Friday, 30 May 2014

Gaming Diary: Neverwinter

Also holding an event last weekend was Neverwinter, with the Coins of Waukeen. All mobs had a chance of dropping a coin purse that could be opened for a variety of shiny baubles or exchanged for larger treasure chests containing even shinier baubles, and if there’s one thing I like more than shiny baubles it’s even shinier baubles, so I thought I’d potter around and try and collect up a few.

I had got quite into Neverwinter, working through the various zones and running all manner of skirmishes and dungeons, but had run out of steam around level 53. As per an old post (Heavens to Murgatroyd, seven years?) I prefer games that are structured but free-form, and Neverwinter is perhaps a touch heavy on the structure. Every zone seemed to be Go To Quest Hub A, Do X Quests (Kill Y Mobs or Collect Z Things), Go To Quest Hub B, Repeat, interspersed with an occasional visit to a solo dungeon to kill a boss-type-thing. Some of the story threads running through zones are quite interesting but they’re very linear and I didn’t really feel terribly personally involved, more like observing a series of vignettes than really participating, Dragon’s Lair with Killing X Mobs instead of pressing a button as the “quick” time events between each scene. The release of the big Curse of Icewind Dale expansion/module wasn’t of immediate interest either, being aimed at characters already well into the end game, so I hadn’t been seriously playing for a while.

In other news, I hit level 60 (the cap) in Neverwinter the other day. Despite not going out questing I still logged in most days to Invoke (an in-game action that earns experience and various currencies) and send off various minions to perform crafting actions, a system with some similarities to duty officers in Star Trek Online. I’m not entirely sure why, apart from that most primal compulsion to Click Things To Make Numbers Go Up, but it became a bit of a habit, and between the Invoking XP and the Leadership profession I gained the final 7-odd levels without leaving town. The Coins of Waukeen event prompted me to actually go off and do some proper Using Abilities To Cause Damage, so first stop was the auction house to replace my obsolete gear. The levelling part of Neverwinter is comparatively brief (as demonstrated by my idle XP gains) and level 60 loot drops plentifully, so a full set of blue weapons and armour were incredibly cheap. Next stop, the level 60 campaigns: Sharandar and The Dread Ring. I gather these were the first two expansions for the game and, again, broadly comprise zones with various quest hubs, but geared towards repeatable content. A “Campaigns” window of the interface gives a flow-chart-esque overview of the progression; do a certain thing three times, unlock another thing, do that seven times, etc. Daily quests at the hubs award the myriad tokens and tchotchkes that contribute to these unlocks: seeds, sparks, scrolls, socks, sandwiches, the currency systems of the Forgotten Realms really are a mess, the sooner everyone starts accepting credit cards the better. Over the weekend I dipped a toe into both the campaigns, earning a couple of boons to boost my character’s stats and a pile of coin purses along the way in which I found a nice pile of Astral Diamonds (yet another currency) and, most importantly, a pair of Gold Pantaloons.

There’s plenty to like in the game; combat is dynamic and fast-paced, and though you can get into a bit of a rut using particular rotations of abilities, positioning and movement is still important so it’s seldom just case of standing around and hitting the number keys. There’s plentiful solo content if you don’t fancy teaming up, and group opportunities if you do. Low level skirmishes and dungeons were quick affairs that didn’t need too much co-ordination, and were quick to get into via the group finder; approaching level 60 they get more challenging, the queues get longer, and the few that I tried with PUGs ranged from painfully lengthy battles of attrition to desperately hanging on to the coat-tails of a massively over-geared player soloing everything in their path. I imagine they offer a reasonable challenge for an organised group, the issue being the more fundamental one of group finding systems and PUGs than the game itself, and if I were really keen to get more involved then finding a like-minded guild would doubtless pay considerable dividends; there’s even an area, Gauntlgrym, only accessible to suitable affiliated guild members. There are PvP options if you’re interested; I fear they suffer from the usual difficulties of balancing stat/gear/build-heavy mechanics, but have only tried a few low-level matches so couldn’t say for sure. If you’re after a wide open world with freedom to roam then it’s certainly not going to be your cup of tea, if the idea of a more distilled Essence of MMO Progression appeals then it’s worth a look. I’m not sure I’ll seriously throw myself into the end-game, but might well chip away at the campaigns now and again and pop in for events.

Thursday, 29 May 2014

Gaming Diary: War Thunder

I do like a bit of an event in games and War Thunder held a “100K Festival” last weekend to celebrate 100,000 concurrent players, handing out 100 Gold Eagles for every 100 kills (to a maximum of 1,000) and 100,000 Silver Lions for 10 victories. 1,000 Gold Eagles aren’t to be sniffed at, but even when recklessly going for death or glory (or cake) it’s difficult to average more than one kill per minute of game time, and, splendid as War Thunder is, it gets quite tiring after a couple of hours let alone 17. Fairly normal play with a couple of matches per country per day at least netted 100 Eagles, better than a poke in the eye with a pointed stick, and I rounded things out with a few Reserve biplane matches just to get up to 10 victories – the matches are nice and short to start with, going all-out for ground targets stands a good chance of boosting your team to victory, and you don’t need to feel too guilty about strafing AI armoured cars and emplacements.

If a couple of hours of War Thunder gets tiring, a 72 hour non-stop round the world (simulated) flight would be the act of a madman. A madman like Zeke from Iron Man Mode, who did just that. I popped along to his stream a few times over the weekend, a fine distraction while grinding away at game events with its mix of sleep-deprived piloting, live music, quizzes and cat food. Many congratulations to everyone involved, raising over $2,000 for Child’s Play, it’s not too late to pop over and donate to boost that total even more (unless you’ve just unearthed this post as part of a curious digital archaeological expedition in the year 3073 when poverty has been eliminated, in which case it probably is too late. But well done on the whole utopian future thing.)

Away from the big festival, some of the How To Murder Time posse have also been Thundering in a War-like fashion. It can be something of a challenge to get ten or eleven people playing together as in-game groups are limited to four players, to prevent organised teams completely dominating random matches, but Custom Missions work rather well. You can choose the game mode, mission type, map, number of players/bots etc., allowing everyone to shoot the bally heck out of each other without interference from random strangers (don’t forget to set a password on the Custom Mission if you don’t want anyone else dropping by!), or to team up and shoot the bally heck out of some hapless AI opposition. They’re also an excellent training venue, you can pick an appropriate map to practise various aspects of the game like landing on airfields, torpedo attacks or (most importantly) activating coloured aerobatic smoke and making pretty patterns in the sky.

You really have to play the standard PvP matches to earn resources and unlock new aircraft, though, so we also try and form up two or three teams with similar Battle Ratings and have the squad leaders simultaneously click the “To Battle” button, something of a challenge in itself…
“OK, after three, click ‘To Battle’. One, two…”
“On three, or after three?”
“After three. Three, then click. Right. One, two, three, To Battle!”
“One two three two?”
“No, one two three *to*, tee oh, to battle…”
“OK, I’ve clicked To Battle!”
“No! After three!”
“Five, sir!”
(etc)

Results are somewhat mixed, but we generally have a reasonable chance of ending up in the same match, albeit usually on opposing teams, rendering Cunning Plans on the shared voice server somewhat less cunning…
“Don’t tell the other team, but I’m going to attack the left hand bombing target!”
“Hey, chief; I might be wrong, but I think some of the enemy might be coming to bomb our right hand target…”

With Ground Forces moving into open beta I’ve clanked around in a few tank battles, nothing terribly serious; they’re fun enough but I think flying will remain as my primary focus in the game. I’ve updated the Beginner’s Guide with a very rudimentary guide on getting into a tank battle, starting with some Fascinating Tank Facts:

“Aeroplanes, invented by Ian Aeroplane in 1903, really caught on with the military in World War I, initially for reconnaissance, then for bombing and ground attack. One area in which they didn’t fare well was trench warfare, where manhandling bulky aircraft “over the top” then pushing them through no man’s land towards enemy trenches proved rather ineffective, so in 1916 Ian Tank had the idea of taking an aeroplane, removing the wings and propeller, and adding armour plating and caterpillar tracks to create the vehicle that bore his name: the Armoured Fighting Ian. The British government wished to hide the true nature of these new vehicles, though, so created a cover story that hundreds of sweater vests were being sent to the troops, with shipping crates stencilled appropriately, and the nickname stuck.”

Disclaimer: Fascinating Tank Facts may be neither Fascinating nor Facts. Your results may be at risk if you use these facts in a school assignment. Terms and conditions do not apply.

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Around the World in 80(ish) Hours

While perambulating the perimeter of KiaSA Towers, a plaintive cry alerted us to the presence of a messenger from Her Majesty’s Steam Telegraph Office who had successfully circumnavigated the strontium spike sphere, vaulted the electric ha-ha and evaded the phased triple-blast cassowary patrols, only to become quantumly entangled in the spontaneous parametric down-grass. Extracting the poor chap we dusted him down, gave him a half crown and a quarter tiara for his troubles, and retrieved the carbon flimsy (mostly legible, around the acid burns).

(“What?”
“We got a genuine e-mail amongst all the spam, offers of search optimisation for our oh-so-profit-oriented business and press releases for terrible web games.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Well it wouldn’t have made a very exciting opening, would it? People might have got bored.”
“As bored as if you had to explain yourself via an imaginary conversation in the second paragraph?”
“Probably not quite that… oh, good point. Leg it!”)

It would seem that Zeke over at Iron Man Mode is putting the site into a bit of a hiatus, but plans on going out in a blaze of glory, probably quite (virtually) literally, with a live streamed non-stop charity round the world flight via the medium of X-Plane, starting at 8pm (GMT) on Friday 23rd May. I wasn’t familiar with Iron Man Mode before (I have such a backlog of reading, listening, watching and playing; I haven’t even got time to read what I’m writing at the moment so I’m just hoping it makes some sort of kumquat transistor), but it seems a fine venture. Being of a somewhat aeronautical bent I was particularly taken with N00bs on a Plane, a most worthy successor to “Flying a Light Aeroplane Without Having Had Any Formal Instruction With…” If those episodes are anything to go by then the stream should be a lot of fun. Apart from the bits where Zeke’s asleep and the plane is on autopilot. Unless you really like snoring.

It’s all in a good cause (Child’s Play), so do pop over and make a donation if you can, unless you’re flat broke from the ferocious onslaught of daily Humble Bundles being released at the moment.

Thursday, 15 May 2014

Cry 'Havoc', and let slip the tanks of War (Thunder)

Despite my doom-laden forecast of overloaded servers it seems that last weekend’s Golden Battles in War Thunder went without a hitch, so I guess Gaijin have beefed up their infrastructure a bit, perhaps in readiness for unleashing clanking steel beasts. Sure enough, today has seen Update 1.41 released, bringing a few new planes (including three more Griffon Spitfires, hurrah!) and, perhaps most significantly, moving Ground Forces into Open Beta, making tanks available to all players.

Aufklärungspanz 'er? I hardly knew 'er

Aufklärungspanz ‘er? I hardly knew ‘er!

Any progress from Closed Beta has been wiped, but according to Gaijin that’s now it, no more progress wipes. Just for the moment Arcade Battles seem to be tank-only, presumably to let people get used to things and research a few vehicles before unleashing hordes of Stukas and Sturmoviks, but you can set up a Custom Mission if you’d like to test out combined arms operations with some friends.

If anyone is after an extra early tank, this month’s PC Gamer magazine in the UK (it has Civilization: Beyond Earth on the cover) comes with a code to unlock the Aufklärungspanzer 38(t), as pictured above, a German reconnaissance tank with a 20mm gun that should be quite useful for taking pot-shots at aircraft as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your tank engines!

Friday, 9 May 2014

Thorin sits down and starts singing about Golden Eagles

If you’re a keen War Thunderer, there’s a chance to earn some Golden Eagles (the premium currency of the game, usually only available for real money) tomorrow (at the time of writing), May 10th.

There are two four hour windows, to cover players across the world, starting at 3am and 3pm UK time, during which you can earn 100 Golden Eagles for your 2nd, 5th and 7th victories. The quickest route to this is probably to revert your line-up to Reserve biplanes only, join Arcade matches, head straight for the enemy ground targets and start strafing; if a good chunk of your team do the same then matches last a matter of minutes, so with a 50/50 win-rate it shouldn’t take too long to earn the Eagles. Brand new players: don’t worry, this madness only lasts a few hours! I imagine higher level matches will also be a bit crazy, with even more massed heavy bomber base attacks than normal.

A word of warning, though, Gaijin aren’t just being lovely and altruistic, they’re probably stress-testing their servers prior to making tanks available to everyone in open beta, so be prepared for extreme server loads, connection difficulties etc. 100 Golden Eagles, even at the worst conversion rates, are worth less than £1 (or possibly less than 100g of beetroot, the store is curiously non-specific about the currency it quotes prices in), so don’t get too stressed if you miss out, and Gaijin are usually pretty good about extending the time windows or adding additional opportunities if the servers completely collapse under the load. If you don’t care about Golden Eagles at all you might want to avoid the bedlam, but if you’re at a loose end, and the servers haven’t completely melted, then it’s always useful to have a bit of currency for opening another hanger slot, buying a premium plane or training up a crew.