New Unreal Engine images revealed

Nowgamer just revealed some images from the new Unreal Engine. It's a pure wow feeling.
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1379318/unreal_engine_4_epic_reveals_its_ps4_xbox_720_game_engine.html

Secret Game

I went to the Funcom account page yesterday to look around a bit, and realized that I can download and play with the Beta of their latest game already. So I did. 

The download didn't take as much as I expected, and I jumped into the game. After the cartoonish intro, I've created a character - much less choices than I'd like to have - and went straight into the tutorial area. 

The tutorial was okay. It was a bit longer than it should have been, but I could accept that. What I didn't like was that I needed to repeat the same again and again - as if I were a child and needed to practice what I have learned.

Then I went to the live environment, and looked around. Sold my collected stuff, that I didn't want to use any more, and headed out on a quest. Sadly, it was a bit late already, so I had to log out, but altogether it was a good experience. 

The good point is the dynamic combat. My character is able to do decent ranged and melee damage, and I only need to click. 

The graphic style is somewhat dated, but that's ok for me, I don't need photorealistic looks. 

The character advancement system is simple yet powerful. I can't wait to see what I can unlock later. 

I guess that is enough for most of you to get curious. Yet, I am pretty sure you won't play the game if I tell you what I am talking about: it's Pets vs. Monsters I won't play it either, but still, it's a good idea to check out games like this. I honestly believe that there are some good ideas here that the whole industry could pick up and use. 

Secret Agent Vagabond

Although I am somewhat frustrated with The Secret War, I've spent enough time with grinding that I have reached the rank of Secret Agent, with which I received automatic beta access for the remaining beta weekends. (This one, and one or two more, I guess)
It was a long and very annoying tiring journey. I should join Funcom and help them to design casual games..

Just some passing thoughts - You are immortal

I was quite busy in the last few days with Paintbomb, so I didn't really spend to much time on thinking about game related stuff.

But this morning, while I was reading Ocho's excellent post about how Diablo 3 blurs the line further between MMOs and single player games, I had a kind of a revelation: Why Blizzard insisted on introducing "Always On", or whatever the right term is. 

Quite possibly a lot of you have played with Diablo 2 - as I did. A lot of my friends played it too, and we knew a bug with which we could duplicate items. Now, imagine the same together with the auction house where you can sell and buy stuff even for real money..

I am pretty sure that one of the reasons to be always on is cheat prevention. When a game becomes (quasi) multiplayer, cheat prevention immediately raises to high priority. If there is also money involved, then it becomes the topmost priority of all. 

I'd guess that Blizzard either have strict remote control over the drop rates, or at least they register all drops and follow the lifecycle of the item. This prevents duplication bugs, and also allows Blizzard to easily identify cheaters. 

On a different note, when I've heard that there will be another beta weekend for TSW, I headed straight to the beta page to find out how to get a beta key. Since then, I was checking the sources frequently, and as soon as the keys appeared, I registered for them. 

But, unlike last time, the keys seem to be either randomly distributed, or at least delayed until tomorrow - which of course resulted me singing on for it at several places. 

Should it happen that I receive more than one, I'd like to give them away. Let me know in the comments if you are interested.

(Update: Forgot to say that the reason for applying for more keys is that I still have a kind of a good feeling about last weekend, and I'd definitely like to meddle some more. I've heard the same from others as well)

Crossroads

Processor Usage

The beta tests of Paintbomb led me to the conclusion that low interactivity games can easily lose audience. (Secret War, I am looking at you too.)
One turn an hour, that require you to think about a minute and then click three times, won't keep the interest of the players - except those few who only have a small amount of time.
On the other hand, I have serious issues with the free quotas. Although I still have a few ideas how to further decrease the usage, it is getting tricky, and changing it to have more frequent turns and/or more to do seems to be almost impossible within the limits.
Which lead me to two possible solutions (if I stay with the free model):

• To utilize the daily quota in a small slice of the daily hours, in the form of infrequent Rapid Games: Instead of having a turn every hour for three days, Rapid games would have turns every four minutes for an hour. One or two such games could be conducted in one day. Both the pros and cons are very apparent: It would be a very active, very enthralling game, but would only offer entertainment for an hour a day, and that hour must be very carefully selected, because of the different time zones of the players.
• Or, to create a fundamentally different game that offers much more to do in a turn, but the turns are relatively infrequent, like one or two every day. 

Although I have a very good idea for the second solution, and based on my knowledge that I collected while I was developing Paintbomb, I could even develop it easily, I decided to go with the first one for now. On one hand, it is easier and yields results in probably a few days. On the other hand, if I go that way, I collect even more knowledge about development, so that the second game - going by the title of Goldcraft - could be even more easily developed after. 

So, that's the plan for now. 

I am guilty on several counts

I've found this on Blame It On The Voices, and I admit, I frequently break these rules :)

[From Blame It On The Voices]

Yet another TSW report

Let's start with the conclusion: I will not buy TSW. 
(at least not for a while yet)


As the blogosphere is already overflowing with the details, I'll try to keep it to a minimum. If you are interested to read more, visit my kin or ask in the comments:

• MMO Compendium
• Gaming for Introverts

After my previous post, I'd like to only expand on a few parts.

Game World:

It looks great, it feels great, the mood is just right. Special comment on London: As a Londoner, I expected some disappointment, but I must admit, they captured the essence well. Even the Templar HQ gives the same feeling I experienced when I visited... 

...imagine it should. Jokes aside, the world looks great. On the other hand, what I have seen from Agartha (the city inside earth - read as 'Quick Travel') is a bit stupid, I don't want to ride the rollercoaster every time I travel between the zones.

Skills/Ability wheel:

I like it. A very good and flexible way to improve your character. On the other hand, I've been somewhat annoyed when I realized that elementalism, the skill tree I chose, is not exactly suited for survival. I couldn't find a decent claw weapon until I arrived to the camp of the survivors, which was a slow process. Luckily there were quite a few other players around who cleaned up some of the road. 

Putting this aside, I spent quite some time with checking the skills I can learn, trying to find good combinations, etc. 

Combat:

This was a bit of a disappointment. After playing Tabula Rasa and The Chronicles of Spellborn, I have a good idea what dynamic combat is about. This is something utterly different. You might be required to run around and find a better position for combat, but you (at least, I) need 3 hands to be able to do that effectively: one on the mouse to control the direction and camera, one on WASD to move about and one on 123456 to activate your skills. I used my left for both wasding and 123ing, but it's not fun.

Inventory:

It's big, you can easily reorder, etc, I liked it. 

Crafting:

Couldn't really make it work. I understood the basics, but the panel didn't seem to do what it was supposed to. Also, there are a few control refresh issues with it. Again, a disappointment.

Quests:

The limitation of quests might sound like a good thing (more focused on the current one, etc) but it's not. At least put a mark on my map that there is a quest here or something. (Update: Obviously I'd like to see this marker only after I've found the quest) 

The quests themselves are good, I really like how the story opened up. They are really great.

World Events:

Didn't see a thing that looked like one. Possibly not in, or very limited.

Generally annoying/cool things:

• The zone map is cool.
• The character animation and modelling is ugly.
• The UI for me is non-intrusive, others told me that it's ugly. 
• Moving around is slow. The speed difference of the speed mode is so insignificant, that several times I tried to turn it on while it was on. 
• Quest limitation requires you to return to the same spot again and again and again and again.. (and moving around is slow, as I mentioned)
• Quicktravel is not quick enough.
• The environment is very well done, I've found a lot of funny and/or interesting details in the world.
• Lore pieces are hidden in very interesting places (I've found one in the toilets and another on the roof)
• Dialogs are slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. Sometimes I simply didn't talk to someone because I didn't want to spend so much time on it. 

After reading through all these, you should have the impression that it is a good game. If you don't, then be assured, it is. But the reason I decided not to buy it is  the monthly fee.. it is a very slow paced game, and considering the time I have to play, I'd rather choose something with a bit more to achieve in two hours. 

If you are curious about something specific, feel free to ask.