Friday, August 31, 2012

[Review] GW2: First Impressions

Review:

This is a semi review of GW2 and some first impressions about the game.  I have played a Human Thief so far and am level 36 in the game so this doesn't reflect the entire game but I'll discuss a bit about the release and how the game feels so far.

Release Night:
  I decided to pre-purchase the game so I was able to play with the early crowd and it was quite the experience.  There were a lot of buggy things going on however.  The servers were locked out and for nearly a week the Trading Post was down (GW2's version of an Auction House).  In fact only today did the Trading Post come back up for players.  Taken in by this new world I played for as long as getting a proper amount of sleep for my job would allow.  Initially the game feels great.  But I'll break this down into a few categories and grade the game (up to this point) in each section.  Keep in mind that ArenaNet is working very hard to fix most of the issues, but this is a review about the lauch so I'll review it accordingly.

Graphics:  A-
  The graphics look amazing.  I would end it there, but there are a few issues.  Most of them are minor things but a big thing that gets me is the camera.  Some times the camera seems to either get stuck because of lag or just move about in awkward ways in tight spaces.  Especially on larger characters, as I have heard from guild mates, the camera tends to get a bit weird in caverns and underwater.  I'm not sure what an appropriate fix for this is, but it does make things hard to see some times.  Also there are other graphical bugs, like a pair of pants having a glove icon and other things like this.  Pant-Gloves are the new thing:
Overall though, the graphics look good even on lower settings and the details are very interesting as well.  I especially like the limping animation when your character is slowed.  I'll give this section an A- because it is good, but wasn't perfect.

Sound:  B+
   The sound is good, but nothing spectacular.  I wasn't wowed by any of the sound tracks or anything, but I will admit that is difficult to achieve.  There were some big issues with sound in a few of the areas especially with volume control.  Some areas would produce extremely loud sounds even when I had my sound turned down low to talk on Team Speak with my guild.  Overall, it was pretty good, but not over the top great (to me at least), so the sound category gets a B+.

User Interface and User Interaction:  C+
  What I mean by user interface and user interaction is the GUI in all its various components and the users interaction with the game GUI and the back end systems supporting it.  This is the probably area that has caused the most grief for players in a few categories.  First of all the guild interface and accessibility has been horrendous.  It is very difficult for players to join guilds and represent them accordingly and this has been a very bug heavy area.
  Another major area that has been buggy is the overflow system.  It has been near impossible to get groups together if there are enough people on that you have to try and get in an overflow group together.  If you are able to get in the main instance of an area, you are able to group up easily and do dungeons but I spent a few hours trying to do the first instance (Ascalonian Catacombs) to no success until earlier today when fewer people were online.
  Also for the first week the Trading Post was under maintenance meaning I salvaged many items I could have otherwise sold simply for bag space.  There are also minor issues with various UI elements that could be streamlined for better and smoother enjoyment of the game. 
  These things being said, the game is otherwise very enjoyable in regards to the UI.  It is simple, clean, and beautiful and easy to use.  If you have played any MMO before, the game is somewhat intuitive, but I recommend reading up on the controls as a few things are different and there are a lot of new (and very convenient) functions added to the game.  I know many players are very happy with the collectibles and compact functions in the bag area.  Also being able to access the bank from crafting tables is very nice.  There are many awesome features added to the game, but it just happened to start out a little buggy, which is expected, but I'll give it a C+ for now, which should easily bump up to an A score once the bugs are fixed.

Combat and Game Play:  A
  The combat is fun; very fun in fact.  Putting skill in the hands of the player to dodge and time their attacks is a great system for the game.  The only problems I have are the somewhat random lag spikes that cause issues for the thief as skilled and perfectly timed dodges are what keep you alive.  This is less a game play issue however and more of a hardware / server side issue.  The game play itself, however, is great.  Especially after playing through the first dungeon a few times, I really felt like I had to be on my toes to avoid dying.  And some times, i still died anyway.  The downed state is a very interesting mechanic, despite the annoyance in PvP.  A few complaints I have about game play that are very thief specific are that stealthing does not break channeled spells and that some mobs run way too fast after you stealth making it hard to combo.  The first point is displayed most astoundingly in PvP.  Many times I have popped stealth only to have 2-3 players channel a few spells on me at the same time to have them hit me through stealth and burn through 3/4 of my life bar whilst I am still in stealth.  That kind of sucks as it means I have to pop stealth moves very early for them0 to be effective.  Overall, the game play most certainly gets an A.  I could write an entire blog post about the various elements of the game play, but we'll leave it at that.

PvP:  B+
  The biggest gripe I have with PvP (especially with battlegrounds) is that there is no progression.  Yes, everyone is completely fair and even in PvP, but there is no reason to do it other than for fun.  You don't get experience, the armor is only aesthetic and there is no way to really 'progress' per say in the battleground PvP.  Since everyone starts with all the same stuff, while fun, there isn't much reason to PvP unless you plan on doing the tournaments (which I haven't got into yet since our guild is still mostly leveling).  The WvWvW is more interesting in my opinion, as it offers ways to get better and do better as you level up outside of it.  It also offers a bunch of good crafting materials for the mid level player as well.  World vs World is a ton of fun and is a great challenge for guilds and realms to face off against each other.  Eventually I would love to see an arena system based on current gear but with the current philosophy of GW2, that would probably be very similar to the current BG system with same stat gear.  Also, I miss not being able to duel people.  That is another feature I would like to see.  And GW2 gets a B+ for PvP because... mesmers are annoying.  That is all.

Arena Net:  A-
  ArenaNet has done a great job of replying to posts and updating and fixing bugs as fast as possible.  They have had great attitudes toward the player base and that has been refreshing to see.  A few gripes I have are not having any patch notes (call me spoiled but I like to know what is going on) and other small visibility issues like my latency in game without having to use a third party program to test why I am getting lag or disconnected.  Other than that ArenaNet has been great about getting quick fixes out for those nasty bugs that no one can predict and I look forward to the updates in the future to this game.

Release Success:   A+
  Why does the game get an A+ for release success when it didn't score that high in any individual category that I mentioned you say?  Well, that is because I have been judging fairly harshly pointing out the flaws and bugs it has had so far.  The game itself is one of the best I have played so far and has actually been enjoyable from day 1!  Not many games can say that they have been up for as much as GW2 has been during their launch week.  The game has been a great success and I have had a lot of fun playing this first week.  I look forward to future updates and expansions to GW2 and recommend the game to anyone who likes the MMORPG genre.  I didn't touch on a lot of issues in this post, but I wanted to note a few things that I have seen and give a decent first impression of the game.  Take my criticisms with a grain of salt, the game is great and most of the things that 'bug' me about the game will be fixed in the near future as well.

Thanks for reading my post, and I wish the best of luck to ArenaNet and the continued success of Guild Wars 2!

~WakeskaterX~
  

Friday, August 24, 2012

[Personal] New Desktop + GW2... ready to go.

Personal:

Well I got a new desktop today.  It's an ASUS i7 3.4 ghz with 8 gigs of ram, came loaded with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 as well (which I may upgrade later).  I also pre-purchased GW2 so that I can play it all this weekend, which I have off. (except for the time I have planned with my fiancee).

I'm pretty stoked as I have not had a decent desktop in a while (years) and this will be a nice upgrade from the integrated graphics I had on my laptop.

Guild Wars 2 looks REALLY good.  I am very stoked to play the game as I have heard good things.  We'll see if it stays good, but it seems like a winner so far.

I also bought a nice 20" Samsung monitor as well and it looks pristine.  Looking forward to having better graphic settings than... lowest.

Well, I also bought a C# book and have been studying up when I can learning all the stuff I have never had to use before, which is good.  I have to read each chapter twice before it fully sinks in and locks into my comprehension but that's just how reading a giant technical tome goes I suppose.

I have begun the brainstorming phase for an app for the Android / ported later to iPhone / probably web build, as well and will start working on creating the assets I need to begin work in Unity3d.  I'll most likely swap my scripting over to C# as well.

That's it for now, just loading everything up onto my new shiny computer!

Cheers,

~WakeskaterX~

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

[Design] League of Legends Comic Contest

Comic Contest:

Well I may be no artist, but I decided to make a submission to the League of Legends Comic Contest found here:

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=27788393

I did the drawing in pen, sharpie marker and colored pencil, then added some effects in Paint.NET.

I'm not skilled enough to do it all in Paint.NET/Photoshop without spending weeks examining pixel by pixel  (this is why i like pixel art better)  so that's why it's of questionable quality.

Oh well, whether or not I win doesn't matter much, but I had fun making it :).

Here is  my comic:

As you can see, there are surely many other artists who exceed me in ability.

But maybe it'll cause a chuckle.


Well that's it for now, I got  myself a C# Book and have been studying up on C# to hone my programming ability.  I'll probably end up using C# with my next project, which I have started planning, which will be developed in Unity3d.

Cheers,
~WakeskaterX~

Monday, August 13, 2012

[Personal] Denver County Fair - Insomnia

Personal:
  Well, I have about 5 hours left to sleep in the night before I wake up for my 12 hour shift and insomnia has bared it's dripping fangs.  So I decided to check on things on my computer and thus I came to posting on my blog.  The past weekend was fairly fun and I did some interesting things.

  The big one was the Denver County Fair.  On Saturday I traveled down to Denver with my little brother to go to the fair and check out the new segment called the "Geek Pavilion" where some of the guys I met at the IDGA meeting were hosting their game, Zen Pathz.  The name of the studio is Limn Interactive, and you can check out their website here:  http://limninteractive.com/.

  The game is actually pretty dang cool.  You play as a little samurai / ninja dude that has the ability to paint on the world.  The game is played with an XBox controller and one joystick is used to move the player about and the other joystick is used to move about a brush.  The brush uses a mix of black and white paint to either add blocks (black) or erase them (white).  It makes for hectic matches as you try to keep dual track of  your player and the brush.  It is fairly difficult.

  Zen Pathz has all sorts of modes like capture the flag, tag and other game modes.  It makes for a fun, but sometimes frustrating, multi-player game experience.  The game truly shines in its competitive play between teams.  It makes for a fun time with friends.

  Zen Pathz also comes with a built in level editor to create to your hearts content.  I'll most likely be going to the release party that the guys at Limn Interactive are hosting and celebrating the release of their game.  Check out the website and keep an eye out for it coming in September.

  Other than that, I've been continuing my work in Unity3d and going through the Walker Boy Studio tutorials.  I think, however, that once I finish with these tutorials and submit all my labs in to them, that I will begin studying C# to use within Unity.  I have heard good things and I really enjoyed C++ in high school.

  Well hopefully typing and staring at this screen has convinced my brain that its tired and needs sleep.


Thanks for reading and any chance you get, try to engage the indie game design community!  It's a really awesome community of people.

~WakeskaterX~



Tuesday, August 7, 2012

[Personal] IGDA Colorado

Personal:
  Yesterday I went to an IGDA meeting in Colorado for the first time.  If you don't know, the IGDA stands for the International Game Developers Association.  I was able to meet a bunch of awesome people from developers working for companies like Sony and other big names to hopefuls with talent, looking to meet other game designers, network and show off their portfolios.

  It was a great experience and I was able to meet a whole bunch of interesting people.  I realize now that I need some business cards and I will most definitely be going to a lot more events hosted by the guys who run the IGDA chapter here.

  The atmosphere was awesome.  People were extremely friendly and it was very interesting to talk to all sorts of college students, grad students, and graduates who were either looking to break into the business or even start their own company.

  I might go to the Denver County Fair this coming weekend to check out a few things some of the developers are releasing there too.

Well, that's all for now, still working in Unity and planning out a few new projects for the future.

~WakeskaterX~