Category: gaming

The trouble with Torment

As many of you know, I’m eagerly awaiting the release of Torment: Tides of Numenera later this month. Unfortunately, what should have been an exciting and happy time has been marred by a number of PR blunders on the part of the developers.

The most visible issue has been the news that some of the stretch goals from the Kickstarter campaign won’t make it into the finished game. The crafting system and at least two of the companions are gone entirely, while the Bloom has replaced the Oasis of M’ra Jolios as the secondary hub city.

The latter change is probably the most defensible. The Bloom is a city within the guts of a vast interdimensional creature, while M’ra Jolios is an aquatic community within a giant orb of water in the middle of the desert. M’ra Jolios is cool and all, but the Bloom is arguably a better fit with Torment‘s themes (M’ra Jolios will still be in the game, albeit in a smaller capacity).

I can’t get terribly worked up about the lack of crafting. I find it a chore in most games, and I agree with the designers that it didn’t mesh well with the Torment paradigm. It always seemed like something that had been tacked on in order to pad out the stretch goals, so its departure is probably a good thing.

The loss of two companions is more lamentable. I like being able to choose from a large pool of companions. Being able to go through the game with an entirely different group each time is a lot of fun, and it adds a lot of replayability. But in Torment, the total companion pool will be six. Since you can have up to three companions in your party, it won’t take many playthroughs to experience all of the companions. I’m also bummed that one of the companions I was most excited about, a numenera known as ‘The Toy,’ is one of the ones that got cut (The Toy was supposed to be a protean object that would change based on your character’s wishes, and I thought it would be a great way to show the Ninth World’s pervasive weirdness). The developers argue that they had to reduce the number of companions in order to ensure a satisfying level of depth and reactivity for each one, but this excuse rings a bit hollow given how long the game has been in development and how much money inXile has raised.

But missing stretch goals aren’t Torment‘s only problem. InXile also announced that the game won’t receive Italian localization. This wouldn’t be a big deal if they were making an ARPG like Diablo III or Grim Dawn where the story is secondary to the action. With games like those, you don’t need to have a solid grasp of English to enjoy the game. On the other hand, you need to be very comfortable with the language in a story-driven game like Torment. (I’m decent at reading German, but I couldn’t imagine playing the German version of Torment; I think I’d miss out on a lot of the little nuances and subtleties that make the writing pop).

InXile argues that, given the game’s titanic script, localization would be extremely pricey, and if their past sales in Italy are any indication, they are unlikely to recoup that money. But this wasn’t a stretch goal–they’ve been promising Italian localization from Day 1. That seems like an odd things to do if Italian sales were likely to be so anemic. Surely it would have made more sense to focus on the most profitable localizations first and save the less lucrative ones for stretch goals.

Also troubling is the uncertainty over whether or not current backers can opt to receive the console version of the game instead of a computer version. When Torment was first announced, it was supposed to be a computer-only title, but toward the end of the game’s development, inXile entered into an agreement with Techland to bring the game to consoles as well. A number of people who backed the game when it was computer-only now want to avail themselves of the console version, but inXile hasn’t offered them the chance to make the switch. To be fair, this matter might well be beyond their control. Consoles are closed ecosystems, and if Microsoft and Sony won’t let them offer a switch, there’s nothing they can do about it. Still, it’s a shame that the people who supported the game from the very beginning could find themselves at a disadvantage.

This isn’t the only way that backers are being shafted. As part of their deal with inXile, Techland is releasing their own Torment collector’s edition that includes special goodies that won’t be available to backers, including a smaller version of the First Castoff statue that only available to backers who pledged $2,000 or more. The retail collector’s edition, on the other hand, will cost less than $100. To make matters worse, backers won’t even be able to purchase the Techland swag a la carte. 

Technically, this won’t impact me since I’m getting the digital collector’s edition, but I understand why some of my fellow backers are upset. It’s a bit obnoxious that the people who supported the game from the very beginning won’t have access to the full suite of bonus items. The smaller version of the statue is a particularly galling example. InXile should have known that it would generate a lot of interest from backers since the larger version would have been beyond the reach of a lot of people. I realize that backers get certain benefits that ordinary Day 1 customers do not (e.g., having their name in the credits, designing in-game monuments), but that’s beside the point. As a matter of principle, backers should be able to choose any reward since their support made the game what it is.

To be fair, inXile is aware of these issues and appears to be trying to make amends. Italian customers have been offered refunds, and inXile is trying to figure out a way to allow backers to exchange the computer version for a console version. They’ve also hinted that some of the cut companions might be introduced later as DLC, which backers will get for free. Alas, it doesn’t seem they can do anything about the Techland swag due to the nature of their agreement with Techland.

The sad irony in all this is that these mistakes were basically own goals on inXile’s part. If inXile had been honest and upfront with the fans, there would probably be a lot less anger. The fact that fans only found out about some of these issues thanks to the detective work of other fans only exacerbated tensions between the community and the developers. Amazingly,  inXile does not seem to have a dedicated PR person, relying instead on members of the development team. The problem with this approach is that it’s easy for team members to  get swamped with other things and let PR fall by the wayside. I got a glimpse of this when I was writing an article about Torment for Urban Gaming Elite and discovered that some of the information about the game on inXile’s own website was woefully out of date!

These quibbles aside, I’m still stoked for Torment‘s release. The beta has been awesome, and I believe the game will go down in history as a worthy successor to Planescape: Torment. I just hope inXile learn from these last-minute problems so that future projects can avoid this type of drama.

Some thoughts on Diablo III’s latest developments

Blizzard used the Blizzcon opening ceremony to announce a bunch of new stuff for Diablo III. The biggest news is that the fan-favorite Necromancer will be added to the game as a special DLC pack, but there will also be a number of smaller additions as well, including two new areas and some quality-of-life improvements to the UI. Initially, I was excited by this news. The Necromancer was one of my favorite characters in Diablo II, and I’d love to have a chance to play him again. But my excitement was short lived, and I’ve been trying to figure out why that is.

I think the bottom line is that there’s nothing left for me to do in D3 now that I’ve reached level 70 with almost every character. I could keep going in order to rack up paragon points, but that whole system feels bland. The points themselves feel like naked game mechanics, and it’s hard to see them as achievements when they’re shared among all your characters. I don’t particularly enjoy doing rifts or even bounties. They both feel pointless after a while. In Campaign Mode, you have a purpose; in Adventure Mode, you’re just grinding for the sake of grinding. It’s bearable when you’re leveling and getting new abilities, but once you’ve unlocked everything, it becomes tedious. I’d probably enjoy it more if I were more invested in the loot hunt. This isn’t because I think the items are bad or uninteresting. I’m just reluctant to spend hours and hours and hours killing monsters in the hope that I’ll be favored by the RNG. The investment is too steep, and the reward too nebulous.

This isn’t to say that D3 is a bad game. Far from it. I’ve spent over 430 hours in Sanctuary, and I enjoyed every minute. But my taste in games has changed since D3’s release. My focus now is on story-driven games where the replayability comes from your choices rather than your loot. That’s why I love Pillars of Eternity, Planescape: Torment, and Skyrim and I’m stoked for Torment: Tides of Numenera and Tyranny. Part of the fun of rolling a new character in those games is being able to make a different set of choices and seeing how they play out in the gameworld.

Unfortunately, D3 is severely lacking in the story department. The plot itself is nothing spectacular, but there are ways to compensate for that. After all, Skyrim has a rather generic plot, too.  But it’s less of an issue because there’s so much else to do. I’ve played Skyrim with five different characters, and each playthrough has felt different from the others. Sometimes, it feels like I’m playing completely different games. In D3 on the other hand, every playthrough is more or less the same. Sure, you might get different random events, but there will be no meaningful differences between each playthough. Obviously, D3 is not going to have as much content as an open-world game like Skyrim, but Blizzard could have added a lot more plot-related diversity. Looking back at the developers’ pre-release comments, it seems they were originally planning to include a lot more story content, but those ambitions went unrealized. Without more story options, there’s not much to keep me invested in the game given my antipathy toward grinding.

Despite my bellyaching, I’ll almost certainly buy the Necromancer pack when it comes out. It’ll give me an opportunity to reach level 70 with a new character, and The Physicist and I can have some fun with him in multiplayer. I’ll probably try Campaign Mode again as well just so I can have a sense of purpose. But that may be my last visit to Sanctuary for a while.

The state of Torment: Tides of Numenera

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

As you know, I’ve been participating in the beta for Torment: Tides of Numenera. InXile recently released a huge patch that substantially alters the game, so I decided to jump back into the Ninth World and see the changes for myself.

The biggest change is probably that the beginning of the game has been completely retooled. The game still begins in media res with the Last Castoff plummeting to earth, and he/she still ends up within their own mind after being knocked unconscious by the fall (trust me, it makes sense in context!). But the beginning plays much differently.

There used to be a fairly involved Crisis where you had to run around to different tanks while avoiding mooks sent by the game’s Big Bad. Within each tank was a creature, and you were treated to a flashback from its life. Your choices influenced how the flashback would play out, and these decisions had an impact on the LC’s development. This Crisis presented an interesting challenge. Brute force wasn’t an option. The LC had to focus on the flashbacks, and the Specter (a ghostly companion who served as a guide) could only push the mooks away. It was a nice way to show players that TTON favors creativity over combat, though it may well have  grated after multiple playthroughs.

Now, the introductory Crisis is much simpler. You still have to fend off an attack by the Sorrow, but the tactical element seems to have vanished. Now, you just whack some memory specters that are being devoured by the Big Bad. The patch notes say whether this Crisis is a placeholder, but it definitely feels like one.The Big Bad looks cool, but the whole thing feels perfunctory. There doesn’t seem to be any challenge to it. Mooks spawn periodically while you’re destroying the specters, but they simply fly off without attacking.

I can see why the designers felt that the old Crisis needed improvement. There was arguably too much style and not enough substance in the early game. I loved learning about the creatures in the tanks, but I’m also the sort of person who reads every single lore book in a game. If you’re not a lore freak like me, the original introduction might have felt unbearably slow. Unfortunately, the new Crisis goes too far in the opposite direction. There’s a lot more action, and it feels more like an ARPG than an RPG.

I also think that the way the Tides are handled is unsatisfactory. The game has never really done a good job of explaining what they are or why you should care about them, and the latest patch has made them even more nebulous. You periodically see pop-up messages telling you that your alignment with this or that Tide has increased, but it feels divorced from your in-game choices (you can see numerical values for each Tide in the character screen, but the numbers don’t have enough context to be useful). In the old version, your initial Tidal alignment was determined by the choices you made during the flashbacks. The process was opaque, but it felt more meaningful than the present system. At the moment, the whole thing feels random.

The biggest problem that I’ve seen so far is combat. Despite the patch, it’s horrifically glitchy. In many cases, I couldn’t even start a fight because my first character wouldn’t respond to my orders and I couldn’t end the turn. I’ve also experienced issues with the game hanging during an enemy’s turn. There was a point where I couldn’t finish exploring an area because I came under attack whenever I loaded a game and then had to quit the game mid-battle due to bugs (I was only able to break the cycle by engineering the LC’s death!). It’s certainly caused me to make liberal use of the feedback button!

Thankfully, the game is still a ways from release (inXile recently said that the release window has been postponed until early 2017 due to localization issues), so there should be plenty of time to iron out these kinks. Despite my complaints, I’m still pleased with the game overall. The writing is absolutely top-notch, and the developers have done a fantastic job of interpreting Numenera’s innovative mechanics. I’m sure that, come release day, these problems will be nothing more than bad memories.

*SPOILERS* Thoughts on the Torment: Tides of Numenera beta

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

For almost three years now, I have been eagerly following the development of inXile Entertainment’s new cRPG Torment: Tides of Numenera. It’s been a long road, and the game’s release has been repeatedly delayed (though, as a Diablo fan, I’m no stranger to long waits!). Happily, TTON is now in beta and players can experience a sliver of the game for themselves. So far, the omens look good.

First, a caveat: TTON is very much a work in progress. This is not like Diablo III where the beta was more less identical to the finished game. InXile still has a lot of work to do. In some cases, entire areas have yet to be implemented, and the game is quite buggy (though the first beta patch has made things better). 2016-01-31.png

TTON is a spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed Planescape: Torment. It’s set in the world of Numenera, a science fantasy RPG created by industry veteran Monte Cook that is set on earth a billion years in the future. The basic premise of Numenera is that eight hyper-advanced civilizations have come and gone and a ninth is just beginning. Although these prior civilizations are long gone, remnants of their technology remain (these are the titular numenera). Most Ninth Worlders view them as magical, though the clever can sometimes use them in new and inventive ways.

The beta comprises the very beginning of the game, including character creation and the first town. You play the role of the Last Castoff, and your body was originally created to serve as a vessel for the Changing God, a mysterious figure who has figured out how to use the numenera to transfer his consciousness between bodies. When he leaves a body, it gains a consciousness of its own, and these ‘castoffs’ can then go on to lead lives of their own.

TTON takes an unusual approach to character creation. Most cRPGs make you allocate stat points and choose feats before the game begins. This approach makes a certain amount of sense, but it’s also rather artificial. But in TTON, the choices you make during the tutorial phase help determine the Last Castoff’s characteristics. It’s a more organic approach to character creation, though it may prove frustrating for dedicated min-maxers since it’s not always easy to predict the outcome of your choices. This also gives the tutorial stage some real replayability–one of the biggest annoyances in Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II was that the tutorials felt repetitive after the first playthrough.

TTON does a good job of implementing Numenera’s unique mechanics. Characters have three point pools (Might, Intellect, and Speed) that function like a combination of ability scores and hitpoints in D&D. Broadly speaking, any task in Numenera involves one of those pools, and you can spend points from them in order to reduce the difficulty of a task. For example, if you are attacking someone with a sword, you can use points from your Might pool to make it easier to land a blow. Points aren’t just for combat–you might use Speed points to pickpocket a nobleman or Intellect points to bluff a guard. While it can be tempting to spend points freely in order to make tasks as easy as possible, you have to be careful that you don’t deplete your pools. Spent points can be recovered, but that requires a rest or the use of certain items or abilities. Unfortunately, TTON doesn’t do a very good job of explaining these concepts. If I hadn’t already been familiar with them from the pen-and-paper version, I think I would have been rather lost. Fortunately, this can be remedied with the addition of a few tooltips.

The beta allows players to experience several ‘Crises.’ These are one of the more unique features of TTON. They’re basically challenge scenarios, and unlike the rest of the game, they are turn-based. I had misgivings about this when it was first announced, but having tried it for myself, I can see the wisdom of their decision. Combat in Planescape and Baldur’s Gate was never actually real-time since you had to make liberal use of the pause feature in order to command your party, so it makes a certain amount of sense to just go ahead and make it turn-based. It certainly makes for a less frustrating experience.

The designers are trying to make Crises as multidimensional as possible. For example, after you complete the tutorial portion, you and your companions are accosted by a group of thugs who have come looking for the ‘falling star’ (i.e., you). At first glance, it looks like a straightforward combat encounter, and that’s how I played it at first. But when I went through it again, I chose to surrender. I half-expected to get a game over, but instead I ended up in a different area without suffering any ill-effects. In fact, I’m pretty sure I received more experience points for surrendering than I did for fighting. Since I left the lead thug alive, I was able to help him out later on (he’s actually not a bad guy), and I was rewarded with additional XP and a cool item.
One of the best things about Planescape was its pervasive sense of weirdness and wonder. It’s a place where you can talk to a letter in the divine alphabet and help an alley give birth. Fortunately, the Ninth World is just as strange as Sigil. There’s a cool moment early in the beta when you stumble upon a pair of whirling pink cones. If you touch them, you’re rewarded with a vision of an alien landscape. It’s not clear that this has anything to do with the game’s plot, but I love it because it shows just how weird the Ninth World can be.

Things only get stranger from there. You see a man being executed by being wrapped in his own words made flesh (did one of the designers hear John 1:14 in church one day and start daydreaming?). You encounter members of a cannibalistic order that can experience the memories of those they eat (they’re actually a reasonably friendly bunch). You find a fountain of squirming fish-like creatures that speak in dead languages. If the rest of the game is as weird as the beta, TTON will be just as memorable as its predecessor.

Aside from the glitc2016-02-20.pnghes and bugs, TTON appears to have a solid foundation. But I do have a few minor complaints. For example, at one point I died (like in Planescape, you’re immortal, and you simply respawn when you die), and I ended up in a totally different part of the city. There is no world map or fast-travel feature, so I had to spend a lot of time running around in order to find my way back to where I needed to be. At the time, I happened to be in the middle of a quest to save someone from execution, and I wasn’t sure if I had time to explore since one of my companions kept reminding me that the condemned man would soon be dead. Happily, inXile appears to have taken steps to fix this in the first beta patch. After dying post-patch, an NPC gave me directions to get me back on track. But his directions were connected with a specific quest, and I don’t know what would have happened if that quest hadn’t been active.

I also wonder if TTON wouldn’t benefit from a bit more combat. While Planescape was less combat-oriented than Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale, you could find opportunities to fight if that was your thing. In TTON, on the other hand, combat is rare indeed. During my first playthrough, I only fought a handful of times, and they were all set-piece fights (according to the TTON website, there will only be a dozen or so Crises throughout the entire game).  I realize that the designers really like the idea of hand-crafted Crises, but I kind of missed the trash mobs since they added a bit of variety to the gameplay. I’m not saying that TTON needs to be a hack-‘n-slashfest like Diablo III, but it could have something like the random fights with the Hive thugs that you’d encounter in Planescape. I probably shouldn’t hold my breath–the developers have made it clear that they want to keep dungeon crawls and trash mobs out of TTON.

So those are my thoughts on the TTON beta. It’s a solid game with a lot of promise, and I’m even more eager for its release than I was before. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on a release date, and judging from the rough state of the beta, it seems that our vigil may be far from over. But with any luck, we’ll have an excellent game at the end of it.

An oral history of Diablo II

US Gamer has published a rather interesting oral history of Diablo II. It’s a long read, but it’s definitely worth checking out.

For me, the most interesting bits were the ones that talked about story development. I assumed that the designers were more or less in control of the game’s story, but with Diablo I and II, the cinematics team played a huge role in shaping the game’s narrative, and they worked more or less independently of the designers. For example, it was the cinematics team that decided that the hero should shove the soulstone into their forehead at the end of the first game. Judging from what Erich Schaefer says in the oral history, the design team wasn’t entirely sold on the idea, but there was nothing they could do about it.[note]On a side note, my Mom absolutely hates the ending to Diablo I. Although she’s spent hundreds of hours playing the game, she’s never killed Diablo since she doesn’t want to jam the soulstone into her head.[/note]

Diablo III has gotten a lot of flak for its weak story, and a lot of fans act as if the Blizzard North guys were master storytellers.[note]Blizzard North was a subdivision of Blizzard formed when they purchased Condor Games. Blizzard North went on to create Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Blizzard Irvine disbanded the team in 2005.[/note] But the oral history suggests that the parent company has always played a key role in shaping the Diablo story, for better or worse.

This approach to story development might seem rather careless, but they had a lot less to work with back then. Many plot elements that fans now take for granted (e.g., the love affair between Inarius[note]Although Inarius was first mentioned in the Diablo I manual, his role there differs greatly from his role in the present canon.[/note] and Lilith,  Zayl the Necromancer) didn’t enter the canon until after the release of LoD. Richard A. Knaak in particular played a huge role in fleshing out the world of Sanctuary with his Sin War trilogy, but that didn’t come out until 2006-7. Blizzard’s approach to lore is a lot more professional nowadays (they even have a ‘Senior Vice President, Story and Franchise Development’), though as Diablo III shows, this method has its own drawbacks.

Torment: Tides of Numenera First Glimpse

InXile has released a first glimpse video of Torment: Tides of Numenera, and it looks awesome.

Although this is an alpha version of the build and therefore subject to major change, the omens definitely look good. It has a clear Planescape: Torment vibe, though there are subtle refinements: although there’s still a lot of reading to be done, they’ve made it so that dialogue is actually voice acted. I think this is a nice compromise–it helps deepen characterization while keeping the wonderful descriptions that made Planescape: Torment such a joy to play.

The game’s story seems promising, too. Even though the video only shows the barest hints, I’m already intrigued by the Maw. Given the all-star team that’s working on the story, I think it’s safe to say that the end result will be amazing.

So far, the only bad thing about Torment: Tides of Numenera is that it probably won’t be released for another year. 😦

New Gig!

I have some exciting news: I will be writing for Urban Gaming Elite! As a longtime gamer, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to write about an industry that I love.

You can check out my first article here. It’s a preview of a promising RTS game called 0 A.D. If you liked Age of Empires, you’ll probably like 0 A.D. It’s being developed by a team of volunteers from all over the world, and it will be totally free to play when it finally launches. There’s no release date as of yet, but in the meantime, you can play with the alpha build. It’s definitely worth a look.

Some random thoughts that didn’t make it into my article:

  • I question the decision to use Middle Egyptian building names for the Ptolemaic faction. Admittedly, I’m not much of an expert on the Greco-Roman period because it’s boring, but my understanding is that Greek was the language of administration. And if you want to get really pedantic, you could argue that Demotic would be a better choice than Middle Egyptian since Middle Egyptian was only used in highly formal contexts by the Ptolemaic era.
  • The ships look awesome. It’s just a shame you can’t really do much with them at the moment since the AI doesn’t know how to use them yet.
  • I wish the game had more non-Mediterranean civilizations. It seems strange that the Seleucids, Ptolemies, and Macedonians each get their own faction, yet there isn’t a single faction from Eastern Asia (though India is represented by the Mauryans).
  • The game places some annoying restrictions on construction (e.g., you have to build towers a certain distance apart, and civic centers have to be placed a certain distance from resources). One of the great things about old-school RTS games like Age of Empires II is that the game lets you do whatever the hell you want. Want to build fifteen towers right next to each other? You can do that!  Want to build a dozen castles? You can do that, too! The best games are the ones that give you the freedom to do silly things instead of holding your hand or trying to nudge you toward a certain course of action.
  • The skirmish maps suffer from Diablo III Syndrome (i.e., they look really pretty, but they get old after a while since there’s insufficient randomization). I hope the game will eventually have a fully random map mode. Hand-designed maps based on real-world geography are nice, but they reduce the replay value since you eventually come to know them like the back of your hand.

Age of Empires II: HD Edition

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings was a huge part of my adolescence. It was one of the first games that I actively looked forward to, and I was so excited when it finally came out. The coolest thing about it was that I could play as the Byzantines. I was really interested in the Byzantine Empire in high school (I used to read Donald Nicol’s Byzantium and Venice and Warren Treadgold’s History of the Byzantine State and Society during study hall), and I would spend hours skirmishing against the Turks with my hordes of cataphracts. I wasn’t a very good player though–I was more focused on historical accuracy than playing a good game. I was obsessed with deploying my units in historically accurate ratios, regardless of what was actually needed to counter my opponents, and I refused to use units that the Byzantines didn’t use in real life (e.g., camels and hand cannoneers). Although I eventually moved on to other games, I always had a soft spot for AoE 2. When I saw that Microsoft had released an HD version of the game through Steam, I knew I had to buy it.

I purchased the deluxe edition, so in addition to a remastered version of the original game and The Conquerors expansion pack, I also got The Forgotten, a new expansion pack that started out as a fan-made mod. Although my inner cheapskate caviled at the idea of paying for a game I already owned, I’m really glad I bought it. The graphical changes in the HD edition are nice (the most noticeable change is that water now ripples with waves instead of looking like a painting), but the new civilizations are where the game really shines. I’m particularly glad that the Italians have finally made it into AoE 2. As a teen, I was frustrated by their absence from the original game since I wanted to recreate things like the Byzantine-Venetian War. I usually ended up playing as the Goths and pretending to be Venice, but that wasn’t very satisfying (huskarls aren’t terribly Venetian!).

The mighty Byzantine army. I've added a mod that changes the unit graphics, so they look a bit different than those found in the original game.
The mighty Byzantine army. I’ve added a mod that changes the unit graphics, so they look a bit different than those found in the original game.

I haven’t played all five of the new civs yet, only the Italians and the Slavs. Those two are quite interesting to play, though. The Italians actually have two unique units, the Genoese Crossbowman (archer with an attack bonus vs. cavalry) and the Condottiero (infantry with an attack bonus against gunpowder units), and their cheaper maritime technologies gives them a boost on water maps (though it would have been nice if the ships themselves received a boost). The Slavs have great infantry (one of their unique technologies, Druzhina, gives them trample damage like the Byzantines’ cataphracts), and their unique unit, the Boyar, is a horseman who can tank. They also get cheaper siege units, which can be a huge advantage (after watching Resonance22’s YouTube channel, I’ve learned to appreciate the power of massed onagers!).

The computer’s AI has also been improved. It’s still not as skillful as a human player, obviously, but it can give you an interesting game. My big complaint is that it doesn’t seem to be good at varying its strategies based on the strengths of the civilization it’s playing. No matter which civ it is, the AI likes to build lots of light cavalry and pikemen. That being said, it does tend to build lots of paladins when playing as the Franks and lots of monks when playing as the Slavs (few things are more frustrating than running into a wall of 15-20 monks chanting away, particularly if you haven’t researched Faith yet!), but that seems to be the extent of its civ-specific strategies. Unfortunately, the units’ AI is still pretty stupid. Villagers will frequently stand around doing nothing as if they’re stoned, and your military units seem to have a death wish (the latter can be overcome to some extent by setting their attitude to “stand ground,” but this can turn them into strict pacifists who won’t intervene if one of their brethren is being attacked). Don’t even get me started on the pathfinding…

What I really love about AoE 2 though is the old-school economic management. Modern RTS games tend to dumb-down simplify the economic aspect of the game in order to focus on combat. Maybe I’m weird, but I like the challenge of building a diverse economy and keeping it balanced. At the beginning of the game, you’re often chronically short of resources as you build your empire, so it’s rewarding when you finally reach the point where you can build whatever you want.

I also love the degree of freedom that AoE 2 gives you. Newer games seem to like placing restrictions on the player. In Age of Empires III, for example, certain buildings can only be built in limited numbers, and that kind of irks me. If I want to build more than one church or a gazillion houses, I should be able to. I don’t want to be trammeled or have my hand held by the designers; I want the freedom to do crazy things, like attack with mass monks.

All in all, I highly recommend AoE 2 HD. The base game has held up very well. The graphics are still appealing, and they don’t look as dated as those found in early 3-D RTS games such as Empire Earth. There are, however, a few niggling quality-of-life issues. There’s no automated scouting button, so you’ll have to maneuver your scout around the map by hand, and the system for replenishing your farms is kind of clunky. But these are really just trifles, and they’re not annoying enough to tarnish the overall gameplay experience. It’s a first-class game, and I’m glad that it’s been made available for a new generation of gamers to enjoy.

Datamining Reaper of Souls

A version of Reaper of Souls, the Diablo III expansion pack, has been leaked and subsequently datamined by eager fans. Now the results have to be taken with a heaping grain of salt because RoS is still a long ways from release, but there are some interesting tidbits nonetheless. If you want to experience RoS as a wide-eyed virgin, I suggest you skip this post. That being said, I’m not going to discuss anything too spoilery (I’m not going to talk about new lore or plot points).

By User:Holek (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Blizzard has already said that the existing five classes will get an overhaul in RoS, but I was a little bit surprised at some of the changes they’re contemplating. For example, the Wizard might become more of an elementalist like the Sorceress in Diablo II. The Arcane Orb runes Arcane Nova, Tap the Source, and Celestial Orb could end up being replaced by Spark, Scorch, and Frozen Orb (which do lightning, fire, and cold damage, respectively), while Magic Missile’s Penetrating Blast and Attunement runes might be replaced by Conflagrate and Glacial Spike (which, as you probably guessed, do fire and cold damage). Even the ever-popular Spectral Blade could get an elemental overhaul, with Deep Cuts being replaced by Flame Blades and Impactful Blades becoming Ice Blades.

Some of these new runes also seem to impart an elemental buff of sorts. Each enemy you kill using Flame Blades will apparently increase the damage of your fire spells by 1% over 5 seconds, while Spark does something similar for lightning spells. Right now, elemental damage in D3 is strictly cosmetic (except for cold damage, which can slow/freeze enemies), but designer Travis Day has indicated that Blizzard wants to give elemental attacks unique properties once more.

The increased emphasis on elemental attacks is interesting because, when the Wizard was first announced, the D3 team said that they wanted to move away from the whole ‘elemental magic user’ paradigm in order to differentiate her from the Sorceress. I’d be curious to know why they changed their mind. My guess is that it ultimately boils down to build diversity. By differentiating the various types of damage and offering buffs, Blizzard can theoretically give players more tactical choices. While some people will undoubtedly gripe that they are rehashing the Sorceress, I think the changes have the potential to make the Wizard an even more enjoyable character to play.

The datamining has also revealed a lot of promising-looking side quests. It looks like the followers will finally get the unique missions that were promised when they were first revealed, and there are also a number of challenges that seem reminiscent of Torchlight II’s Phase Beast portals. I’m also intrigued by the quests that are identified as “OpenWorld_Tutorial.” It would be nice if they had a mode where you could just explore instead of having to repeat the same quests time and time again, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

As I mentioned earlier, all this information is highly speculative, and it’s virtually certain that some or all of the things I’ve mentioned won’t appear in the final game. If there’s one thing that D3C’s development has taught us, it’s that Blizzard loves to change their minds!

Cyberthuggery

Polygon has posted an interesting article about the growing number of video game designers who are being harassed by players.

The article makes for sobering reading, but I can’t say I’m surprised. When I was following the development of Diablo III, I was shocked at how vitriolic the “fans” could be. Whenever Blizzard announced something remotely controversial, there would inevitably be a steady stream of bile directed toward the developers, particularly Jay Wilson. After reading some of the comments, you’d think that the design team’s decisions were going to echo for all eternity. Reading the comments on a Diablo fansite soon became a surefire way to lower my faith in humanity.

The reality, of course, is that a computer game is just an elaborate string of ones and zeroes. Even if they had totally fucked-up the game, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Sure, spending $50 on a piece of shit would have been annoying, but life would have gone on. It’s not worth being miserable over, nor is it worth trying to make someone else miserable.

The sad thing is that cyberthuggery can have a chilling effect on developer/fan interaction. There comes a point where even the thickest-skinned person will say “enough is enough” and either step away from social media entirely or retreat behind a PR stockade. Thus, the whole community ends up losing.