Monthly Archives: July 2017

Runescape/Old-School Runescape coming to Tablet/Mobile

Huge news from Jagex: Runescape as well as Old-School Runescape are coming to both mobile and tablet. The biggest part of this is that you can play your character from your PC, then move to the mobile version whenever you’d like! Old-School Runescape is coming this winter, with Runescape coming afterward. This is the first MMO in the West to have the full integrated game from PC to Mobile, which is a huge deal for their audience. Going on vacation, and want to keep leveling and exploring Old-School Runescape, but don’t want to take the laptop with you? Just bring your phone or tablet, and keep going. However, if you don’t play the game on a desktop and want to start just playing it on mobile, that’s also an option.

Neil McClarty, Senior Product Director, Jagex, said:

“As a MMO player, you ideally want to play at any time of the day or night no matter where you are. We know that our players’ time is precious, and that’s why want to give all RuneScape players, both present and past, the opportunity to play RuneScape on the go. The fact that they’ll be able to play on their PC, leave the PC, and pick up their mobile and continue playing where you left your character will be a big deal for our players – there really will be no need for any XP waste.”

Riders of Icarus Review: Gotta Ride ‘em all!

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

It’s incredibly hard to stand out as an MMO currently, especially in the free to play market. There are so many quality games that are available now, not to mention games that are on the way. So one of the things you have to consider is “Are they special?”, “Do they stand out?” or “What do they do that these other MMOs don’t?” and Riders of Icarus certainly picked a fun idea with making mounted combat a core feature. Riders of Icarus is also an interesting title. Who was Icarus? Icarus is the Greek myth about the boy who flew too close to the sun, the wings melted, and he plummeted to his death. I’m not so sure that’s a good call, but I do feel that unfortunately, it’s fairly accurate as far as the game goes. It’s ambitious, has a lot of really interesting things going on, but there are some flaws that border on crippling. There are quite a few things in the game that make me grit my teeth and try my level best to not just ALT-F4 and go do something else. But it’s not all bad.

Riders of Icarus Gameplay Screenshot

So let’s start at the beginning: What is Riders of Icarus? It’s a free to play MMO published by Nexon where the focus of the game is collecting “familiars.” Familiars are animals/beasts in the world that you can tame to become your mount or transform into a pet that also fights with you. Its combat is sort of like an action MMO, but not quite. Even with the “FPS” keybinds, where you are supposed to attack where you’re facing, it still relies heavily on tab targeting. I’ve felt the sting of almost dying because my Tab Target was stuck on something about ten feet away. The main enemy is trying to attack me but I didn’t realize I was still tabbed elsewhere. I’d run away, get blasted by something, and rinse/repeat. It’s not quite an action game like GW2 or TERA, because there is no real dodge/tumble button or huge AoEs to dodge.

To me, it feels more like World of Warcraft. In WoW one of my big focuses is hunting rare/exotic mounts, and I have something like 150-200 of them. It made me feel like I had accomplished something pretty great in the game. But when most of the enemies in the world can be tamed and ridden, it sort of takes something out of that hunt. Granted, they do get their own powers and abilities, and once you have mounted combat weapons, you can do battle from their backs. But as a major feature of the game, I feel like it should be available sooner than it is. I was a little frustrated that early in the game I received a quest that said “Send a familiar exploring,” which requires you to be at your Familiar Ranch. However, it can’t go exploring on its own until you max its levels, and I could not fight on a mount ye. It feels like a serious catch-22. But some of the mounts you can ride are incredible. I have a Kangaroo style mount, and you can get any matter of creature including gorillas, wolves, and dragons. There are some “untameable” mounts, mostly ones that have a unique name at least as far as I’ve seen.

Riders of Icarus Gameplay Screenshot

Taming is pretty simple. If they’re a weaker mount, you can usually just approach it, press the “tame” spell, jump on, and do a little mini-game. Four buttons will appear, one for W, A, S, and D. When one of them glows, hit it quick and it will progress you along the path of taming the familiar. However, it’s going to be fearful or angry and buck you around, and there’s a second, red bar. If that fills before the green bar, you fail. Here’s where my problem lies. Most of my familiars I only got to hit that button once or twice, and the rest of the time is just me waiting and hoping. Sure in Pokemon you can’t hit ANY buttons to help you [which is what this feels like], though sure, there’s the Down+B Superstition … but that doesn’t actually help. I didn’t feel like I had any real input because some of those times I only pressed a button once and that’s it. Why even bother putting it there if it’s not going to have a real impact on the taming process? If you decide you don’t want that enemy anymore, you can do something pretty cruel or hilarious, depending on your point of view. You can Transmute them if you have the item! You can turn that useless familiar into a possibly useful enchantment onto your weapons/armor. Though it didn’t tell me what it was going to be before I did it, so I wound up with a +Mana enchantment on my gloves [which I didn’t need as a Berserker]. It’s a very cool idea and a great way to get enchantments if you can figure out what they’re going to do in advance.

But the Mount System is easily, far and away, the best part of this game. The creativity and work put into it are really astounding. Of course, you can buy some better/premium mounts, but I used the one I got from login rewards and it was just fine for me. It was a 3-star mount: it can’t fly, but it was awesome to look at. Speaking of which, I hate “limited mounts.” I hate them in all games. I hate having a mount, knowing it’s only going to be there for a few days. I don’t care how useful it is, I won’t bother because then I’ll be mad when that convenience is gone. I’m not going to go spend money to keep that convenience [such as flight, or greater speed].

Riders of Icarus Gameplay Screenshot

On the discussion of items, we’re going to move away from mounts, and move on to quest rewards! One of the things that confused and frustrated me was the quest rewards/equip system. When I completed a quest that had a new weapon/armor, It would ask me in the bottom right of my screen if I’d like to equip the new item. But when I’d look at the weapon, most of the time it would not be a DPS upgrade! Why ask me to wield a weaker weapon? It might have better secondary stats, but that would be it. Or a piece of armor with less armor, and better secondary stats. That was pretty confusing, I have to say.

The armor system is pretty interesting, in that you can temper/improve your gear. In the early game, you can only cap out at +5, and I can’t imagine wanting to improve your lower/quest reward gear more than that anyway. However, in what counts as an “endgame” in Riders of Icarus, you need to have more than +5. Tanks need at least +15, and above +10, there’s always a chance of failure. That’s where the problems really come in. You can spend some Ellun to get an item tempered up! That costs real money though [you can from what I understand acquire some in-game, but it takes quite a while.] This creates a pretty rough “pay to win” feel, something that’s an immediate turn-off for me. I already don’t like tanking in any MMO, but knowing I’m probably going to have to spend money just to just be relevant in my job? That’s a no-go for me. The game throws tons of gear at you in the early game, and most of them can be sold/used, but you can’t break down any of the Heroic gear, which can become clutter pretty quickly unless you spend money to acquire more bag space. You can also find clutter in your crafting items, but to be honest, I haven’t found much use for their crafting system. Cooking’s probably the closest one to be worth doing, and you can also spend money to make that better [buying one of the fishing bundles for example].

Riders of Icarus Gameplay Screenshot

The dungeons are pretty fun and I enjoy them, but they are on a timer where you can only do them a fixed amount of times per day. If you’re trying to gear up that way you might be disappointed, but that leads me into something else frustrating. I played most of the game as a Berserker, which wields a gigantic sword and kicks the crap out of everything, utilizing rage as a generator – at least that’s what it’s supposed to be in theory. I had so many gaps where I could do nothing, not even auto attack! I would spend two to four seconds just waiting to attack again. You can right click to perform a “combo” of moves, but it’s less efficient as far as damage/rage goes. You’re better off figuring out what your combos are [which moves have “combo” on them], and doing them that way. One of my problems was that I could not use my leap without rage. I can’t dive on distant enemies without rage, and I can’t use it when I’m too close – so I had to work very hard to generate rage and hope there’s something close by to get to the next enemy with. The combat is interesting, but it feels slow and clunky. There should be no reason that I have to stop doing everything and just wait for the ability to attack again unless I’m stunned/charmed.

Riders of Icarus Gameplay Screenshot

Get Them Doggies Rollin’: 2.5/5

Okay, so I know I’ve been kind of rough on Riders of Icarus, but there are some glaring flaws that can be addressed/fixed. I didn’t mention the Founders Packs though, and I feel like maybe I should. They came with some pretty ridiculous buffs for your character that will make them head and shoulders above others, and that is in no way fair. That rewards people for buying into the game early and lets them be better than people who could not afford to do so. That’s wrong and should never have happened.

I think the game is pretty visually appealing; it’s not ugly by any means, and it’s not top of the line graphics, but it’s nice to look at. That is, of course, if you can get past the motion blur, which is heavy-handed and can’t be disabled. But the grind is real, and it feels slow and clunky in almost all aspects of the game. It’s still young, so there’s a lot of time to fix what’s wrong, the majority of which is in the combat andgearing system. The characters are cool, and the Mount system alone is really worth giving this game a try. It’s just a shame they didn’t put as much effort into the rest of the game as they did their familiars.

The best things about the game ultimately come down to pay to win. Even taming won’t always succeed, and you can spend money on that to help out. That and there are always ads on the screen. Always. Every time I log in, at least two. There’s one that lurks just off the right side of the screen and appears to show its face again every time I level. They are really pushing the cash shop and it makes me uncomfortable. I get that you have to make a living and make money, but don’t make it a borderline requirement.

 

Riders of Icarus Gameplay Screenshots

This Weekend in Competitive Gaming [7/13-7/16]

EVO 2017 Announcements:

EVO Skullomania

This was such a gigantic weekend for competitive gaming! From Dreamhack Valencia to EVO 2017, it was so much to take in. I’m not going to bore you with all of the Top 8s from every game that happened for EVO, but there’s so much more than that! If you click this handy link, you can find all of the winners for the multitude of fighting games. The ones I paid the most attention to were Street Fighter V, Smash [Yes, really], and Blazblue: Central Fiction. However, the real thing that interested me were the bevy of announcements! There was some gameplay of Dragonball Fighter Z, which is mind blowing, and new DLC characters/new games are also on the way! The fighting game community has never looked stronger, has never had so much going on that happened to be so exciting! But with so many things going on, I could not keep up with everything. I heard that Sagat and Sakura are confirmed for Street Fighter V Season 3, but not Oro/Viper/Necro. That’s just hearsay though. If someone can confirm/deny, I’d appreciate that.

Speaking of Street Fighter, the first news I happened upon was the reveal of the next DLC character for Street Fighter V! This is a really odd choice because it’s another boss/character from Final Fight, Abigail! They’re Hugo-sized; RE: They’re absolutely freakin’ gigantic. Someone said to me that “They are the size of two Kens on top of each other”. They appear to have a dash, a parry, and a ridiculous amount of power behind their blows. I don’t know how I feel about them yet because giant characters seem kind of dumb. Either they can dash through fireballs/zoning techniques, or they can’t, and are just kept at full screen forever. That’s awful. I understand wanting to add to the diversity of the game, but Abigail just seems like such a peculiar choice. But they are not the only addition to the Fighting Game Scene! Tekken 7’s Harada announced something much bigger [in my opinion anyway]! Southtown’s Big Boss, Geese Howard That’s right, Tekken locked down another amazing crossover character. This one I did hear live and the crowd reaction blew me away. “PREDICTABLE!” echoed the crowd everytime Geese used his counter-throw. Honorable mention goes to MVC: Infinite adding Darkstalkers’ Jedah, and Marvel’s Gamora!

A pair of games were also announced, one from Arika [the team that created Street Fighter EX], and from ArkSys, who are already working on Dragonball Fighter Z. One intense game wasn’t enough!? First, the Arika team are bringing back a lot of the Street Fighter EX characters into a fighting game planned for next year. This game will be the newest addition to the “EX” series. But as of yet, no huge details are available, except for one giant one: SKULLOMANIA IS CONFIRMED.  That’s right, Skullomania, possibly one of the coolest Street Fighter characters ever, will be playable. ArkSys unveiled “Blazblue: Cross-Tag Battle” which will also come in 2018. This one is the bigger one for me [and probably will for a lot of anime fighters] as it will include: Blazblue, Persona 4: Arena, and Under Night: In Birth franchises. Is that not enough: Do you need more? RWBY gets its fighting game debut in this crossover battle! Icons: Combat Arena is going to be coming as well from the Project Metroid team … but the dislikes to likes is insane. I will probably cover the controversy behind that at a later date.

Dreamhack: Valencia

Dreamhack Valencia

Hirez Studios took over Valencia, Spain with SMITE, Paladins, and Hand of the Gods: Smite Tactics. I watched so many intense matches! I admittedly thought that NRG would go all the way, but the Digntas vs. Team Rival gameplay blew my mind! Congrats to Dignitas in their 3-2 win over Rival though! But I really want to talk about Paladins. First of all, congratulations to Team Cryptik for their win! That means NA won a major! That’s one of the best things I’ve heard in ages. But the real announcement, the real win came for the Paladins community at large. The “Paladins Community Tournament Series” is on the way, and it’s the biggest tournament yet! This could be the largest tournament of this variety ever. A 350,000 dollar pool for the community is on the way, starting August 1st and runs for ten months across 7 regions: Southeast Asia, Russia, North America, Brazil, Latin America, Europe, and Oceania are eligible, except for current Paladins Premier League players. So I believe that means that pro players can’t show up and make the tournament less fun for players. I do not know if that counts for people that stream for pro teams but are not on the team. This is not the only announcement though; in the coming weeks, we’ll learn more about things like Paladins: Console Wars and an all-new Paladins Premier League. The Paladins scene is really heating up, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what’s coming! Maybe there will be an MMOHuts team coming your way soon? Who knows?

Terra Battle 2

Terra Battle 2 is an upcoming free-to-play mobile fantasy strategy game developed by MISTWALKER Corporation for PC, Android, and iOS and is the successor of the ever popular mobile game Terra Battle. It is expected to release in both Japan and North America in the Summer of 2017. Although details on Terra Battle 2 are sparse, it has a lot to live up to and looks to be just as unique as the original with its enthralling claymation style. How will you unravel the mysteries and truths of the world? Only time will tell. With tons of encounters and farewells in store Terra Battle 2 promises to be both thrilling and heart-wrenching!

Features:

Strategic Formations: Set up formations with your companions before you enter battle, giving you time to strategize and figure out what is going to work best for you.

Deep Battles: Battles are expected to be strategic in nature and function in a tile-based manner like the original, but also have even more strategic elements normally seen in card games and puzzle games.

Storytelling: The story of Terra Battle 2 is expected to span over 50 different chapters that will each introduce new motives and new characters. These chapters are intended to be released episodically like a TV show to really bring the suspense up a notch.

Dramatic Air: The game is intended to feel like a drama at times and make players feel even more attached to characters as they go through various trials and tribulations on their journeys.

Glory Ridge

Glory Ridge is a free-to-play fantasy strategy game developed by Oasis Games for iOS and Android. In Glory Ridge players can enter a medieval fantasy world where they can choose from 10 different strong heroes and create their own city in an effort to build an entire empire. Players that are only satisfied with creating the grandest of cities will love the plethora of things that they can do to improve their empire. Attack other cities, defend your own, and set fire to the world. Nobody has dared to take over the entire world. Will you be the first to make it happen in Glory Ridge?

Features:

Heroes: Collect different heroes that have unique skills that will help your troops in battle or give you other kinds of bonuses. You’ll need to build a relationship with heroes to tempt them to join your cause.

City Improvements: Work to improve your empire by upgrading different kinds of buildings, enhancing your units, and unlocking new ones to create.

Treasure Hunting: When you’re not at war and enjoying more peaceful times you can go out and hunt for treasure to increase your power.

Alliances: Bosses are terrifying forces and it’ll take more than just you to take them down. Work with other leaders to slay powerful bosses and reap the rewards of your efforts.