- After reading Blue Kae's post, I couldn't put off trying out the new adventure pack for Champions Online, The Serpent Lantern. So I loaded up my favorite mini-skirted flamecaster and started off to thwart VIPER's latest scheme.
- Then I stopped again and read zone chat until I found out where I should actually be going. It turns out that there is a guy on the Millennium City landing port who directs you to the new UNTIL building. A recent addition to Ren Center, it's just south of the Champions headquarters. It's also the new location of UNITY's headquarters, which was quite interesting to me because the entrance buttons are amusingly similar.
- Once finally inside, I obtained the mission, found the transport, was on my way to Africa. The African jungle to be marginally more precise. You could tell it was a jungle because it looked just like a stripped down version of Monster Island. I wasn't super-impressed with the new outdoor zone, but part of that may be that I have to run the game at low graphic settings.
- The mission starts with a quick tour of the main zone. For a flier like Arcfire, that primarily means darting around the tree canopy and occasionally dropping down to talk to one of the scouts. Once that is out of the way, it's on to the bunkers.
- Each of the three bunkers is guarded by various outposts that have to be assaulted and cleared before you can try to shut down the generators. Out of the four defeats I faced during the mission, two of them came clearing these posts. It took me a while to figure out that attacking the commander aggros everything in the outpost. Regeneration is good, but it can't compensate for over a dozen henchmen and villains unloading on me. Add in the pressure of impending air support and each camp becomes a tense situation.
- Once inside the bunkers, the game actually gets easier. The improved VIPER is a greater threat, but I never found myself overwhelmed like I did in the outposts. But while the guards may not have been a huge challenge, the super villains guarding the generators were. The first, VIPER X, was a most standard fight, but every super villain is a challenge for a solo character. The third super villain, Draconis, was quite tough as well, but primarily because of his Personal Force Field power. Since you end up batter that shield so long, you have to make sure he doesn't wear you down.
- The second super villain, the infamous Freon, was much more challenging. This was where I was defeated my third time. I suspect I would have been defeated much more often if I had not read the boss strategy ahead of time. (Thanks for the heads up, Blue Kae.) That one defeat came from not managing my resources properly. There is a lot to keep track up between maintaining the electricity buffs, avoiding Freon's blinds, blocking properly, and putting out enough damage when you have the opportunity before he wears you down. It is a lot more complicated than anything else I've soloed in the game. I got through pretty well, but I don't know how much of that comes down to studying the strategy, the strength of my character's build, or how much is just because I'm awesome. That last would probably rank fourth after dumb luck.
- After clearing the bunkers, it was on to the temple to smash VIPER's plans. Clearing the temple was much more difficult than the bunkers primarily because of the many Serpent Mages to defeat. These master villains have their own Personal Force Fields much like Draconis, which makes them very tough opponents.
- The final two super villains, Viperia and the Spirit Serpent, were tough, but not overly so. Viperia's fight involves collecting gems and using them to activate four pillars throughout the fight. If she did not have specific caps on how much damage she can take during the fight, I thick I could have easily tank-and-spanked her. The Spirit Serpent and his attendant Serpent Mage dealt me my final defeat because of the sheer amount of damage they were doing. On my second attempt, I decided to play it safe and blast them from long distance. That helped enough to see the battle through to its conclusion.
- Overall, I was happy with the adventure pack. If I had any complaints, its that the story is not as strong here. (Blue Kae compared is unfavorably with the Vibora Bay Crisis and I think he's right.) As well, it was a nice to have a complete adventure to complete in a night, but adding one day of content every two months might feel a little slow. Finally, as everyone else knows, Freon is overtuned. I enjoyed the fight, but making the gimmick more obvious and tweaking some of his frustrating powers will make the challenge more fun.
- Lead GM Destra from CO Forums put a report up about the recent Play With The Devs session. There was an interesting note stating that Freon might be a little unbalanced. You think?
© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- Just got back from vacation, which is why I have not posted in a few days. Not that I planned to be AFK for so long. My in-laws wireless router wouldn't accept the passkey, so I could only sneak a little time on their PC. Just enough to clear up my junk mail folder really. But going without internet did let me focus on other things.
- Since my beautiful bride and I were out of town for a wedding, it was the perfect time to road test my new laptop. It works like a charm, has a great battery life with the economy options set, and did everything I asked of it. Including a game of Master of Magic. It is amazing how hard it is to stop hitting that Next Turn button. Thank goodness for Good Old Games for keeping these older games available and running. They're perfect for my little laptop.
- Going without an internet connection also let me focus on my gamebook. The full skeleton is laid out at exactly one hundred sections. I actually came up a little short, but then used the extra sections to flesh out one rather short encounter. I'm working on writing up the rules now. I may post them early so that people can give them a read over while I'm doing the actually writing. Oh, and I need to flowchart my encounters as well. I'd hate to discover that I have some weird recursion or stranded sections that you can't actually get to.
- On the blog, I'm hoping to get posts up about The Serpent Lantern and Red Dead Redemption. Of course, I need to finish the first and collect all my thoughts about the second. Even though it has been over a week, the ending of RDR still stays with me. Mass Effect 2 has a serious contender for game-of-the-year, now.
- Now that I'm back in front of my home computer, I have a lot of catching up to do. So many blogs and podcasts and writing and gaming to accomplish. Have fun, everyone!
© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- Yes, yes. It took me a couple days to get this news up, but I have an excuse. Whether you find Red Dead Redemption to be a proper excuse is up to you. Nevertheless, I really am excited about this update. What update, you say? Excellent question!
- The Serpent Lantern recently launched for Champions Online. As the first of Cryptic's Adventure Packs, The Serpent Lantern will scale to your level with an optional difficulty slider if you want to face tougher foes for greater rewards.
- Because superhero games can't hook you by making you chase gear upgrades (at least, not much), I think Champions has to compete by telling great stories. Regular story updates like this that anyone can play will keep me, and I hope others, coming back to the game.
- I haven't played the update yet, but you can be sure that I'll be taking on those VIPER goons soon enough.
© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- I've been waiting for someone to give me an excuse to write about this subject, and finally someone has stepped up to the plate. Ravious from Kill Ten Rats has a post up about player housing and the lack thereof in World of Warcraft. His question is why has Blizzard failed to implement player housing when other MMOs, before and since, found it important to do so? To answer the question, you only have to look as far as WoW's big competitors, Everquest 2 and Lord of the Rings Online.
- On one side of the equation, you have EQ2's guild halls. From all accounts, they can be filled with several amenities that make them the most convenient option for many of your non-adventuring needs. So convenient in fact that many people complain that the main cities are ghost towns.
- On the opposite side, LotRO tried to avoid some of the pitfalls of player housing with neighborhood instances. Unfortunately, those instances are almost entirely devoid of other players. So the houses end up as personal trophy rooms that very few, if any, other people will see. Neighborhoods seem like an interesting idea, but they have not ended up fostering a micro-community.
- Of course, none of this takes into account non-instanced housing like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. In both cases you end up with vast wastelands of empty buildings that no one cares about anymore. It is urban blight at its worst.
- In the face of all of that, what should World of Warcraft do? Blizzard have made it clear that they want people to congregate in their major cities. To this day, there are still large populations in Orgrimmar, Stormwind, and Ironforge, as well as Shattrath and Dalaran during their expansion cycles. And they don't need a personal trophy space because your character is the main trophy. And what is the point of having a museum if no one will see it. Your character is a walking record of your achievements and you need people around you so you can show off.
- Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic offer player housing because they don't have the same design goals as WoW. In both cases, they involve heavily instanced personal storylines. Instanced housing will fit well with how they want you to play. Because the housing will be intertwined with the game systems, I'm sure they will be well received. In both games, there is multiplayer gaming involved, but only as one component of a large game.
- Not every game requires player housing. Housing must fill a need in the game design. Otherwise, at best, it becomes a minor diversion or, at worst, it destroys your community. Unless Blizzard finds the right reason to add it to the game, it would be like hammering a square peg into the round hole that is World of Warcraft.
© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
