Where to start.. Over the past year I haven’t been surprised while watching the steady exodus from HoN towards LoL. Even with this in mind though, I was genuinely shocked by this recent HoN Newsletter detailing their planned Casual Mode. For a game and audience that has for so long touted its “hardcore” image, this surprised me..

First off, I have little sympathy for the results of HoN’s core design choices. Someone somewhere made a decision to copy DOTA and not improve on it. It’s done now. No-one who played DOTA should be surprised by its struggling design. If you simply copy DOTA, you copy all the good AND the bad stuff.. I said this over 1 year ago now. I can’t help but see most of these planned changes as being directly lifted from LoL. That’s not to say that LoL necessarily came across all of its ideas first either (although I think it did for many). Mario didn’t sue Sonic for having “jumping” in his game. But Sonic never spent ages with his head in the sand pretending that jumping wasn’t needed for his game to be more fun. Anyway, let’s look at some of the changes HoN is trying.

Denies in Casual Mode do not deny experience.

Are fans gonna whinge now about it not being “hardcore” enough? Of course. To be honest, I think many DOTA players (who eventually translated to HoN) mistook the context of denying being “hardcore” in the first place. Forced micro at periodic intervals shouldn’t be a “game defining” necessity. What if we all played Tetris and everyone had to press the START button every 10 seconds otherwise you’d lose? I wouldn’t ever win by pressing START, someone would lose by not! That’s ridiculous. If everyone is going to need to deny, just make no-one need to deny.

Assists give significant gold rewards… …support heroes will be able to get items as we look to reward those who enable their allies to own.

Premade 5v5′s are another story, but in PUG solo queues, it is rare to find selfless players. A game like DOTA which attracts literal wannabe “heroes” was in long need of an incentive mechanic for the support and tank roles. This is good.

No gold loss on death.

Less snow-balling is a good thing. Again, encouragement for more selfless team-play is only a good thing.

The doc also makes a point of mentioning at every opportunity that the new mode is for the benefit of “lowering the barrier of entry to new players” and noobs.

Casual Mode should be a different mode, not a different game, and that it should be quick, easy to pick up for new players…

As though successfully recreating the environment of LoL wouldn’t make it a better game than their Normal Mode anyway for ALL players, not just the noobs.

And finally, to “teh h4rdc0re”. HoN and its player base have long reveled in flying the banner of being “hardcore”. That denying creeps and gold loss on death represented a game the true hardcore players wanted, and not that “casual” LoL crowd. I must have missed parts of the recent Season One Championship at Dreamhack 2011 where LoL featured with their $100,000 prize pool. Or the ESL Intel Extreme Masters earlier this year where I saw Starcraft II, Quake & Counter-Strike there alongside LoL. Those 4 games are a truly definitive list of representatives for online gaming. The boiled down essence of online PC gaming in their current incarnations.

So even before HoN was bringing their “casual mode” cake to the table, I saw LoL posting a better recipe for “teh h4rdc0re” to battle with on a world stage. Now HoN is folding to what it calls “the casual”. Can they still carry on calling themselves “hardcore” now?

It will serve to be something far more than just a platform on which new players learn the great game that is Heroes of Newerth…

You’re probably right. It will become better than the Normal “DOTA” Mode. This new Casual “LoL” Mode sounds much better.

Or I could just go and play LoL right now… ^^;

So here’s a few firsts for the cog. It’s a mobile card game.. Yeah… I know… “wtf happened” right?  -_-  Bear with me, there is a good reason. The game is called Urban Rivals. The official site is here. Trailer below (yes.. a trailer for a mobile card game…).

Wow.. I’m sure glad that trailer was packed with actual gameplay and didn’t bother with movie clips.. ^^; You can play Urban Rivals for FREE on either the PC version or the mobile version. From here on I’m going to need to assume you have a basic understanding of either the Pokemon TCG or Magic: The Gathering AND a basic understanding of poker.

Urban Rivals is a simple battling TCG where players pit 4 characters against each other in quick 1v1 matches. Cards are played face-up with fixed stats and abilities visible by both parties along with a secondary pooled-resource called “pillz” (like a mana pool) which is fixed per match. Pillz are used by players as a multiplier on their card’s power and are “bet” in whatever amounts players see fit.

So why did I start playing this? During my day I sometimes find pockets of free time (bwahaha sif). Pockets that are too short to play anything serious, but long enough to consider playing anything at all. In these pockets I can now simply log in, tend to my farm, plant a few more… yeah… see what nearly happened there!.. ^^; My point is that this exact “casual pocket” of time probably would have been filled with a “ville” game clone by many people until now. An Urban Rivals match takes about 45sec-2mins. That competes with any of your compulsory “ville” maintenance micro times. :D It’s short enough that I’ve played someone in the space of walking 1 block to lunch. 1 block lunch pwnage! o.O

There’s enough of a system in Urban Rivals for me to feel rewarded as a “good” player. It’s certainly nothing near the complexity of Magic, but I definitely feel it’s a rule environment where I am rewarded  for being “good” by excelling. No blue shells here.

The silver lining is in the betting of Pillz. Even when an opponent might have better cards than me, it is entirely possible to out-play them with better fakes or reads of his play. Limping in with stronger characters or reading a limp and counter-limping (also constructing your deck to enable these kinds of strategies) all exist over and above the cards. Many cards with tiny bonuses might appear particularly weak initially until reaching a level of play where you can see the use for +1 attack in a battle. Many battles are lost by simply being read too easily, having the opponent manage their Pillz resource better than you, to have them finally comeback and win in the late-game.

I enjoy 1v1. It makes for the purest form of PvP. Chess, Go, Tennis, whatever it is, it’s only you and your opponent. It is never anyone else’s fault when you win or lose. Knowing that I am battling a human opponent live somewhere in the world each game is very satisfying. There are usually about 2000 concurrent users online each time I’ve played and I’m yet to spend more than 10 seconds getting a match.

TCG collectibility. 700+ cards. Check. Cards can also gain XP and level up actually changing their appearance and stats, which is a nice advantage being purely online affords over physical cards. Some nice card artwork and evolving story. Check. Slick microtransaction model for selling booster packs. Check.

So there it is. In my little pockets I find time to battle people. They often have deeper rosters padded with real money. Their cards are stronger. But I can still win. ^^ Why? Because I don’t care how deep their pockets run, they can’t buy a good poker face. :)

All the cool kids use French screenshots. ^_-

I remember simple fun. Simple fun was 4 player Bomberman chaos. It was fighting over rupees in Zelda Four Swords. Lately, simple fun has been Spiral Knights. Simple 4 player co-op MMO fun. ^^ Official Site is here. Trailer below.

Spiral Knights’ features read more like a blacklist than a whitelist. No classes. No races. No XP. No leveling up. No skill trees or skills… and you know what.. ..that’s just fine. ^^ I wasn’t playing Spiral Knights looking for a ‘deep meta-game’ that would ‘encourage efficient micro’. I wanted some good old sofa style co-op. Hell, you can play the whole game one-handed with just the mouse! I was eating ice-cream while playing most of the time (ice-cream yay! o^^o).

Essentially, run around dungeons together with your friends hackin’ n’ slashin’ your way through monsters while solving simple puzzles and dodging traps together. Combat roles are defined only by what gear you equip. Anyone can play anything provided they have the items (and there is only a sword or a gun so even here it’s bare bones roles). There is still the joy of collecting phat lootz and crafting new items. Gear does have a sort of ‘meta level’, but it maxes out at 10 and you get there so quickly that we rarely paid any attention to it. As a side note, the less griefing that is possible in an online game the better. While griefing in Four Swords was sometimes funny, it was largely due to you being able to lean over and punch the culprit right afterwards, then get on with defeating Ganon. In an online environment, removing any potential for griefing at all is paramount as it helps focus everyone on getting on with choppin’ monsters and collecting loot. Short of someone AFK’ing, Spiral Knights has this nailed.^^b

There is also a larger macro level of co-op taking place in Spiral Knights. All players on the server are ultimately working together to unlock new mine shafts (dungeons) allowing us all to delve deeper into the earth. Mine shafts are unlocked by players depositing minerals down them which are acquired from their adventures. The combination of minerals used to unlock shafts affects their alignment with certain para-elements, which ultimately alters their content. Realworld time-of-day also affects what dungeons you might encounter as you progress downward (the world beneath the surface is shifting), so there is a good chance of seeing a lot of variety provided you don’t have a 7:30 bedtime (next year ima stay up to 8:30! ><).

Must give a mention to the excellent business model they are running using a free ‘energy system’. All players are given a free amount of energy each day which will let you do 10 dungeons soaking roughly 2+ hours of your time. Crafting items also costs energy, but is directly proportional to the level of item being crafted.  Dying may also cost you a tiny bit if no teammates can rez you, but essentially the game can be played unhindered for a few hours a night (more than enough for me in my lifestyle). Anything beyond the relaxing few hours a day though (or higher level gameplay) will eventually tempt you to purchase energy in bulk. It is an elegant implementation of a system I have seen executed very poorly in the past (not to mention names, a spaceship game where a collected fuel resource was required to move and shoot.. but moving used fuel so, it was a loop of searching to collect fuel, to search, to collect fuel.. ..and never get to shoot anything ever -_-).

Honestly, Spiral Knights is probably a little too simple for my tastes. Even at late game, there appears to be little customisation and what I would call “stimulating challenge”. As a way to enjoy killing a few hours at night occasionally with friends though, it certainly ponied up. It makes me wonder at the direction a lot of online MMO’s seem to be taking lately. Maybe there is finally a realisation that the generation which birthed and played the graphical MMO genre as students, have no less passion to play them nowadays but simply less time.  Well, it did feel nice to have a sort of virtual sofa where we could collect and sit together again, running mindlessly around whacking anything that moved without fear of consequence. Simple free fun. o^^o

Is it a coincidence that just as I’ve been getting back into bullet-hell shooting games again, I stumble upon a bullet-hell shooter MMORPG?.. :D

The game is Valkyrie Sky. Website is here. Trailer below.  Take a moment to watch the trailer and clean your brains off the wall.

Before you get too excited about this I should mention a disclaimer. This game is being cancelled on December 14th, 2010 (the Japanese version has already been cancelled and not sure about the Korean version yet). I will cry in the fetal position later, but for now, the gameplay!

Q: “What score would you give this game?”

A: “Yes!”

Touhou Project (or insert your favourite Cave shooting game here) + WoW. That about sums it up. Levelling up, finding material drops, crafting gear, collecting phat lootz, fishing, cooking.. You’re basically playing WOW in between missions, then hitting up some crazy Espgaluda shooting action as the core gameplay instead of killing murlocs.

Was most impressed with how introducing classes to a bullet-hell shooter enriched the experience, and didn’t feel shoe-horned. It’s not simply, “you do more damage with your chain lightning than I did with my +1 sling”. While gear & stat related damage, crits and class skills are already interesting additions, it was how each individual class demanded a different playstyle from the player that I found enchanting. Mage typecasts have great AOE for cleaning up the small stuff, warriors actually have to weave patterns to engage in melee and hunters do high DPS to single targets (good for boss fights). This encourages good synergy when raiding in a party.

Wait.. raiding?.. wtf?! I’m raiding in a bullet-hell shooter?! Yep, up to 4 people in 1 stage battling their way to the boss for ‘phat loot dropz’. Obviously party class balance is important. I was also concerned about losing sight of  my character amongst party members, but an elegant solution is in place for this. When layering over the top of each other, all party members dissapear except for their weapon (staff, sword, bow) leaving my character clearly as the only visible one left. Playing a bullet-hell shooter with more than 2 people, (that has had effort go into balancing and role creation) was really a unique experience. It’s like “raidin’ in Raiden”. Yeah.. I went there.

PvP looks fairly unique as well. Both of you are essentially bosses flinging spectacular attacks at each other in what usually pans out as an epic Boss vs Boss battle. Vid below has a nice example of PvP with a Swordsman vs Summoner. Skip to 1:55 if you want to see the battle fairly heated up.

I can’t help but feel RPG’s have all but moved on from their classic menu-driven models now. Taking Final Fantasy as a model example of the past, nowadays you can do almost anything BUT select Magic->Firaga from a menu to enjoy the RPG experience. Shooting stuff in Mass Effect or Fallout, matching gems in Puzzle Quest or weaving in a bullet-hell shooter blends the RPG genre with almost anything now. That input for the ‘combat aspect’ has been revealed to be arbitrary. It’s that experience of.. well, ‘gaining experience’ and story progression which makes RPGs fun. Levelling, crafting, getting new gear, defeating the villian… who cares what my method of input is for doing these things anymore. I mean, at least I’m not just selecting skills from some sort of drop down menu and…. oh…. ^^;

And now the sadness. :( A game aiming at such a niche market crossover as “bullet-hell shooter + MMORPG + PC” clearly needs to have an equally modest scope for its projected player base. I don’t believe you can spend big budget MMORPG dollars on this and expect a return, no matter how good the game is. This looks like a pretty well funded game..  can almost feel a ‘suit’ somewhere in the background tapping their fingers and staring at their watch saying, “Well, we spent $10mil on this, where’s our 100,000 players?” Need to weigh the cost of the game against it’s potential appeal. From what I understand, the stamina system also drove away many players (when you lose stamina you can’t do missions anymore. Must grind fishing/cooking just to run missions else buy Premium food). I am stunned that a game which would already face problems with building initial interest would choose to exacerbate the problem with a stamina system as their main revenue model within their micro-transactions.

While I don’t know the financial specifics, I would suspect that less staff making this with no 3D world, just a lobby screen to enter missions/PvP & manage crafting/gear funded on 50% of the budget might still be running their servers (would be happy for anyone to post more information in the comments. very interested as to what happened.).. It’s a shame, as the core gameplay is really good fun. >_<

Gaze upon what was. :(

So I stopped playing long enough to write something..  No, that’s a lie really. Server is down for maintenance. The game is League of Legends. It’s free. Website here. Quick trailer below.

I’m going to assume that you, Dear Reader, are an experienced DOTA player, so you won’t find this to be a review. Just some of my thoughts on the deeper gameplay and how I see it as an evolution of DOTA, not just a homage (tsk tsk HoN).

- Spend less time doing boring stuff and more time doing fun stuff. Regen times on HP & Mana feel higher and items buff for more too. Means less time waiting to fight and more time fighting. Most fights are met with full bars as well, allowing for pretty intense action. Unlimited free teleports home. Cool, now I don’t spend half the game jogging home and spending money on TP scrolls.

-Less stun and bash. It’s no fun not being in control of your char at anytime. Being on the receiving end of stuns was frustrating and there seems to be much less of these skills and more emphasis on slows, dots, etc. No-one likes clicking to move your character and he won’t walk, gameplay or not, it just feels like you’re stuck.

-Ability power. This is a good new design choice. No longer are INT heroes helpless vs DPS heroes who scale better late game. We used to actually yell across the LAN cafe, “if we haven’t won by lv15-ish we’re screwed!”. That’s no fun. Now abilities can scale and grow in power with items, just as physical dmg classes could before. That makes INT or ability focuesed heroes just as lethal now late game.

-Cut the fat. Same as grenades in TF2, LoL has gotten rid of denying creeps and towers. Yeah those of us that were good at it reaped the benefits but, it stops your teammates who aren’t as good getting denied against too. It balances out. Also no gold loss on death and a simpler fog-of-war. Less time fighting the engine, more time fighting the opposition.

-Hero playstyles. Far beyond just replicating DOTA’s skills, LoL has a lot of new funtionality in many heros which encourage a variety of playstyles to suit your mood. In fact, I would go as far as saying some of them encourage a whole new mini-game inside the greater scope. EG: Nasus is rewarded by last-hitting as many creeps as possible, Heimerdiner can build sentry’s to create new choke points and many heros have skills which encourage them to soak as much damage as possible in 5v5 fights but still be rewarded without necessarily hero killing.

-Less in-fighting. While it still goes on, a much better assist system means a better distribution of wealth per kill and less whinging about KS’s. Towers are now a flat 100g to everyone no matter where you were. Less jostling for tower kills, more pushing. The new Roshan is the same with team wide XP and gold.

-Accessibility. DOTA lives and dies by how many people are playing it. You need opponents. If everyone bails, the game can’t survive. The easier entry to the game is the more players we’ll have in circulation. The new shop system is great. Very helpful when purchasing (previously a big barrier to entry was memorising all the items). The ‘Death Recount’ explains exactly who killed you with what skills and damage percentages so you can learn and progress (TF2 killcam aww yeah), rather than just being pwned and not understanding why. Reconnecting to running games you dropped from? Hella yes. Lower system specs than other games (HoN, Demigod) mean more people can play it on their puta. Equals larger potential player base. War3 ran on anything, so heaps of people could join. Lol has good visual cues, what I need to be looking at pops, and still looks pretty. Oh, and free game. Yeah.

-Beyond 5v5. There seems to be a genuine interest to progress beyond the 5v5 format from these guys. They’re already experimenting with map layouts, income rates, building/creep strength etc. The 3v3 currently implemented has a much different feel with a shorter playtime (20mins) and more intense action. Serious attention is being paid to these new map designs as well. EG: in Twisted Treeline 3v3, tanks were proving too dominant, so the map was heavily tweaked to remedy this. Check out this design article.

I know I haven’t spoken about any of the persistence of the ‘Summoner’ persona, the runes, mastery trees, orsum looking shop and skins, BUT.. you can find out about all that in a regular review anyway. I’m glad that Guinsoo is doing well with this coz i really feel his design is showing through. Someone who wanted to break out of the War3 engine mould and evolve the genre`, not just copy it again.

Scrolling is free.. or so that’s what they tell me. Sif..

SIF was made in 48 hours for the 2010 Global Gamejam using the Construct engine. Our page made during the Gamejam can be seen here. Gameplay was designed to be punchy and visually dynamic. We wanted it to be fun in the first 15 seconds (it was a gamejam after all. Lots of games to get through). The secret topic of 2010 Global Gamejam was ‘deception’. Click the link below to play from browser and enjoy. ^^

SIF: Scrolling Is Free

“Run and glide through the bamboo forests of this Asian inspired ink scroll. Defy gravity and don’t believe everything your eyes tell you..”

-Arrow keys to run.

-SPACE to jump.

SIF features:

-fast-paced platformer fun

-gravity inverting

-interactive tutorials

-checkpoints

-off screen indicator

-death markers

-score (speed based)

—————–

Click to play

——————

Yay, a MMO where I don’t need to sink evening after evening into ‘the grind’. The game is Lost Saga. I dive in. I level up. I get gear. I fight team-deathmatch with 15 other crazy cats. Delicious. \^^/ Quick trailer.

The game has a nice blend of genre flavours that have seen it hold my attention for 2 weeks now (doing well).

1. Dive in & dive out action. No queuing, no raid scheduling. I can just start flinging cake immediately. ^^b

2. Character persistence. My stable of little warriors earn XP, letting me augment their skills to my liking. Higher defense, quicker run speeds, shorter skill cooldowns. And there is a buffet of classes to choose from.

3. Variety of game modes. Going beyond the expected team-deathmatch or capture-the-flag model (which refreshingly isn’t present), a banquet of different game modes are available which encourage different types of gameplay. Area control, prisoner capture, king of the hill to name a few.

Also must give props to their tasty looking micro-transaction business model. Characters are ‘rented’ for an ongoing cost of in-game currency. This cost can of course be forgone permanently for a small real-world payment. All the expected fruit (gear chests, cosmetic additions) hangs within reach of anyone willing to spend a few dollars.

So these things all go a long way towards satiating my MMO appetite. I feel other factors are influencing my enjoyment of this game though. DOTA and Smash Bros. I can’t help but see similarities in the way gameplay is presented. Plenty of heroes to choose from (they’re aiming for over 100 eventually), each representing a different play style for your mood that evening. The ways in which different groups of these heroes can compliment each other’s skills and combos is vast.

Delicious deathmatch action ensues.. and damn I’m hungry. ><

ARAD (Dungeon Fighter) is a side scrolling Action MMORPG.. it would seem that most common MMO’s are 3D.. but this game gives a whole new meaning to Side Action (Final Fury type) games a new meaning.
Originally, this game was called DnF, Dungeon Fighter Japan : Arad Senki.

So.. people probably refer to it as ARAD.

Here are some examples of this game.

I’m currently reading some forums, it would seem that more English Speaking players are on other servers..
As taken from this ONRPG forums.. most English Speaking Players (ESP) are found

Arad Senki (Dungeon and Fighters Japan)
Server: Diregie
Channel: 01 Elvengard

hmm.. i might have to take the move to there..

This is still pretty much my favourite COMBO HORE movie.

thanxs again to Br33ze for finding the related articles for easier reading in English.
Dungeon Fighter Quick Help-me @ Wikipedia.org

here are some pics Br33ze and I have been doing since the start of this ‘adventure’..
I was playing a mage.. but.. after seeing the ‘sick’ combo’s done in the last Clip.. i’m gonna go for a gunner now!!

Space Cowboy

After 2 hours, i finally get the feel for the game..

It seems like an interesting plot.. where u can (later on) choose ur faction and / or just do grinding of ‘creeps’ or Monster’s (as referred by games)

Hmm..

There are a few things i haven’t figured out.. and i wonder .. .. if i join the channel 0 = pvp and channel 1 = nonpvp.. what would happen if i kill someone in pvp channel? hmm

Well.. pictures are.. As you start the game, u decide on what type of Machine u would prefer, Air to air specialist, Ground to ground specialist, No specialty (which means u can do both) or .. .. i forgot.. but.. yeah.. i chose Air to Air specialist..

Humanoid walking around finding shops and chatting to others

Wee, found actual players, that u can learn a few things from

Mission’s, kill kill LOCK ON.. FIRE!!!
(kinda gey they dun fire back.. for now..)

So, as it seems, u are starting off doing the training missions (a must)

then u start getting ur license.. (trainee atm)

and hopefully afterwards u can get more into the killing each other and pplz actually shooting back stuff.. (Latency and Ping is very important i believe in this field.. cause u lag, u fly straight and unable to dodge missiles.. .. in theory, u die..)

Hmm.. sleep time.. but this might be a game where i would decide to “buy” some credits for some noice peices of armor.. hmm.. (i blame WoW for paying services.. )

Firstly, i have to see if i can see myself playing this for ‘extended’ amount of time.

And of course, hope that filipino’s dont hack the server and cheat and stuff, which will result in me playing the game all over again.. .. .. on a krappy filipino server with maximum of 30 pplz.. (damn u flyff.com.ph)

————————————–

Rusty Cog Archive:  30/10/06

Ok, the new game for trial time is what we have called ‘syntax error’.. lol..

no, only i get syntax error.. but.. the game is called “Tales Weaver”..

After watching a TV commercial, in Japan by Br33ze, he told me of a new kool game thats been out of some time.. (wow.. i’m soo contradicting myself) .. but back to the ball …

“Tales Weaver (Japanese/Korean Only)”

Hmm.. there are many forums out there trying to help the Non JP or Korean languaged people to understand this game to the full content.

However, only Br33ze has played it, and he’s not telling me much, cause.. i want to Experience it the Monke way.. (which will be uber nub) .. lol..

A Very Ragnarok feel to this game.. judging from the Screenshots….

It does posses an Unique battle system, where Linking of different Skills are supposibly more Rewarding for both the Game and the User Views.
There are quests for both the Character and Normal Plots.. which indicates to me that u will learn from both the character and how the world moves around you.. but.. i have to LvL up my Japanese ofcourse to fully understand and appreciate this beautiful game..

My Minor warning is .. that.. well.. the D/L is about 1.41gbs.. which means 400mbs of that is for Movies and Sound files (beautiful background music)

Hmm.. Kut-si-fied attacking creatures, backgrounds, damn.. my CPU could choke a bit during the first few minutes of every new map.. lol

Well.. at least its good.. i dont need to be uber Jap to play this because theres an english translation to the site called: Talesweaver.org

————————————-

Rusty Cog Archive: 30/11/06