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. ^_-

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.

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. ><

There’s something charming about the older style 8bit graphics. Their smooth untextured surfaces are non-threatening to me.. like a quiet, dark room… The game is Neverdaunt:8bit (N8 for short). Website is here. It still appears to be early in Beta. More like a tech demo at the moment, but the combination of graphics and mechanics bode well for something nice. ^^ Check out the current trailer.

That’s the word here.. “nice”.  You’ve built your blocky castle. I’ve got my blocky guitar. And we’re gonna rock out to the blocky stars in a low gravity kung-fu fight. The developer promises guns (projectile weapons), achievements and airships (aww yeah) for the future. It appears to be just the one indie developer at the moment cranking it all out, so he’s done well so far.

The game appears to have a heavy emphasis on player driven content creation. Oh noes.. but what if they make something that hurts my eyes?..

…inappropriate “pixel art”, and other nonsense are not censored in any way.

However, if someone or something offends you, players do have it within their power to reshape the world. If you see content that you would rather not see in game, use a bomb. If some player offends you with words, use a sword (or you could try using words, I’ve heard those are fairly powerful).

I think I just like that older feel. Not only the graphics, but the ‘wild west’ of the internet kinda feel. Un-moderated, blocky, broken and waiting to be tamed by.. well, me. o^^o

Project Torque

Fishing Champion

Seems like we have been a little slow on posting new MMO’s out there.. so.. seeing as i’m out of w0w time.. i’m gonna elaborate on this a little more.

Been searching on ON RPG and found a little game that i would think that every japanese person out there will like.. a calm and relaxing game of Fishing Champion … ahahahahah

YEah.. fishing has never been more animated into cutsified kids catching bit walloping fishies..

This is me trying to Fish…

This is me trying to cook something to level up my professions.

~~~~~~

Dear Fishing Champ Community,

It is with great sadness that we are forced to announce the closure of Fishing Champ service and game servers on September 30th, 2008.
We would like to sincerely thank each and every one of you for both your interest and enthusiasm with the game over the years, and your support and time
turned this into an amazing player-community. You exceeded all of our expectations and were focused on actually helping one another play and enjoying
the game to the fullest. Until then, we appreciate everything you have done for and with us in Fishing Champ,
and wish to see you all again around GamesCampus in the years to come.

GamesCampus

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Rusty Cog Archive: 28/08/07

Zu Online

This game was the word of JOY for anime style cell animation game.

You can see from the pictures that this was something that had alot of content, both in graphicals representations and story line plot.

Strange, tho.. the sounds and some quests formats, button keys, talent points and a few other in game quirks all had the distinct feeling that I was playing w0w again.. yet.. for free and in a different realm of existance.

? and ! are used in both games.

The ability to Rest

Flight paths

Mounts

Death

All strange to resemble what seemed to be the same as some other games.

Sounds for instance, has the same sounds as when u pick up items and drinking mana potions or health pots..

Nevertheless, the non w0w like characteristics are.. .. (haven’t found something unique yet.. probably i’m not high enough level or just didn’t realise it.) This game pushes the TEAM factor up pretty high, by the more members u have in the team, the more XP and dmg and atk speed you gain.

Oh, yeah.. the unique factor is its graphics.. the representations it allows.. the smooth cell type game flow for both the scenery and the fighting scenes.

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Rusty Cog Archive: 04/021/08

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)

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Rusty Cog Archive:  30/10/06

The Endless Forest seemed like a nice relaxing way to explore an endless forest.. best described from the webpage itself.

The Endless Forest is a multiplayer online game and social screensaver, a virtual place where you can play with your friends.When your computer goes to sleep you appear as a deer in this magical place. There are no goals to achieve or rules to follow. Just run through the forest and see what happens. …….. You are a deer. So are the other players. You meet each other in an endless forest on the internet. The setting is idyllic, the atmosphere peaceful. You communicate with one another through sounds and body language.

A very very beautiful setting, nice calm and relaxing social environment where no words or text is being used, but Sounds and Avatar Icons are shown.. If you are friendly, u sniff each other’s area’s.. make noise.. rub up against each other.. and just pretty much walk around and relax.
Also acts as a screen saver.. kind off.. where u just leave it there.. connected and let your Deer roam free.
Its got a very Princess Mononoke kinda feel, where the deers have faces (humanoid)…

Thus, upon a small 45mb installation and reading.. Br33ze and I decided to join in and see if we could spot each other and do all those magnificent interactions.

Took us 5 minutes of walking around, finding common ground to meet up, to only find.. I couldn’t see him. ANYWHERE!!!

So.. that was a bummer..

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Rusty Cog Archive: 05/03/08