Tag: Preview

Continuing City of Steam's Closed Beta


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We are into yet another preview of City of Steam, the upcoming browser MMO by Mechanist Games. Since this is the third closed beta weekend I have played, this is around the time where the little things in the game start popping out and really nagging me. Since this is a beta, I’ve agreed under MMO Fallout general rules of engagement that I am not to talk about bugs, even if I did manage to break yet another character and render him unable to progress through the main story quest somewhere around level six. Instead, my critiques will be laid at City of Steam on a conceptual level, not a programming level.

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The first thing I did when booting up this week’s edition of City of Steam was to see if the Warder class (melee) is still frustrating to play, and whether or not the class is still as functionally inept at early levels as I had previously experienced. It is, and for a simple reason: kiting, and this fact of life waits for you to enter the first dungeon before it clubs you over the head with a harsh reality: You are going to die, a lot. This about sums up combat as a warder: Enter room with two mobs, target mob A and start attacking while mob B attacks with range. Mob A continues to move away every other hit, forcing your character into an endless game of catch up as mob A happens to run faster than you do. And don’t think that just because you got mob A all by itself that this will remain a one on one fight, as mob A will inevitably lead you into aggro’ing a larger group.

Enemies will always find a way to screw over a warder, whether they lead you to a spot that gets your character stuck, run away over impassible terrain where you can’t follow them, or attack you from behind barriers that you have to break before you can attack back. My dual-wielding gunner doesn’t have the same problems as my dual-wielding warder. My gunner hits harder, faster, and doesn’t have to worry about Mechanist Game’s godawful pathfinding to be a reliable warrior, and strangely my gunner can also take a much heavier beating from the mobs of equal or higher level while my warder has trouble fighting his own legs without tripping over a pebble and cracking his skull open.

So essentially the warder doesn’t really do what a warder should. While my gunner is off actually killing things and doing so efficiently, my warder is stuck in a game of grab-ass chasing mobs around the map while the others take potshots at him. He has poor DPS, considering dual wielding was made for just that, perforates like paper in a hailstorm, and since he has trouble attacking at all, would be terrible at holding aggro in a group.

I’m sure someone will say “well the warder gets better at later levels,” and I wouldn’t really doubt that. Call me old fashioned, but when I play a game I expect that difficulty will start out at a level so easy I could defeat a foe by blinking at them forcefully enough and get harder as the game progresses, not start out unbearably difficult and slowly make its way to a more tolerable state. The warder gains certain abilities to stun enemies, pull them in, or slow their movement, but these feel like a bandage on what is fundamentally a poor game mechanic.

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Heading back to my gunner, the game becomes more enjoyable and the rest of City of Steam’s problems become just a whisper in the night. I’m not a fan of how the game sounds start becoming quieter as your hit points get closer to zero. It wouldn’t be as bad if the actual volume was going down, but in my experience playing the game replaces the game sounds with an audible low pitched white noise. Then again, I have a sensitivity to low-frequency noise, so it may just be a problem with how the game handles the volume decreasing while the actual level remains the same. Regardless of the noise, the volume going down in the first place seems unnecessary and is kind of obnoxious.

Another little “feature” that grinds my gears is the five second wait while traveling between zones and entering dungeons. I have a feeling this has to do with how the game handles groups, and that the reason there is a timer and a massive pad to stand on is so the game knows who to transport to the right version of an instance. Again, this seems like poor programming, whether it is the fault of the engine itself or on Mechanist Games. It’s not really a problem, per say, but when soloing it can become an annoyance and it seems like a strange mechanic to disconnect from the standard implementation of changing zones (clicking on a door or entering a portal).

Otherwise, I am having a fantastic time in City of Steam, which is an odd statement considering I probably seem like someone who is incredibly shallow or very incompetent at gaming. There is a ton of stuff to do, from crafting weapons and gear to doing quests, running dungeons to gather more materials, and playing with the lottery machine, salvaging items, and more. As I said in the first review, City of Steam doesn’t break a whole lot of new ground, but that doesn’t stop the game from being enjoyable.

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One particular feature I’ve found myself playing through regularly are challenges that offer a reason to continue going into old dungeons. Each dungeon has three challenges which range from killing x creatures, killing specific types of creatures, finding chests or opening boxes. The challenges can be replayed several times over, but the real rewards can only be obtained once every cycle (once per day, I believe). As you progress, you’ll also gain points in the overall area’s challenge score system, which opens up new prizes and rewards. While the game requires 2 or 3 players to join some challenges, opening up the interface will automatically put you into a public group with anyone else who happens to be available. City of Steam delivers my public grouping the same way I enjoy my elevator rides: no eye contact or talking. Touch my stuff and I will shank you.

And once again, City of Steam has proven itself to be incredibly stable. I think there were one or two cases of the servers going down over the weekend, and personally the client crashed twice but that’s because I run 20+ Google Chrome tabs at once and run my computer to death, so those crashes are likely not due to anything wrong with the game. Lag was pretty bad sometimes, but it’s guaranteed when you have so many people crowded as closely as they were. Functionally, however, the game worked fine despite the lag in certain actions and the lag didn’t really cross over into the instances thankfully.

I look forward to City of Steam’s next beta weekend.

Beta Perspective: City of Steam Weekend #1


A long time ago, the four nations of the world lived in peace and harmony. But all of that changed when the fire nation attacked. I’m sorry, I’m thinking of the wrong IP again. City of Steam is an upcoming browser MMO by Mechanist Games, set in a not-entirely-steampunk world of goblins, draug, dwarves, and man. The game is built over the Unity-3D engine, offering excellent graphics and smooth gameplay with all the benefits of being a browser game. It’s been a long time since I played the alpha, so I took the chance to sit down over the weekend and play in the first closed beta.

City of Steam allows you to choose from ten races and four classes (tank, mage, ranger, healer). Each class is divided into several subclasses that determine what kind of weapon and abilities you start out with. As you level up and gain skill points, you can choose to train in other fields of combat. The first thing you’ll notice is how amazing the game looks. Unity 3D has the ability to push some heavy graphics, and every part of City of Steam looks crisp and rides with the theme. Even better, while there are a few gameplay bugs to note, the game itself ran incredibly well despite the hustle and bustle of players crammed into the beta server. I didn’t experience any lag or graphical hitches, and the game did not crash once during the weekend.

After you create your character, you are given a direct sight to just how grand of a scale this game aims for: With the view of a massive behemoth attacking the city. Even your starting hub is much bigger than it appears to be at first. As the tutorial (which can be skipped) progresses, you learn the usual spat of controls, combat, and healing. Mechanist Games wants to please everyone, however, so while the game can be controlled entire through the mouse, players are also able to use WASD movement controls with the standard keys for abilities and perks. Just remember that your “injections” (hp and mana) are on the Q and E keys. I kept accidentally using health potions instinctively hitting E to pick up items.

Overall, there wasn’t a whole lot to do this weekend. Quests were dramatically cut short for the sake of the beta, so once that was over (around level 6) there wasn’t much else to do but run dungeons. Still, for what was available, City of Steam is turning into a very enjoyable game. If you haven’t picked up a key, you can do so at the link in the above banner. Grab a key, and it is good for all four beta weekends, so if you pick one up now (or in future tests) you won’t need another one for each subsequent weekend.

Questing On The Side With Side Quest


When we last saw Side Quest and Fractal Entertainment, the fledgling browser MMO was busy licking its wounds from a low turnout in its recent Kickstarter campaign. Of the ten thousand desired by Fractal Entertainment, the Kickstarter funding managed to bring in only two. However, not willing to give up, the folks at Fractal have released a playable version of Side Quest on the main website with the obvious hope that potential players put off by the “investor” phase will give the game a try and see its real potential. So over the past couple of weeks, I have dived into Side Quest, and I think it is about time to give my impressions on the game as a point of concept, not necessarily dealing with bugs (this is nowhere near completion, after all) and what not.

Jumping In…

Side Quest is a goofy, self-parodying side scroller with an equally ridiculous crew that makes me pine for the days of Dungeon Runners and gathering quests at Pwnston so I can take my +2 hammer of seal clubbing and just beat the crap out of a bunch of mobs. Making good on its Kickstarter advertising, Side Quest features a whole lot of single player, from the random fields that you will run through to gather gold and experience, and the quest story line that actually gives a bit of diversity and challenge. At the beginning of the game, following a short tutorial, you will have to choose one of five characters as your “main” character. This person is directly controlled and cannot be removed from the party at any point. The other four can be mixed and matched to your pleasure, and fall into the RPG archetypes.

Side Quest is controlled Patapon style: Your party of three moves through the level on its own, attacking enemies as you see them. While your two NPCs will do their jobs by themselves, your main character is the one that levels up and gains new abilities and stats. If you want the game to be easier, I suggest taking Krug (the tank) as your main role. If you want the game to be incredibly difficult, take on the role of healer. Then understand why your healer curses you out in World of Warcraft. Abilities and potions are lined up in the hotbar and activated with the number keys.

The loot system derives from some Facebook games. Each level contains a progress bar that fills as you complete the level over and over again, unlocking new difficulty levels as you go. When an enemy mob dies, it explodes in a shower of gold and experience that must be picked up with a simple hovering of the mouse. Chests drop additional experience and gold and are activated with a simple click of the mouse. While there are plenty of “filler” levels that are good for gold and experience and equipment boosts, the actual story quests are where Fractal Entertainment are showing off their creativity.

There is one quest, for example, that has you traveling down a river with your party. You must steer away from hazards while simultaneously beating away the tentacles of a large octopus attacking your raft. Steering is easy as clicking on the correct button, but you must manage between beating back the tentacles, steering, and repairing damage. On another quest, you are tasked with moving forward in a mess of bushes. Whenever you attack the bushes, creatures come from behind and you must turn around in order to fight them (which slows your progress). This one took me a couple of times to beat, as your healer (who is normally in the back) is constantly exposed to danger. You have to balance forward movement with keeping yourself from being overwhelmed from behind.

There are plenty of other activities already in Side Quest. You can head over to the arena (pictured in the first shot) and battle other player’s crews for ranking and arena points which can be used on potions and equipment. There are a number of daily quests available as you travel around and gain access to new areas and quest hubs. Fractal has promised that more cooperative and competitive multiplayer features will be coming at some point, but for right now the arena square you off against another player’s team controlled by AI. The other player is not actually at the computer. You can also play a game of Card Slayers, an interesting card mini-game.

The problem that Side Quest has is that the very early portion of the game is hand holding to its greatest extent. In other games, players exaggerate by saying that the game can be played on auto-pilot mode. In Side Quest, apart from picking up loot and experience that drops on the ground, the very early levels actually are on auto-pilot. The characters move themselves, attack by themselves (until you start getting special abilities), and heal by themselves. And the initial areas are so easy that all I had to do for the first hour or so was to click to enter the level and wave the mouse around to pick up loot. It’s easy to misinterpret this as representative of the rest of the game and lose interest.

In short: Side Quest isn’t a half-assed indie World of Warcraft clone, nor is it an open world sandbox MMO. In fact it isn’t really much of an MMO at this juncture. But what Side Quest has shown is already becoming a fun, unique experience, and the development team is very passionate about their game. You can play Side Quest at http://www.side-quest.com/

Getting A Beta Perspective: Evolution of Combat [RuneScape]


Assuming you aren’t already in the beta, I’ve thrown together a quick video showcasing some of the new combat abilities in the Evolution of Combat beta. If you are a current member, you can beta test the Evolution of Combat update by logging in on the appropriate weekend. Otherwise, if you were sent a beta invitation by Jagex, you can log in regardless of the weekend events.

I will have a full written preview in the next couple of days.

Getting a Beta Perspective: The Secret World


The Secret World releases on in just a few weeks on July 3rd, and I had yet another opportunity to take a look at the beta this weekend. As you already know from our previous preview, The Secret World is an action-oriented game that plays somewhere between the button mashing of a World of Warcraft game and the more tactical location-oriented button pressing of Funcom’s other title, Age of Conan.

This time around I got my hands on the Dragon faction, a faction out of Tokyo who believe in order through chaos. The opening, however unfortunate, is the exact same as for the Templar: Long, drawn out, and boring. Luckily, it can also be skipped and some of the poor voice actors who appeared in previous beta weekends appear to have been replaced.

Foremost, we need to talk about quests. Quests are, and hold with me here, interesting and engaging. Unlike your other MMOs, you don’t pick up quests by wandering into a hub and nabbing everything in sight. In fact, you can’t. There are hard limits that allow you to only take a very small number of quests simultaneously. Every citizen of Kingsmouth and beyond is unique with their own personality. The presentation readily makes up for the much smaller number of quests available.

While there are a good amount of kill x quests, there are many more that require thought and deduction, offering little or no help on the mini-map. For instance, one of the first quests in Kingsmouth has you talking to survivors to learn more about the fog. It doesn’t tell you who to talk to or even where you should go to talk to them, that is left up to your investigatory skills. Other quests will send you on your way with a vague idea or general area, but no specific pinpoint on your map telling you where to go. Turning in quests is as easy as reporting in via your cell phone.

Perhaps what sets The Secret World apart from other MMOs in this regard is that the game has no levels. Since players are less inclined to try to rush toward end-game, since there really is none, they might feel better sitting back and enjoying the cutscenes and presentation of the quests. When I played The Old Republic, I found myself quickly bored with side-quests. The cinematics did little to numb the pain of quest grinding. In The Secret World, quests are long and spiraling and can regularly contain twenty separate parts.

Keep your thinking caps on, folks. For every brainless killing quest in The Secret World, there are plenty more that will strain your mind and put your investigatory skills to the test. Of course many players will simply have a browser open or beg in chat for answers (the latter being incredibly obnoxious), but there is a sense of accomplishment when you finally figure out the answer.

For example, another quest has you entering the house of a doctor to access the log files on his computer. Your only hint is a photograph that shows fireworks and a hint on the computer about the “song of the seasons.” The answer requires some knowledge of classical music, and I won’t spoil it here. I almost have to question if The Secret World will lose some appeal with its crowd because if you don’t have good deduction skills (or knowledge of classical music), you will probably just wind up looking the answers up online, and that will become annoying after a while.

Crafting in The Secret World is very similar to Minecraft, where you build gear by placing the building blocks in the correct pattern on a grid. Unfortunately, at least in my humble opinion, crafting is still very difficult without reading outside sources and guides for help. In fact there is a crafting guide on the Secret World main page that does an amazing job of explaining the ins and outs of weapon creation.

Combat, as I mentioned before, is a mixture of strategy without going as far as the intricate systems of other games. You will mostly be building energy to pull off attacks that use up said energy, and in the meantime many of the mobs have attacks that need to be dodged. There is a certain level of strategy required in combat, as you have limited space in your active and passive skill section to fill.

We’ll see how the next beta goes. Until then, I still haven’t burnt myself out of The Secret World. The more I play, the more engrossing that the game becomes. Player vs player combat was still absent from the beta but will appear next time.

TERA Beta Preview Part 3: Prisoner of Azerbaijan


[Editor’s Note: I highly recommend reading Part 2 before you read part 3]

I’ve mentioned before on Twitter and in discussions that I support a combination of a localized auction house and player owned shops that can be spread over the countryside. Granted, my business tactics come from a time where I could set up my shop NPC outside of a large raid dungeon and stock it with health/mana potions, buff potions, resurrection scrolls, etc, but that is a story for a different time.

For the beta, I want to say that it is working like a wonder. My Popori archer made it to level 16 this weekend without experiencing any bugs. There was one server outage this time around, but otherwise the connection in my server went along fine even at peak hours. Zones were once again overcrowded at all times of the day, however, but that is to be expected with only a few servers running and should space out at release.

First thing’s first: I was able to preview crafting and all I can say is that it is generic, but useful, and incredibly expensive. Buying the materials from the Weaponcraft materials vendor for my first weaponcraft quest cost me thirty thousand gold, of which I received one hundred back as payment for completing the quest. I did manage to get some real armor crafted, and considering the extremely slow rate at which looting mobs has been providing me with armor and weapons, crafting is looking to become a very useful asset.

Otherwise crafting is a simple method of gathering materials, buying stuff you can’t find on the field from vendors, and watching a progress bar load. And then once you no longer have use for a specific material, dump it on one of the ten thousand vendors carrying work orders for it. Crafting materials are in extremely high demand, and I hope that the outrageous prices that players are willing to throw for them in beta rolls over to the live game.

Leveling is still a rather mind-numbing grind of quests asking me to kill X-mobs, but I’ve noticed the inclusion of a new quest type: Guild quests. There are also special “suppression order” (repeatable) quests, and they were my number one annoyance this weekend. As far as I know, this is an intended “feature,” that in each quest you are generally required to obtain “proof” of a kill, meaning a drop. For myself, the drop rate on “proof” is so low that I managed to kill somewhere around forty centaur before the quest ticker moved up by one.

Again, I complain but TERA offers some of the most fun I’ve had in a recently released MMO. The action-combat is still the highlight, and in case the pictures don’t say it, the game still looks absolutely gorgeous. There are two closed beta tests left, with one open beta in April. I will see you then!

I received a few complaints last time for not talking about the lawsuit between NCSoft and Bluehole Studios, some people saying I shouldn’t be promoting TERA until the outcome of the trial is determined. One important factor you should know with the lawsuit against TERA is that even though NCSoft won in Korea, the game was still able to launch. I have very little doubt that even if NCSoft were to gain victory in the states that the court would actually shut down or prevent TERA from releasing.

TERA Beta Preview #2: Electric Boogaloo


This past weekend marked the second closed beta for The Exiled Realm of Arborea, and my second full weekend of ignoring everything in the Area chat channel for the sake of my ignore button. My last preview was mostly done through Twitter, during which I managed to level up to 9 before admittedly logging out.

I know a lot of people say this, and I will happily join the bandwagon in praising how gorgeous TERA looks. TERA is heavily stylized in an eastern setting, and not just because there is a race dedicated to looking like fat, adorable dogs, cats, foxes, raccoon, gerbils, etc.

Continue reading “TERA Beta Preview #2: Electric Boogaloo”

Preview: 8Realms


Jagex has come a long way from being known solely for RuneScape. Over the past few years, the British developer has released their own mini-game portal, bought up a few iOS and browser properties, and published their first microtransaction based game, War of Legends. In the coming future, they have plans to release two fully fledged MMOs (Stellar Dawn and Transformers) and the topic of this article: 8Realms.

8Realms is an MMORTS that strives for accessibility. Developed on HTML5, the thought of finding a computer that doesn’t meet the minimum requirements might require installing the game on your toaster, but only if you have a model earlier than 2005. I did have stability issues attempting to play on my iPad, which Jagex has promised will be improved at some point in the future.

Players start out in ancient times with little more than a few burning buildings, a handful of workers, and enough provisions to just about prolong your citizen’s starvation. The multi-hour long tutorial covers anything and everything you might need to know about 8Realms, so by the time you make it to the Classical age, the world doesn’t seem that frightening. Over the course of leveling up, players will take their kingdom through eight ages, taking advantage of new technology and expanding their kingdom into the surrounding areas and beyond.

8Realms is somewhat simplified compared to other MMORTS titles you may have played. Rather than overwhelming the player with a labyrinth of menus and buttons, the most important information is easily accessible either directly on the HUD or one or two clicks away. Resources are easy to keep track of, having only four to manage (three for a good few hours entering the game) and indicators of stock, production rate, and maximum storage clearly visible on the HUD. The difficulty ramps up in an elegant curve as you learn new concepts and mechanics, progressing at a speed where the game doesn’t suddenly shower you with new difficulties, but never slows down as to become insultingly simple.

Combat is a numbers game of building up a massive force and raiding/capturing other territories for their delicious resource-filled centers. Inevitably you will compete against other players for resource positions, leading to rivalries and even the potential for alliances. Alas, an action game 8Realms is not.

The cash shop system in 8Realms is one of the more balanced and less invasive I’ve seen in the genre, and Jagex has committed to ensuring that the game doesn’t devolve into a pay-to-compete system. Most of the items available through the cash shop have negative aspects to consider alongside any benefits they may provide. None of the items last more than a few hours, and virtually any item that speeds up efficiency in one area will reduce efficiency in another, a balance that starts to take a toll when your timers start hitting the 10+ hour range.

Jagex states that 8Realms is best played in short spurts and casually, and I completely expected to play in such a fashion. What I did not expect heading into 8Realms was to actually enjoy the game. In my tenure writing on MMOs, I have played every Evony clone to stumble out of the internet drunk and fumbling for my wallet, and not only is 8Realms not that drunk, it might just be the first game in the genre I came out of thinking “you know, I actually enjoyed myself.”

8Realms doesn’t take itself too seriously as a game with its goofy and immature advertising and animated images. I find myself continuing to log in each day because I want to, rather than a feeling of obligation that has pushed me away from other similar titles. I’m also rather impressed that the total lack of any sound effects in 8Realms had no bearing on my enjoyment of the game once the initial awkwardness wore off.

Oh and Mod Thor is a jerk.

TERA Previews Coming Soon


Moving with MMO Fallout’s commitment for expanding our medium, I’ve committed to producing more video features. While I will not have access to the TERA sneak peek this weekend, reportedly neither the sneak peek or beta tests will be covered by a non disclosure agreement, meaning MMO Fallout will be publishing several TERA previews, both in video and text over the course of the closed beta period.

Stay tuned for more information.

Kingdom of Amalur Preview


Why preview Kingdom of Amalur? It’s the first game by 38 Studios, who you may know are working on an MMO to come out at some point in the future. I wanted to get an idea what to expect in terms of quality and aside from some technical issues, I was rather impressed.

Check out my other videos on Youtube at the video link above.