even get a hundred followers, and we blew right past it! A lot of that is thanks to you guys, and people who come to MMOHuts and OnRPG. But if you don’t already follow, you absolutely should! We do fun things and pretend we’re entertaining, all for your benefit! And we stream regularly over here!

As always, is there something you want to see us play? Something you think might make a good fit for a series or a one-shot? Feel free to leave a comment!