Sorry for the pause, I've been playing alot of the warhammer endless trial and it is still quite engaging!
I will say though, and I don't blame the designers for this, when I tried out the other side - I lost perhaps all sense of importance of the game world? I guess it's because I was fighting for the cause of order first and then...destruction really is destruction. I just cancelled the meaning out so it ended up just the gamism, like playing quake live - not gamism and a sense of a cause your following. BUT as I said I don't blame the game designers - what are they going to do, lock you off from playing a side? Nah. There might be ways around it, but it's not something they have to do. Also it might just be something I experience, and I might be part of a minute demographic in that. But it made me think, all the same.
Showing posts with label free download. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free download. Show all posts
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
To be (subscribing) or not to be, that is the question
Actually that titles a little hyperbolic. It's not a huge question.
But I've been thinking about subscribing to warhammer online for awhile, but the first thing is they had a massive accounts stuff up recently, where people were charged up to thirty times their normal sub in one month. They are correcting it and appoligising, though they aren't offering any free time for the inconvenience, either.
That's not even the biggest thing - the thing is people who were no longer subscribers also got affected! I mean, while playing I can imagine dealing with a stuff up, but I can just imagine finishing with the sub, then a year latter a bunch of financial pressures start to kick in and pow, they stuff up again just when it's vital my finances remain as is.
On the other hand I'm thinking that once I finish subscribing I could change the billing info to bogus numbers.
The other thing are some issues that Tesh has raised about subscriptions. I mean, what am I buying? It's rather like buying a newspaper, but if you don't read it all today the paper is gone tomorrow unless you buy it again.
I mean, given that, is subscription really an inappropriate word? When you subscribe to a magazine, you keep the copies. Granted with a gym, once you stop paying you can't go in. But it's called a gym membership, not a subscription.
The other thing with a gym is that it's not about content. You go there, you see if you can buff yourself, tone yourself - your not there to look at something pretty someone made (though perhaps you check out other members...hehe).
So while warhammer has PVP that involves self improvement, it also has a lot of 'your almost about to see this new thing' content tease, if you get what I mean?
What am I buying? If I buy even for the 'gym membership' factor, I'll be setting myself up for a big content tease. Content I can only see if I shell out money - and I mean, we have girlfriends for that! ;)
But I've been thinking about subscribing to warhammer online for awhile, but the first thing is they had a massive accounts stuff up recently, where people were charged up to thirty times their normal sub in one month. They are correcting it and appoligising, though they aren't offering any free time for the inconvenience, either.
That's not even the biggest thing - the thing is people who were no longer subscribers also got affected! I mean, while playing I can imagine dealing with a stuff up, but I can just imagine finishing with the sub, then a year latter a bunch of financial pressures start to kick in and pow, they stuff up again just when it's vital my finances remain as is.
On the other hand I'm thinking that once I finish subscribing I could change the billing info to bogus numbers.
The other thing are some issues that Tesh has raised about subscriptions. I mean, what am I buying? It's rather like buying a newspaper, but if you don't read it all today the paper is gone tomorrow unless you buy it again.
I mean, given that, is subscription really an inappropriate word? When you subscribe to a magazine, you keep the copies. Granted with a gym, once you stop paying you can't go in. But it's called a gym membership, not a subscription.
The other thing with a gym is that it's not about content. You go there, you see if you can buff yourself, tone yourself - your not there to look at something pretty someone made (though perhaps you check out other members...hehe).
So while warhammer has PVP that involves self improvement, it also has a lot of 'your almost about to see this new thing' content tease, if you get what I mean?
What am I buying? If I buy even for the 'gym membership' factor, I'll be setting myself up for a big content tease. Content I can only see if I shell out money - and I mean, we have girlfriends for that! ;)
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Looking at the Warhammer Online Free Endless Trial #3
One important element in warhammer is how your not stuck in a linear path in terms of what your doing. For example, I don't know if they changed it since, but in WOW you either PVP'ed, or you quested out in the world. You had to stop questing, head all the way into the heart of a city and sit around waiting on a battle que.
In warhammer, you can have your thumb in a few pies at once. You can be questing around, but have set yourself into a PVP battle ground que from any point (even from the very moment you start playing a new character, actually). It'll pop you into the scenario once its ready, then put you right back afterward. That way if you want to do PVP, questing is something you can work on in between scenarios rather than being a big one or the other, not both situation.
To me, the low level PVE questing is much the same as other mmorpgs - somewhat interesting, but if it's the only thing your doing, the shine wears off quickly. However, if your breaking it up with an occasional intense PVP scenario, the questing doesn't drag on an keeps it's shine. Or if your enjoying the questing just for its own sake, don't turn on the scenario que. It's up to you and you shape how you play, rather than being stuck in the way some developer decided to go.
That and you can dip into public quests as well while on the way to your normal quests, which you were doing while you were waiting on the scenario que - you genuinely choose how you have fun and in a way that doesn't hurt your progression (sure in other mmorpgs you might have freedom to explore, but generally it hurts your numbers progression - and if that doesn't matter to you, then 95% of mmorpgs don't matter to you).
I'm done - go play! :)
......
In warhammer, you can have your thumb in a few pies at once. You can be questing around, but have set yourself into a PVP battle ground que from any point (even from the very moment you start playing a new character, actually). It'll pop you into the scenario once its ready, then put you right back afterward. That way if you want to do PVP, questing is something you can work on in between scenarios rather than being a big one or the other, not both situation.
To me, the low level PVE questing is much the same as other mmorpgs - somewhat interesting, but if it's the only thing your doing, the shine wears off quickly. However, if your breaking it up with an occasional intense PVP scenario, the questing doesn't drag on an keeps it's shine. Or if your enjoying the questing just for its own sake, don't turn on the scenario que. It's up to you and you shape how you play, rather than being stuck in the way some developer decided to go.
That and you can dip into public quests as well while on the way to your normal quests, which you were doing while you were waiting on the scenario que - you genuinely choose how you have fun and in a way that doesn't hurt your progression (sure in other mmorpgs you might have freedom to explore, but generally it hurts your numbers progression - and if that doesn't matter to you, then 95% of mmorpgs don't matter to you).
I'm done - go play! :)
......
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Looking at the Warhammer Online Free Endless Trial #2
I've been playing for about a week or less now and have gotten a few classes to level 10. I'll talk about how I feel about play now - latter I might get into my first experiences.
One thing I appreciate is that characters are solid in PVP combat. You can't run through another person. In world of warcraft this just seemed A: The most incredibly lamo tactic, along with jumping (which you don't see in WAR combat either) in world of warcraft and B: If you have a slow connection, it was even more powerful.
I mean, why bother with this sense of a world with living, breathing characters (who have been drawn and animated with so much care) when you then have combat with surrealist tactics like walking through someone? Why not make a seduku world or some such, where some arbitrary mathimatical rules are the key issue? Why try and make all these stupid powers named in relation to real world actions, like charging, and they look like a charge, but then the heart of combat involves walking like a ghost through, and then back through, other people?
Anyway, you can't do that in warhammer online. And as said, people don't jump around in combat either. It lends a solidness to gameplay, and even with my slow connection I can actually connect with people in melee combat on a regular basis.
Looking at the warrior priest class (hope I've got the name right there), because I'm playing it right now, I find their healing actually is kind of a challenge to do, instead of just dropping heals everywhere then doing nothing when your mana runs out. Instead you build up healing points by bashing things. That or you can sit there for five seconds using a power to regenerate a bunch of healing points. So along with the targeting, where you can target an opponent and a friendly at the same time, your looking to slap opponents with melee attacks (some of your powers grant healing to yourself and comrades) to help charge up healing so you can then turbo heal a bunch of folks, then run in and bash, etc. You don't stand there sort of wack a mole clicking on team mate bars that are dropping, healing, then doing nothing if your mana runs out.
That's another thing that deserves quick mention - the action points your character uses to attack, they regenerate very fast. And about twenty seconds after you've left combat your health comes back at a fast rate too (about a quarter every five seconds). This game isn't really about slinking around, licking your wounds and not doing anything on a repeat basis!
Okay, I'm out for now, more soon!
I mean, why bother with this sense of a world with living, breathing characters (who have been drawn and animated with so much care) when you then have combat with surrealist tactics like walking through someone? Why not make a seduku world or some such, where some arbitrary mathimatical rules are the key issue? Why try and make all these stupid powers named in relation to real world actions, like charging, and they look like a charge, but then the heart of combat involves walking like a ghost through, and then back through, other people?
Anyway, you can't do that in warhammer online. And as said, people don't jump around in combat either. It lends a solidness to gameplay, and even with my slow connection I can actually connect with people in melee combat on a regular basis.
Looking at the warrior priest class (hope I've got the name right there), because I'm playing it right now, I find their healing actually is kind of a challenge to do, instead of just dropping heals everywhere then doing nothing when your mana runs out. Instead you build up healing points by bashing things. That or you can sit there for five seconds using a power to regenerate a bunch of healing points. So along with the targeting, where you can target an opponent and a friendly at the same time, your looking to slap opponents with melee attacks (some of your powers grant healing to yourself and comrades) to help charge up healing so you can then turbo heal a bunch of folks, then run in and bash, etc. You don't stand there sort of wack a mole clicking on team mate bars that are dropping, healing, then doing nothing if your mana runs out.
That's another thing that deserves quick mention - the action points your character uses to attack, they regenerate very fast. And about twenty seconds after you've left combat your health comes back at a fast rate too (about a quarter every five seconds). This game isn't really about slinking around, licking your wounds and not doing anything on a repeat basis!
Okay, I'm out for now, more soon!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Looking at the Warhammer Online Free Endless Trial #1
This will be a series of posts looking at warhammer online, since I finished downloading the free trial on my slow as internet connection.
It's a bit over a thousand megabytes - probably to you guys with fast connections, that doesn't mean much. To me it's one of the largest downloads I've done - but if your in the same boat, you download the launcher, install it and it pretty much putters along. Though if you stop it and start it again it wont show the previous progress on the progress bar - just saying cause I was looking at it wondering if it had dumped all the progress it had made. But it has made progress! Also if you have a slow connection it will ask you if you want to turn off streaming data - say NO, as if you say yes it'll try and download the whole damn game and you'll be waiting for eternity!
I'll get onto gameplay shortly, as this is a kinda warm up post :)
Oh, and here's a couple of amazon links in case it's relevant
It's a bit over a thousand megabytes - probably to you guys with fast connections, that doesn't mean much. To me it's one of the largest downloads I've done - but if your in the same boat, you download the launcher, install it and it pretty much putters along. Though if you stop it and start it again it wont show the previous progress on the progress bar - just saying cause I was looking at it wondering if it had dumped all the progress it had made. But it has made progress! Also if you have a slow connection it will ask you if you want to turn off streaming data - say NO, as if you say yes it'll try and download the whole damn game and you'll be waiting for eternity!
I'll get onto gameplay shortly, as this is a kinda warm up post :)
Oh, and here's a couple of amazon links in case it's relevant
Saturday, March 6, 2010
New Game! Bullet Prose: Have No Part
Some bullet hell plus some prose: Bullet Prose
I made another quickie game! Dodge the bullet hell, try and read the strange quotes of a real life public domain book! Hear the strange music! Try and beat my retry score of 12 for the whole game!
Play it here!
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/other/bullet-prose-have-no-part/1741/
Or even just check out the page, since it grants me some ad revenue (thank you!)
Excerpts taken from the interesting public domain title:
War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0701101.txt
This is a short development time game.
Made in about thirty minutes, using a preexisting engine that itself was made in about an hour.
I made another quickie game! Dodge the bullet hell, try and read the strange quotes of a real life public domain book! Hear the strange music! Try and beat my retry score of 12 for the whole game!
Play it here!
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/other/bullet-prose-have-no-part/1741/
Or even just check out the page, since it grants me some ad revenue (thank you!)
War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0701101.txt
This is a short development time game.
Made in about thirty minutes, using a preexisting engine that itself was made in about an hour.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Playability
Awhile ago on 'play this thing' I said I put the program 'everyday the same dream' in the same pidgeon hole as 'the graveyard', in that there is no gameplay. No playability.
Recently I've been on the recieving end of much the same claim myself for my game 'invaders from space', so it's interesting to be in this position. Check out the comments section. The guys saying because it 'has no sense of menance' and 'no sense of journey' it's not playable.
Now the thing is, I consider playability to be that the outcome of play is uncertain. You have to play it to find out. If the outcome is certain even before you start 'playing' then it isn't playing at all.
I also include, not surprisingly, games like playing catch in the backyard as having playability and is a game. You may fumble and drop the ball.
So it's interesting to be in between these two assertions of unplayability. Invaders from space does have play - I lost at it during beta tests - the ending, as in whether you'll win, is uncertain. It used to only give one life, making it more uncertain, but someone suggested adding more lives so I did. While everyday the same dream - there is no uncertainty to the outcome - or atleast as far as I could tell. There seemed so little uncertainty I didn't play it all the way through. So someone might be able to blow me out of the water on this. But in terms of this blog entry, there was no uncertainty. Thus no play. Thus not a game.
But then I'm being told that games, for some reason, need a sense of journey and menace to have playability??? No, a game needs a sense of journey and menance in order to have a sense of journey and menace.
Now, I don't think my own standard for playability is just something I made up in my head - I'm sure catch has been played for thousands, perhaps millions of years by humans.
Having to have a sense of journey and menace? No, this is just made up shit.
Which I don't mind, except when someone takes the shit they made up in their head but doesn't take responsibility for it. They just pretend their invented shit IS the way the world works. Which still isn't so bad EXCEPT when they act upon it. In this case downrating. Because while they'll whine that the game has to have journey and menace, really they are saying 'do as I tell you - put in journey and menace'. But there's disconnect where they pretend to themselves they didn't invent the idea it has to have that - thus they can pretend to themselves they aren't telling you what to do or they will downrate/punish you.
But it's interesting to be in the middle, to claim non playability and to hear it too. I will say, every day the same dream would make an excellent music video that I would watch. Indeed, it basically was a music video.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Giant Zombie Invaders: Work in Progress
New work in progress - really I like to think the core game play is there. But then people would go 'where's the X or the Y' and I'd go 'Can't ya see the vision! Can't ya see the core gameplay!'. It's as if I presented them with a car and they want one with, like, seats and metal covering the machinery and a muffler and...oh wait, that makes sense. Damn analogy!
Anyway. Zombies. Shoot 'em in the head. And they still. might. not. die!
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/shooter/giant-zombie-invaders-wip/1269/
And I realised I have no idea what to call the metal skin of a car...it's not the duco, that's on the metal. The metal itself...
Monday, December 14, 2009
Who loves zombies!?
Everyone <3 zombies! Some teaser shots for the current game I'm developing.
Hehe.
Monday, December 7, 2009
New game - Invaders from Space!!!1!
Here's the funny take on space invaders...let's just say there might be a bit of a twist in the game...
Play link: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/shooter/invaders-from-space/1191/
Made this in one day. In fact, in roughly 1 hour and 49 minutes.
And the rest of the blog contains thought provoking articles as well!
Friday, December 4, 2009
Vampire Exile: Development Entry
The indie game in development now!
A work in progress.
Download / Quickplay : http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/adventure/vampire-exile-wip/1182/
Design notes: My goal was to have a game where there's always something you can do to improve your position. It's not meant to be complex gameplay, but it is meant to be highly engaging. I think I suceeded at that.
Future ideas are to have equipment and special codes so you don't just play the game, but his gear and name will be listed on my blog and will either give bonuses in latter games, or become part of the story itself.
Download / Quickplay : http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/adventure/vampire-exile-wip/1182/
Design notes: My goal was to have a game where there's always something you can do to improve your position. It's not meant to be complex gameplay, but it is meant to be highly engaging. I think I suceeded at that.
Future ideas are to have equipment and special codes so you don't just play the game, but his gear and name will be listed on my blog and will either give bonuses in latter games, or become part of the story itself.
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