(Because who needs emotion anyway?)
So, I've been playing around with mods in Minecraft recently, because when I get a game I tend to play it vanilla for a short stretch of time, then find out what other people have done to bend the engine's arm behind its back.
Minecraft is one of the better games out there to play modded, I think, and here's why:
Mod interactivity.
Hear me out - I know a lot of mods end up being incompatible with one another due to block IDs. And I know Notch pretty much deliberately made it hell to mod the game what with the code obfuscation and the lack of an official mod API and all.
However, once you get the blocks all in the game and past the inevitable black screen of death, lots of mods play really nicely together.
Here's an example: Right now I'm derping around with Better Than Wolves and Equivalent Exchange (plus a handful of others, notably Timber! and Clay Soldiers).
With Equivalent Exchange (it's an alchemy mod, by the way), once you get your philosopher's stone, you can turn a whole bunch of things into a whole bunch of other things at relatively low resource cost. In practice this means things like 'turn flowers into pumpkins into melons so you don't have to find a death mineshaft (oh god cave spiders why) to start farming resources.
It also gives you basically unlimited redstone and/or glowstone out of sugar cane, essentially turning all resources in the game (Lava is coal + redstone + bucket + philo stone) into renewable resources. Powerful stuff.
But how does that interact with Better than Wolves?
Let me explain what Better than Wolves is if you're not interested in googling it yourself (the name is a non-indicative jab at Notch's penchant for adding random trivial content) - the mod basically aims to add an endgame made of mechanical power to minecraft. To that end, you have things like windmills and water wheels, hemp plants and ground up souls of the damned, all to make you the undisputed ruler of your world. (So you can better crush any zombie uprisings, see?)
It also adds elevators which is just damn cool, I don't care who you are.
Now, your first water wheel generally will be made with glue because slimes are difficult to find and ridiculously rare besides. That involves a trip or several to the Nether to build a hibachi, plus the understanding of how to work mechanical power (if you just installed Better than Wolves you probably don't have that understanding) to stoke a fire using a bellows.
With Equivalent Exchange, instead of doing all that, you can take a bucket of water, some normal seeds, a sapling, and some sugarcane, and grind it all up until you've made a whole mess of slimeballs.
One of the cooler features of Better than Wolves is the block dispenser, which is critical to creating companion cubes (you monster), and also most forms of automated farming. Trouble is, it requires mossy cobblestone. I've only legitimately found a handful of dungeons in my entire time playing the game. The spider dungeon challenge aside, I've never really built anything out of mossy cobble because it's so damn rare.
Equivalent Exchange has a solution for that, as well! Seeds + Cobblestone = Mossy Cobblestone.
Basically, the two mods play off of each other in fun and interesting ways, because they both use the standard items - just in new and interesting ways. Sure I can't, say, transmute normal seeds into hemp seeds - but the mods compliment each other so nicely that sometimes I actually forget that isn't possible.
Of course, somebody else is doing something more impressive than I have the patience for with this combination, that's how I discovered it and that's ultimately why I downgraded back to 1.8.1 from the 1.9 prereleases. Good job, Stormweaver.
Showing posts with label video games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video games. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Busy
What kind of gamer kid spends all their time writing, instead of playing games?
I spent the entire week playing games, being stuck at work, and getting ready for the ren faire.
Have this.
Jess really likes its voice changer.
I kinda suck.
Spoilers: I managed to pull neutral. It's awesome.
I spent the entire week playing games, being stuck at work, and getting ready for the ren faire.
Have this.
Jess really likes its voice changer.
I kinda suck.
Spoilers: I managed to pull neutral. It's awesome.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Whee! Fraps!
So I took a couple of videos.
Here's one of them.
It was awesome.
Basically the entire match ended up being one very long game of hide and seek.
Maybe also tag?
The first thirty minutes or so is pretty boring because Sion jungled like a pro.
Here's one of them.
It was awesome.
Basically the entire match ended up being one very long game of hide and seek.
Maybe also tag?
The first thirty minutes or so is pretty boring because Sion jungled like a pro.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
I got distracted
H'okiday, so I'm seeing all the things going on in the blogs I'm following and I'm once again quite happy I decided to keep my nose more-or-less out of it, all the same.
I don't much care for parties when they're not the sort of thing you get murdered at.
So, what'd I get distracted by, if not all that?
Well, a five-year-old game, of course!
I had a revelation about the entire video game industry yesterday. You can release a buggy game that's sloppy around the edges, and people may buy it. But the way to keep people buying it is to give them the tools to fix what's broken. There is a vertiable army of modders out there, so if the product is good at its core, they will twist and tweak at it to their hearts' content and fix every little thing you never did - provided, of course, you give them the tools to do so. That's how a game that's five years old is still relevant to anything, and how there's still interest in the franchise five years later for the release of the fifth entry in the series.
Apparently Blizzard isn't the only group who firmly believes in the "when it's done" policy of game releases.
Let me explain: the game in question is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Now, there are still people who play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, though I never took to it myself. I have a copy somewhere, I just never really got into it.
The game is solid at its core, it really is. It's got a standard 'save the world' style plot, but it's got so many sidequests and so much to do that even at basegame, it's a very worthwhile offering. The thing that makes it a gem, though, is the Construction Set. People have built entire games out of the Construction Set for Oblivion. Seriously. I have, myself, downloaded a little over a hundred plugins all told, including the ten official mods.
Let me pick at what's wrong with it, because 'it's a solid game' seems a little bit underwhelming in the face of the fact that I've done so much to my version of it that it hardly resembles the game that came in the box (or the copy I have for XBOX, for that matter).
The leveling system irks me. There are no two ways around it, the leveling system irks me. Until I did away with it entirely - and put something new in its place - I never thought too much about the sheer amount of grinding I did to no purpose in a single player game. The reason? Everything levels with you. While that sounds fine in theory - in theory only, mind - two important problems arise from doing it that way. One: although the enemies do keep up with you, make it a challenge, like, they're also never any stronger than you. There's never really any sense of progress, when everything is on par with you always. Two (and even worse than the first): If you don't fixate on your combat skills, you'll slide behind all the enemies who are keeping up with your stated levels. Even if you do, if you do it wrong, you'll still slide behind, and then all the curbstomp battles are on your skull, and you'll be lucky if they let you run away alive. So, in short, no real progress (unless you plan to lose your soul to, again, the grind in a single player game and become like unto a robot), only regress. Not good.
That's actually just about everyone's major gripe with the game, and it's almost impossible to swing a cat without hitting someone who's got a mod for it, although the biggest mods seem to have gotten it right overall. Check Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul for the biggest enemy deleveler, and I'm currently poking around with Oblivion XP to undermine the stupid grind. I spend enough time on the game, thank you.
So, onto some of the other gripes with the game. Loading screens. It's a very resource intensive game, so sure, I'll accept that on a lot of rigs they're necessary, but on mine they really aren't, not always. (I play League of Legends just fine with Oblivion paused in the background, even with the resource-hogging mods I've plugged in.) Better Cities addresses this one nicely, by making the cities bigger, better, and more open. Actually, just better in general. I'm pretty sure it's added a ton of new places and people, but they blend nicely, so I'm only pretty sure.
What else ... oh, I know. Vampirism. Who ever heard of starving yourself for power? Anorexic models. I don't want to play an anorexic model anymore than I want to sparkle in the sunlight. So there's a mod to flip that about (actually most of the vampire overhaul mods do a whole hell of a lot more than that, but I'm just a simple thing, see), and another to get the disease by sleeping in disreputable places and getting bit, and another to add a major quest of sorts to the game just for the vampires.
Honestly, most of my mods I picked up for realism, not necessity. The only one I pick up for necessity is the alternate leveling system, because otherwise I'll be up to my eyeballs in Daedra too tough to take out (difficulty slider aside, anyway).
Sorry for the ... odd ... slant to my writing, by the by. I sunk my teeth into a lovely book, and the main character talks thusly. I'll be over it in time for Wednesday, probably. I'd like to do a proper review on some of the mods I added.
Over all, though, I have to say, Oblivion is not a bad game, even at base game. It's got an interesting enough plot, and most of the shiny that can still tax a newer system is inherent. The combat system is pretty fun and streamlined, the magic's all right. The main complaint I can think of is the bird-brained level system and the fact that AI is a crapshoot, so the ambient conversations are generally rather inane - which, most conversations among real people tend to be a bit inane. So meh. It's got grand, epic quests if you're into that, and enough other things to do that you'll be quite content if you want no part of those.
If you like RPGs and haven't yet tried it, pick it up. If you don't, well, don't.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to playing. (And I promise, I'm actually working on this here again, too.) They release Skyrim in November.
I don't much care for parties when they're not the sort of thing you get murdered at.
So, what'd I get distracted by, if not all that?
Well, a five-year-old game, of course!
I had a revelation about the entire video game industry yesterday. You can release a buggy game that's sloppy around the edges, and people may buy it. But the way to keep people buying it is to give them the tools to fix what's broken. There is a vertiable army of modders out there, so if the product is good at its core, they will twist and tweak at it to their hearts' content and fix every little thing you never did - provided, of course, you give them the tools to do so. That's how a game that's five years old is still relevant to anything, and how there's still interest in the franchise five years later for the release of the fifth entry in the series.
Apparently Blizzard isn't the only group who firmly believes in the "when it's done" policy of game releases.
Let me explain: the game in question is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Now, there are still people who play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, though I never took to it myself. I have a copy somewhere, I just never really got into it.
The game is solid at its core, it really is. It's got a standard 'save the world' style plot, but it's got so many sidequests and so much to do that even at basegame, it's a very worthwhile offering. The thing that makes it a gem, though, is the Construction Set. People have built entire games out of the Construction Set for Oblivion. Seriously. I have, myself, downloaded a little over a hundred plugins all told, including the ten official mods.
Let me pick at what's wrong with it, because 'it's a solid game' seems a little bit underwhelming in the face of the fact that I've done so much to my version of it that it hardly resembles the game that came in the box (or the copy I have for XBOX, for that matter).
The leveling system irks me. There are no two ways around it, the leveling system irks me. Until I did away with it entirely - and put something new in its place - I never thought too much about the sheer amount of grinding I did to no purpose in a single player game. The reason? Everything levels with you. While that sounds fine in theory - in theory only, mind - two important problems arise from doing it that way. One: although the enemies do keep up with you, make it a challenge, like, they're also never any stronger than you. There's never really any sense of progress, when everything is on par with you always. Two (and even worse than the first): If you don't fixate on your combat skills, you'll slide behind all the enemies who are keeping up with your stated levels. Even if you do, if you do it wrong, you'll still slide behind, and then all the curbstomp battles are on your skull, and you'll be lucky if they let you run away alive. So, in short, no real progress (unless you plan to lose your soul to, again, the grind in a single player game and become like unto a robot), only regress. Not good.
That's actually just about everyone's major gripe with the game, and it's almost impossible to swing a cat without hitting someone who's got a mod for it, although the biggest mods seem to have gotten it right overall. Check Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul for the biggest enemy deleveler, and I'm currently poking around with Oblivion XP to undermine the stupid grind. I spend enough time on the game, thank you.
So, onto some of the other gripes with the game. Loading screens. It's a very resource intensive game, so sure, I'll accept that on a lot of rigs they're necessary, but on mine they really aren't, not always. (I play League of Legends just fine with Oblivion paused in the background, even with the resource-hogging mods I've plugged in.) Better Cities addresses this one nicely, by making the cities bigger, better, and more open. Actually, just better in general. I'm pretty sure it's added a ton of new places and people, but they blend nicely, so I'm only pretty sure.
What else ... oh, I know. Vampirism. Who ever heard of starving yourself for power? Anorexic models. I don't want to play an anorexic model anymore than I want to sparkle in the sunlight. So there's a mod to flip that about (actually most of the vampire overhaul mods do a whole hell of a lot more than that, but I'm just a simple thing, see), and another to get the disease by sleeping in disreputable places and getting bit, and another to add a major quest of sorts to the game just for the vampires.
Honestly, most of my mods I picked up for realism, not necessity. The only one I pick up for necessity is the alternate leveling system, because otherwise I'll be up to my eyeballs in Daedra too tough to take out (difficulty slider aside, anyway).
Sorry for the ... odd ... slant to my writing, by the by. I sunk my teeth into a lovely book, and the main character talks thusly. I'll be over it in time for Wednesday, probably. I'd like to do a proper review on some of the mods I added.
Over all, though, I have to say, Oblivion is not a bad game, even at base game. It's got an interesting enough plot, and most of the shiny that can still tax a newer system is inherent. The combat system is pretty fun and streamlined, the magic's all right. The main complaint I can think of is the bird-brained level system and the fact that AI is a crapshoot, so the ambient conversations are generally rather inane - which, most conversations among real people tend to be a bit inane. So meh. It's got grand, epic quests if you're into that, and enough other things to do that you'll be quite content if you want no part of those.
If you like RPGs and haven't yet tried it, pick it up. If you don't, well, don't.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to playing. (And I promise, I'm actually working on this here again, too.) They release Skyrim in November.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monkeys And Sharp Things
Or: WHEE OVERKILL.
So I've been playing this game at work lately, because it's relatively fun and strategy makes my brain parts happy.
I just ...
It seems like it is very, very excessive to use cannons to pop balloons. For that matter, it seems unwise to give the monkeys the cannons. In order to pop the balloons. I guess eventually they start throwing WAR BLIMPS at you, and then there's a bit of rationale behind it, because, y'know, cannon vs. blimp, all right. (Though I wouldn't imagine it would take five hundred hits of anything to take out a low-hanging blimp. How are the blimps constrained to just the linear path anyway?)
Ah well. There's something hypnotic about watching five or six hundred sun-god monkeys annihilating everything on their path with their laser beam eyeballs, missile launches blacking out the sun, stealth bomber monkeys, etc.
What it is:
A pretty standard tower defense game wherein the towers are all - or at least mostly - monkey owned, monkey operated, and also monkeys. With darts and high explosives. The creeps are all b(al)loons of various sizes, progressing through various mazes at ever-increasing densities, to the point where you might actually realistically need cannonfire to annihilate the onslaught - in part because they start unleashing the aforementioned blimps, filled to bursting with the bloons. The latest iteration includes premium (paid-for) powerups and an RPG-style level-up system. Grab the (free) cannon upgrade when you can; it is incredibly, incredibly helpful. (Goddamn Black Bloons.)
Where to play it:
http://ninjakiwi.com/Games/Tower-Defense/
So I've been playing this game at work lately, because it's relatively fun and strategy makes my brain parts happy.
I just ...
It seems like it is very, very excessive to use cannons to pop balloons. For that matter, it seems unwise to give the monkeys the cannons. In order to pop the balloons. I guess eventually they start throwing WAR BLIMPS at you, and then there's a bit of rationale behind it, because, y'know, cannon vs. blimp, all right. (Though I wouldn't imagine it would take five hundred hits of anything to take out a low-hanging blimp. How are the blimps constrained to just the linear path anyway?)
Ah well. There's something hypnotic about watching five or six hundred sun-god monkeys annihilating everything on their path with their laser beam eyeballs, missile launches blacking out the sun, stealth bomber monkeys, etc.
What it is:
A pretty standard tower defense game wherein the towers are all - or at least mostly - monkey owned, monkey operated, and also monkeys. With darts and high explosives. The creeps are all b(al)loons of various sizes, progressing through various mazes at ever-increasing densities, to the point where you might actually realistically need cannonfire to annihilate the onslaught - in part because they start unleashing the aforementioned blimps, filled to bursting with the bloons. The latest iteration includes premium (paid-for) powerups and an RPG-style level-up system. Grab the (free) cannon upgrade when you can; it is incredibly, incredibly helpful. (Goddamn Black Bloons.)
Where to play it:
http://ninjakiwi.com/Games/Tower-Defense/
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
League of Legends
Or: Aren't Microtransactions Fun?
Side Note the First: I kept getting distracted so this is gonna be a long post. TL;DR, gushing and/or bitching about League of Legends. Go buy that. Wait, it's free.
Side Note 2: not feeling too good mentally today (Monday), so forgive any typos or anything. Woke up on the far wrong side of the bed, y'know? (By which I mean, I had this bizarre dream that ended with me waking up feeling like I had something or someone invading my brain that needed to die in a fire. Makes three times so far I've had that sense ... one of them long before hearing about the Mythos. Squicky. Each time they're met with violence - or at least the thought/impression of violent repudiation - of course.) Made me grumpy all day.
Side Note Three: Revenge of the Side Note: I got yet another search hit for "How do I leave Gilneas?" The answer is, you don't. You're stuck there for all eternity. All the other Worgen are hackers. The end. No, but seriously, just play through the storyline, that's your only option. Except for maybe a Warlock summon or something, I dunno. I don't even play WoW anymore, jeez.
Anyway!
I've been playing this game for a couple of days now (not as long as I've been playing Rift - sorry! I'll get to it, I swear!) and I think I've got a fair handle of what's going on with it anyway.
It's called League of Legends, and it's the genetically identical offspring of a very, very popular map named "Defense of the Ancients" from Warcraft III. It's also completely free to play ... in theory, anyway, we'll get to that in a bit.
So what you do, you download the game client, open it up, and play through the tutorial. It actually teaches you pretty much everything you need to know, which is handy since it's been ages since I've played WCIII, and I never really got into the online side of it when I did still play.
Let's be more specific though. LoL - and I love the acronym - is, like Plants Vs. Zombies and Gemcraft (another game I've been wasting time with off and on), a kind of Turret Defense game ... insofar as there are turrets, and it's generally wise to defend them. You can't really upgrade the turrets though. In fact, other than 'blow them up' and 'hide behind them like a sissy,' there aren't really a lot of other things you can do to/with/for the turrets, and, after they've been blown up, they're gone for good. So, basically, not like any of the other Turret Defense games on the market.
I'm going to back up even further and explain what Turret Defense means, since most of my followers are from the other 99,999 SM(TP, hahaha no, just SM) Blogs and the rest of my hits are from GILNEAS, WAT DO. Seriously, it isn't that hard.
Okay, so Turret Defense, generally goes thus: you've got a maze, or a lawn, or whatever, whereby the HORDES OF EVIL are trying to get at your goodies (townsfolk, brains, children, etc.). Your objective is, normally, to build turrets along the sides of that maze, which shoot down the HORDES OF EVIL as they come, at ever-increasing rates of speed and also DEATH.
In LoL, there are two mazes, pretty much exactly mirrored, facing one another. You play as a Champion of one of the HORDES OF EVIL, setting out to stab/burn/consume the entire other HORDE OF EVIL. In the face. At the end of each maze is a Nexus, which is essentially your/the other guys' townsfolk/brain/children/goodies/shiny things. Your objective is to blow up the other guy's Nexus while simultaneously preserving your Nexus from being blown up. Generally there'll be two to four other people/robots helping you out with that, along with the entire rest of your HORDE OF EVIL.
And honestly, gladiatorial matches where the combatants are made to fight endlessly without even the reprieve of a final death kind of makes both sides pretty evil, imo. I haven't given more than a cursory glance to the lore, what there is of it. Not exactly an RPG.
So that's awesome.
It's actually a really kind of cool game, and what little I've seen of it suggests that they're trying to constantly pump out new goodies. How are they funding that, if it's totally free to play?
Well, anything game-related is, technically, free to play. They give you a selection, which changes about weekly, of Champions to poke about with. It only takes six or seven matches to buy one with Influence Points (which is the currency you get from, y'know, actually playing the game). But the better Champions can only be gotten through a whole metric fuckton of Influence Points, translating into literally days of gameplay, especially if you get unlucky and lose a lot ... or, you can buy a handful of these Riot Points with real money, and play these awesome Champions now. So, exactly like real gladiatorial matches, only the Champions never get to buy their own freedom.
Which is how they get you.
Because, see, there are a lot of Champions, each with their own unique playstyle, ranging from 'set things on fire/death/NOMNOMNOM and hope nothing looks your way' to 'although you'll take five hours to kill anything, the same applies to your enemies hitting you'. So, you'll either be playing forever if you have any slight inclination to try out something new, or you'll be paying to play anyway.
In addition, everything cosmetic is bought through Riot Points, which is sad because there are a few skins I'd like but don't really want to shell out for. Good thing my two favorite champions' defaults are all right, I guess.
Oh, and Myk, if you're reading: so far I haven't seen much elitism in game, partly because I haven't seen much talking at all. The other part I think is that there are few to no barriers to entry, though. It's free, from a dedicated server that isn't going to tell you how tall you have to be for this ride, and the game really does its best to teach you what to do before you have to singlehandedly face down a horror from beyond or three. At once.
People get a kick out of denying you things that they have that you don't.
Because they're assholes.
Side Note the First: I kept getting distracted so this is gonna be a long post. TL;DR, gushing and/or bitching about League of Legends. Go buy that. Wait, it's free.
Side Note 2: not feeling too good mentally today (Monday), so forgive any typos or anything. Woke up on the far wrong side of the bed, y'know? (By which I mean, I had this bizarre dream that ended with me waking up feeling like I had something or someone invading my brain that needed to die in a fire. Makes three times so far I've had that sense ... one of them long before hearing about the Mythos. Squicky. Each time they're met with violence - or at least the thought/impression of violent repudiation - of course.) Made me grumpy all day.
Side Note Three: Revenge of the Side Note: I got yet another search hit for "How do I leave Gilneas?" The answer is, you don't. You're stuck there for all eternity. All the other Worgen are hackers. The end. No, but seriously, just play through the storyline, that's your only option. Except for maybe a Warlock summon or something, I dunno. I don't even play WoW anymore, jeez.
Not my video, and you can't do this anymore. Got'cha!
Thanks to Soulsinger for finding this video, though.
Anyway!
I've been playing this game for a couple of days now (not as long as I've been playing Rift - sorry! I'll get to it, I swear!) and I think I've got a fair handle of what's going on with it anyway.
It's called League of Legends, and it's the genetically identical offspring of a very, very popular map named "Defense of the Ancients" from Warcraft III. It's also completely free to play ... in theory, anyway, we'll get to that in a bit.
So what you do, you download the game client, open it up, and play through the tutorial. It actually teaches you pretty much everything you need to know, which is handy since it's been ages since I've played WCIII, and I never really got into the online side of it when I did still play.
Let's be more specific though. LoL - and I love the acronym - is, like Plants Vs. Zombies and Gemcraft (another game I've been wasting time with off and on), a kind of Turret Defense game ... insofar as there are turrets, and it's generally wise to defend them. You can't really upgrade the turrets though. In fact, other than 'blow them up' and 'hide behind them like a sissy,' there aren't really a lot of other things you can do to/with/for the turrets, and, after they've been blown up, they're gone for good. So, basically, not like any of the other Turret Defense games on the market.
I'm going to back up even further and explain what Turret Defense means, since most of my followers are from the other 99,999 SM(TP, hahaha no, just SM) Blogs and the rest of my hits are from GILNEAS, WAT DO. Seriously, it isn't that hard.
Okay, so Turret Defense, generally goes thus: you've got a maze, or a lawn, or whatever, whereby the HORDES OF EVIL are trying to get at your goodies (townsfolk, brains, children, etc.). Your objective is, normally, to build turrets along the sides of that maze, which shoot down the HORDES OF EVIL as they come, at ever-increasing rates of speed and also DEATH.
In LoL, there are two mazes, pretty much exactly mirrored, facing one another. You play as a Champion of one of the HORDES OF EVIL, setting out to stab/burn/consume the entire other HORDE OF EVIL. In the face. At the end of each maze is a Nexus, which is essentially your/the other guys' townsfolk/brain/children/goodies/shiny things. Your objective is to blow up the other guy's Nexus while simultaneously preserving your Nexus from being blown up. Generally there'll be two to four other people/robots helping you out with that, along with the entire rest of your HORDE OF EVIL.
And honestly, gladiatorial matches where the combatants are made to fight endlessly without even the reprieve of a final death kind of makes both sides pretty evil, imo. I haven't given more than a cursory glance to the lore, what there is of it. Not exactly an RPG.
So that's awesome.
It's actually a really kind of cool game, and what little I've seen of it suggests that they're trying to constantly pump out new goodies. How are they funding that, if it's totally free to play?
Well, anything game-related is, technically, free to play. They give you a selection, which changes about weekly, of Champions to poke about with. It only takes six or seven matches to buy one with Influence Points (which is the currency you get from, y'know, actually playing the game). But the better Champions can only be gotten through a whole metric fuckton of Influence Points, translating into literally days of gameplay, especially if you get unlucky and lose a lot ... or, you can buy a handful of these Riot Points with real money, and play these awesome Champions now. So, exactly like real gladiatorial matches, only the Champions never get to buy their own freedom.
Which is how they get you.
Because, see, there are a lot of Champions, each with their own unique playstyle, ranging from 'set things on fire/death/NOMNOMNOM and hope nothing looks your way' to 'although you'll take five hours to kill anything, the same applies to your enemies hitting you'. So, you'll either be playing forever if you have any slight inclination to try out something new, or you'll be paying to play anyway.
In addition, everything cosmetic is bought through Riot Points, which is sad because there are a few skins I'd like but don't really want to shell out for. Good thing my two favorite champions' defaults are all right, I guess.
Oh, and Myk, if you're reading: so far I haven't seen much elitism in game, partly because I haven't seen much talking at all. The other part I think is that there are few to no barriers to entry, though. It's free, from a dedicated server that isn't going to tell you how tall you have to be for this ride, and the game really does its best to teach you what to do before you have to singlehandedly face down a horror from beyond or three. At once.
People get a kick out of denying you things that they have that you don't.
Because they're assholes.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Injury
Humans are such frighteningly fragile, warlike creatures.
The average person, it seems, has never actually been deliberately harmed by another human being, which is comforting, to realize, in its way. But no one is immune to the hardship of injury.
From a child's skinned knees to my Mom's fabulously bruised hands (she got special boffer-sword fighting training this last Saturday, I gather), everyone has been hurt at least a little bit, on occasion. In fact, not feeling pain is treated as a grave medical condition: if you don't feel pain, you don't realize when you're grinding your poor, fragile body into dust.
The games I play tend to treat injury and even death as nothing particularly noteworthy. Of course, having your hit points fall to 0 is generally treated as being "knocked out," rather than dead. But still. I had a character get turned to stone in my last D&D campaign, and she pretty much just dusted herself off, no worse for the wear. A shiny red potion later, and most injuries are rather suddenly nonissues ... then again, the point is to have fun. It's very, very hard to have fun if you're too busy contemplating how much pain your character is going to be in, or how even a minor head wound can lead to a major concussion or lifetime debilitation if not cared for properly.
I've got a scar on my leg from running carelessly through a friend's house. There was a radio with a busted antenna just lying on the floor. It cut through skin and muscle, so that there was "white stuff" showing underneath all of the blood.
Oh, dammit - I'm bleeding again.
I keep picking at scabs, without really thinking about it.
Really wasn't going anywhere with that, though - just realized I needed to post something.
AFK, NuSkin.
The average person, it seems, has never actually been deliberately harmed by another human being, which is comforting, to realize, in its way. But no one is immune to the hardship of injury.
From a child's skinned knees to my Mom's fabulously bruised hands (she got special boffer-sword fighting training this last Saturday, I gather), everyone has been hurt at least a little bit, on occasion. In fact, not feeling pain is treated as a grave medical condition: if you don't feel pain, you don't realize when you're grinding your poor, fragile body into dust.
The games I play tend to treat injury and even death as nothing particularly noteworthy. Of course, having your hit points fall to 0 is generally treated as being "knocked out," rather than dead. But still. I had a character get turned to stone in my last D&D campaign, and she pretty much just dusted herself off, no worse for the wear. A shiny red potion later, and most injuries are rather suddenly nonissues ... then again, the point is to have fun. It's very, very hard to have fun if you're too busy contemplating how much pain your character is going to be in, or how even a minor head wound can lead to a major concussion or lifetime debilitation if not cared for properly.
I've got a scar on my leg from running carelessly through a friend's house. There was a radio with a busted antenna just lying on the floor. It cut through skin and muscle, so that there was "white stuff" showing underneath all of the blood.
Oh, dammit - I'm bleeding again.
I keep picking at scabs, without really thinking about it.
Really wasn't going anywhere with that, though - just realized I needed to post something.
AFK, NuSkin.
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