Random Ramblings #4

It's that time again: the Random Ramblings are back!

Minecraft and Tekkit

Had a LAN night with a friend on the weekend, and we played some Minecraft survival. While playing, we talked a lot about our first experiences in the game. He brought up that he had noticed a lot of people felt the people working on Minecraft had "ruined the game". Having had a few days to think about it, there is some truth to that from my point of view. Minecraft was always about building incredible things for me, not finding dungeons and killing mobs. Those experiences came from trying to get materials to build my incredible things. Redstone, pistons and rails gave me near endless enjoyment. The enchanting and "The End" never really made sense to me. The game certainly isn't ruined however, as you can completely ignore those parts of the game if you wish, but I can't help but wonder if it was the direction Notch had intended to take Minecraft.

Tekkit on the other hand, is exactly what I love about the Minecraft style of game. Building crazy machine setups, coming up with solutions to problems that you face and nuclear freaking reactors. Sign me up for more of that.

Saints Row IV... again

Sigh... so in the last Random Ramblings I pointed out that Saints Row IV seems to be well on its way to being the most controversial Aussie release of 2013. Since then, it's been banned... again. That document simply says it was banned due to real drugs being depicted as rewards and incentives. Yet again the Australian Classification Review Board shows just how little they understand video gamers. We aren't children. I'm 24 and most of my gaming friends are in their twenties, although I have a few who are older than that. We are responsible adults who make informed choices about our entertainment.

The whole point of having a restricted rating is to prevent children from accessing the material. These games are no longer to be aimed at children. So, if I can watch someone get killed by someone who is under the influence of drugs on television (I'm looking at you Underbelly), why is it that I cannot play a game that is decidedly tongue in cheek? Because the game has "alien narcotics"? That's as hypocritical as you can get there ACRB. Not that I should be surprised.

EDIT: So it seems that the aforementioned Low Violence Version of SR4 is still up on Steam. I'll keep you posted on what has changed as I find information on it. Also GTA5 has passed the ACRB... hypocritical as it seems, the drug use in the game has been deemed ok.

EDIT 2: The low violence version has passed, with the mission containing the alien narcotics taken out. The downside to this is that SR4 cannot be played in co-op with anyone outside of Australia. Oh well, good with the bad I guess.

The Mighty Quest for Failed Monetization

On to happier news, Ubisoft, the developer of The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot, have announced that a whole bunch of changes to the in game store will be rolled back. What was the issue? Essentially any item in the game could be bought for either the in game currency gold, or Blings purchased for real money. How did this affect the game? In TMQfEP you build your own dungeon that can be raided by other players, and then you can go and raid another players dungeon. If someone with a lot of real world cash wanted, they could simply buy the best items for their dungeon, skewing the power of the game to those who were willing to drop real world money (the very definition of Pay to Win). Many complaints were made, with a major part being played by this video by TotalBiscuit. All in all, at least Ubisoft knows when to stop fighting a losing battle.

And that's all this week folks. As always:

GAME ON!

Random Ramblings #3

Its back! Join me for some more Random Ramblings!

Steam Summer Sale

That picture pretty much describes every Steam sale for me. Valve just knows how to make money out of us PC gamers. This sale has been pretty good for me so far. I picked up some games I've been meaning to get like Dishonored's DLC, Civilization V and FTL.

Saints Row IV

Looks like this years "most controversial Australian release award" has to go to Saints Row IV. First of all it was banned, despite the R18+ rating now being a thing here in Aus. Then a "Low Violence" version made its way onto Steam for preorder in Australia. Finally it seems Deep Silver Volition want some more money, as they have already announced the first DLC pack for the game... which isn't even out yet. Really Volition? I mean sure it's not day one DLC, but is day 45 DLC any better?

Homeworld Remakes

Hear that? That's the sound of thousands of Homeworld fanboys all screaming in delight. Gearbox software recently announced that they would be remaking Relic classics Homeworld and Homeworld 2 in HD. HW2 has been one of my favorite games for years and if the number of modders still working on the game is anything to go by, it's a community favorite too.

However, it's not all roses and exploding ships. Gearbox, who are responsible for the hit Borderlands series, were also involved with the colossal failures Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever. For a fan of Homeworld, it's scary to hear that a franchise you love is being taken over by someone who has butchered other loved franchises in the past. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Eve Online

Not a whole lot of news from me about Eve at the moment. The Alliance Tournament is going on now, and RvB won their match. That's really all I care about from the tournament at this stage.

There was a funny post on the forums where someone tried to call out Malcanis for telling someone they are bad. Malcanis was telling someone to stop whining about being caught out by the very well known Market Trading scam. A little lesson for you. When you are playing a game that uses a marketing tagline of "Be the villain" then trying to white knight for someone probably won't go down particularly well with the community. Then to cap off an already funny thread, Frying Doom dropped in to add his trademark skewed logic to the discussion about the whitepaper. That's right. Doom is back. Missed you buddy, and don't disappear for so long next time.

And that's all the news and random comments I have at the moment. As always folks.

GAME ON!

EDIT: Just as a small aside, you should all totally go and watch the Alliance Tournament at http://www.twitch.tv/ccp

World of Warcraft

So... yeah...

After years of resistance and like a teen at a party, I finally caved to peer pressure. But it wasn't drugs or alcohol I succumbed to. It was World of Warcraft. Blizzard recently reduced the price from $70 down to $30 and I just had to take them up on the deal.

I've mentioned WoW here before, in my post about Sandbox vs Themepark MMOs and I wasn't particularly kind about the grind in the game. However there is something that I didn't count on to hold me in. Lore. Last time I tried WoW, I took no notice of the lore in the quests. I was simply going to a spot, killing x amount of enemies, getting x amount of items, killing a boss and then repeating. This time however, I've dove headfirst into the lore of Warcraft. I loved the Warcraft RTS games as a kid, and Blizzard has done an astounding job of taking someone like me, putting hooks into my flesh and dragging me back into that universe.

It's taken me 2 and half weeks to get to 90, which I found reasonably easy to do. There have been some moments where I thought I might never make it, but there was always something to keep me entertained. A few of my friends have been playing pretty much since WoWs release back in 2004, and talking to them while running the old raids and dungeons has shown me just how much WoW has changed.

All in all, my initial thoughts about WoW have changed drastically (as most uninformed views tend to). It's no Eve in terms of gameplay, but there is more than enough content to keep me interested for a while at least. Soloing old raids has really gripped my interest, especially Molten Core. I really don't know what it is about that place, but I actually look forward to being able to go back there each week. Perhaps that too will change in time, and I will need new and more exciting things to do. But for now, its time to try and get my hands on Sulfuras... again...

As always,

GAME ON!