6.2 is coming soon - possibly next week - and with it the new raid (and possible end raid for Warlords of Draenor) will be coming.
As usual, we're going to get a staggered release, especially of the LFR difficulty, so that pre-made raiders have a chance to try the place out without feeling forced to run LFR as well (and so that LFR raiders don't burn out on the whole thing immediately.)
We don't have specific dates yet, because the patch's release has not been official announced, so it's broken down by weeks-after-the-patch.
Week 1 (with 6.2)
Normal and Heroic Modes Open
Week 2
Mythic Opens
Raid Finder Wing 1 (Hellfire Assault, Iron Reaver, Kormrok)
Week 4
Raid Finder Wing 2 (Hellfire High Council, Kilrogg, Gorefiend)
Week 6
Raid Finder Wing 3 (Shadow-Lord Iskar, Socrethar the Eternal, Tyrant Velhari)
Week 8
Raid Finder Wing 4 (Fel Lord Zakuun, Xhul'horac, Mannoroth)
Week 10
Raid Finder Wing 5 (Archimonde)
Interestingly, this schedule changes things up slightly from how we have gotten previous raids. If I recall (could be wrong here,) the first LFR wing usually comes in Week 3, with the second in Week 4. This means that we'll be able to get into LFR earlier, but we'll have two weeks of doing the first wing before we can move on to the second. So it's two weeks per LFR wing.
If the patch drops next week, that means we'll have Normal/Heroic on Jun 23rd, Mythic and Wing One June 30th, Wing Two July 14th (Bastille Day!) Wing Three on July 28th, Wing Four on August Eleventh, and Wing Five on August 25th.
Hellfire Citadel will certainly be our raid for the summer, and probably into the fall as well.
After that point, though, we really don't know what's next for WoW. Personally, I've been in a bit of a WoW lull. We're still not sure if this is, in fact, the final raid of Warlords or if there will be something later. On one hand, Gul'dan is screaming to be a raid boss, but on the other hand, how would a Gul'dan raid differ from this very heavily demonic one?
Believe it or not, we're actually only a few months out from Blizzcon, at which we are 99% guaranteed to find out (if we haven't already) about WoW's 6th expansion. But unless they're ready to release it in the space of three months or less after that, we're going to want some other content in Draenor to tide us over - Blizz definitely wants to avoid another Siege of Orgrimmar situation. If they can't release the next expansion soon, and there is no third Draenor tier, it'll be even worse. Hellfire Citadel might be Warlords' climax, but its place in the schedule compared to previous expansions is that of the middle tier - Throne of Thunder and Firelands were "summer after launch" raids for their respective expansions.
But let's not dwell on the doom and gloom of the future. We're finally getting some real new content in Draenor very soon. Let's dwell on the doom and gloom of Tanaan Jungle!
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
A Couple Weeks In: Favorite Heroes of the Storm
I've been playing Heroes of the Storm casually basically since I wrote those first couple articles. One of the features of the game is that there are a number of heroes who you can play for free, and they rotate each week, which allows you a fair amount of freedom to play without even spending in-game gold, much less real money. All in all I've only made one impulse purchase (Crusader Johanna and her Legionnaire skin, which in retrospect I actually like less than her classic look.)
I've played probably most of the heroes at this point, though not all in a real game (and to be honest, I really only play versus AI, which some would argue isn't "real" either.)
So what are my favorites so far?
E.T.C. - Warrior
Elite Tauren Chieftain (abbreviated in game) is all the right kinds of silly. He's a warrior who fights with the power of Rock. He's basically designed as a disruptor - your Q attack is Power Slide, which sends you forward in a straight line, stunning those you hit. W is Face Melt, which knocks enemies back (both also do damage) away from you. E is Guitar Solo, which is a self-heal (I think there's a direct and then over-time effect.) His two R attacks are Mosh Pit and Stage Dive. Mosh Pit is an area stun, but you have to channel it, meaning that while you can pull it off in a group of enemy heroes, it'll really be more effective if you have allies to take advantage of the stun. It can be pretty transformative at bottlenecks. ETC's trait is that his abilities will increase his and nearby allies attack speeds. Unfortunately the range on "Rock Star" is pretty small I think, so you'll need to be bunched up quite a lot for this to have a huge effect.
Tychus - Assassin
Tychus is the first assassin character where I really felt like a had a good sense of how to kill enemy heroes. His trait is pretty key - he has a chain gun that spins up, increasing your attack speed on each hit up to four, which fades if you're out of combat. Q - Overdrive if I remember the name correctly, will let you fixate on a target and blast away with a spun-up minigun barrage. The key here is that you can keep moving while it goes off, so if an enemy tries to run away, or if you are trying to make a fighting retreat, you can keep bringing the damage. W is Frag Grenade, which lets you toss a grenade that does damage and knocks people away from the impact. This is actually a great thing to use while channeling Overdrive (it doesn't cancel it,) as you can knock a fleeing enemy back in range. E is... I forget the name. It sends you forward a short distance very quickly. Again, this is good for both escaping and also keeping up with your quarry. The two R abilities are Summon Odin and (paraphrasing) that Mining Laser from that one mission in Wings of Liberty. The Odin gives you new, powerful attacks while it lasts, but importantly you should know that the Odin's health and your health are one and the same - you won't just pop out of it if it gets destroyed. The Mining Laser doesn't have a ton of health, but if you can plop it in an enemy fort or keep's vicinity, it can do significant damage as long as you keep it safe.
Li Li - Support
Li Li's definitely the easiest support character. A lot of her abilities are auto-targeted, which has the added bonus of letting you heal on the move. Her trait gives her a movement speed buff if she gets hit, so she's all about running out of harm's way while helping teammates stay up. Q is Healing Brew, which will toss a heal to the nearby target with the most need of a heal (preferring heroes.) W summons a little cloud serpent hatchling on a friendly target (including you) who will attack enemies nearby. E is Blinding Wind, which will deal damage and blind nearby enemy heroes (it can't be used if there are none in range) for a few seconds. Her heroic abilities are Jug of a Thousand Cups and Summon Greater Cloud Serpent. The Jug is kind of a big AoE heal, though it only heals one ally at a time (so it does the same amount of potential healing regardless of how many allies are nearby.) The Cloud Serpent does damage in an area.
Sylvanas - Specialist
Specialists in Heroes do kind of have a shared niche - they tend to focus less on enemy heroes and more on minions, mercenaries, and structures (masonry?) Sylvanas has some really strong tools for dealing with the enemy's AI defenses. Her trait is Black Arrow, which causes her attacks (basic and special) to stun any non-player target. This means that you can lock down an enemy turret with only autoattacks. Q is Withering Fire, which auto-targets the nearest hostile and does a bit of damage and has five charges that regenerate fairly quickly. If an enemy minion dies near you, you'll get another charge, so once your team levels up enough, you'll be able to wipe out squads of minions in mere moments (especially if you opt to have it hit two targets with a talent.) Cursed Blade will put a DOT on a target, but this damage-over-time spreads to nearby enemies (I can't remember if there's a target limit) just in case you weren't happy with how fast you were wiping out minion teams. E is Banshee Wail (I could totally be getting some of these names wrong.) This is a long-range cone attack (you can easily shoot into enemy bases without getting in range of their guns) that passes through targets, damaging them. As an added bonus, hitting E again while the Banshees are doing their thing will teleport you to where they are, making it a nice escape ability.
Sgt. Hammer - Specialist
One I only discovered today, but that I'm falling in love with already. Sergeant Hammer is the pilot of a Terran Siege Tank (one of my favorite SC units.) She gets a bonus to her damage if her enemies are far away from her. E is her most important ability, but let's talk about her others first. Q drops Spider Mines nearby, which will burrow into the ground and charge at approaching enemies before exploding. W is a short-range cone-attack knockback, which does send things pretty far away, but again, has a low range. E allows you to enter Siege Mode. This will make you immobile, but it will vastly increase your range and also make your basic attacks do splash damage (a late talent causes you to gain a larger range the longer you're in Siege Mode.) By setting up in Siege Mode, you can easily outrange turret defenses and devastate enemy fortifications. Given her range, Hammer's also good at dealing with enemy heroes - they'll either be too low on health by the time they get to you (through a field of spider mines) or by knocking them out with a big blast as they fail to get far enough out of range. Obviously, the immobility of Siege Mode makes you vulnerable, but the idea is that you scare off or kill enemies before they can get to you. Also of note: instead of a mount (because a tank riding a horse would be more absurd than even Blizzard can handle) you get a little speed boost on a cooldown.
Kael'thas - Assassin
While Jaina (who I also like) brings the Frost Mage toolkit, Kael'thas is all about the somewhat fel-enhanced Fire magic. First, his trait is Verdant Spheres - those three globes floating around his head. Activating them will make the glow brighter and will empower your next non-heroic ability, making it a little akin to Arthas' Frostmourne Hungers, but a little more interesting. Q is Flamestrike, which will create a circular area that will explode for fairly high damage on anyone who is still standing inside. Empowering it will increase the damage and size of the circle, and make the fire green. W is Living Bomb, which is a DoT on the target that, after it goes off, will do area damage to anyone standing near the target. There are some fun talents to really turn this one into a nasty spell. Empowering this removes the cooldown and mana cost, so you can use it twice in a row - the only downside is that I think the explosion won't happen if the enemy is killed before it can go off. E is Gravity Lapse, which is an aimed stun. Empowering it will stun the first three targets the spell reaches. Finally, heroic abilities are Phoenix, which you can summon to fly forward to a location and bombard enemies within its range and Pyroblast, which is a big blast of damage that takes a little while to cast. Kael'thas is an Assassin, so he's technically designed for taking out heroes, but he'll also chew through minion parties very effectively. I'm a particularly big fan of Living Bomb, as DoTs have a lot of value in a game where people (or at least AI) won't retreat until their health gets fairly low. And with the right talents, you can have more powerful Living Bombs that are spread by Flamestrike and spread a second iteration of themselves upon explosion - you can get massive chain reactions.
I've played probably most of the heroes at this point, though not all in a real game (and to be honest, I really only play versus AI, which some would argue isn't "real" either.)
So what are my favorites so far?
E.T.C. - Warrior
Elite Tauren Chieftain (abbreviated in game) is all the right kinds of silly. He's a warrior who fights with the power of Rock. He's basically designed as a disruptor - your Q attack is Power Slide, which sends you forward in a straight line, stunning those you hit. W is Face Melt, which knocks enemies back (both also do damage) away from you. E is Guitar Solo, which is a self-heal (I think there's a direct and then over-time effect.) His two R attacks are Mosh Pit and Stage Dive. Mosh Pit is an area stun, but you have to channel it, meaning that while you can pull it off in a group of enemy heroes, it'll really be more effective if you have allies to take advantage of the stun. It can be pretty transformative at bottlenecks. ETC's trait is that his abilities will increase his and nearby allies attack speeds. Unfortunately the range on "Rock Star" is pretty small I think, so you'll need to be bunched up quite a lot for this to have a huge effect.
Tychus - Assassin
Tychus is the first assassin character where I really felt like a had a good sense of how to kill enemy heroes. His trait is pretty key - he has a chain gun that spins up, increasing your attack speed on each hit up to four, which fades if you're out of combat. Q - Overdrive if I remember the name correctly, will let you fixate on a target and blast away with a spun-up minigun barrage. The key here is that you can keep moving while it goes off, so if an enemy tries to run away, or if you are trying to make a fighting retreat, you can keep bringing the damage. W is Frag Grenade, which lets you toss a grenade that does damage and knocks people away from the impact. This is actually a great thing to use while channeling Overdrive (it doesn't cancel it,) as you can knock a fleeing enemy back in range. E is... I forget the name. It sends you forward a short distance very quickly. Again, this is good for both escaping and also keeping up with your quarry. The two R abilities are Summon Odin and (paraphrasing) that Mining Laser from that one mission in Wings of Liberty. The Odin gives you new, powerful attacks while it lasts, but importantly you should know that the Odin's health and your health are one and the same - you won't just pop out of it if it gets destroyed. The Mining Laser doesn't have a ton of health, but if you can plop it in an enemy fort or keep's vicinity, it can do significant damage as long as you keep it safe.
Li Li - Support
Li Li's definitely the easiest support character. A lot of her abilities are auto-targeted, which has the added bonus of letting you heal on the move. Her trait gives her a movement speed buff if she gets hit, so she's all about running out of harm's way while helping teammates stay up. Q is Healing Brew, which will toss a heal to the nearby target with the most need of a heal (preferring heroes.) W summons a little cloud serpent hatchling on a friendly target (including you) who will attack enemies nearby. E is Blinding Wind, which will deal damage and blind nearby enemy heroes (it can't be used if there are none in range) for a few seconds. Her heroic abilities are Jug of a Thousand Cups and Summon Greater Cloud Serpent. The Jug is kind of a big AoE heal, though it only heals one ally at a time (so it does the same amount of potential healing regardless of how many allies are nearby.) The Cloud Serpent does damage in an area.
Sylvanas - Specialist
Specialists in Heroes do kind of have a shared niche - they tend to focus less on enemy heroes and more on minions, mercenaries, and structures (masonry?) Sylvanas has some really strong tools for dealing with the enemy's AI defenses. Her trait is Black Arrow, which causes her attacks (basic and special) to stun any non-player target. This means that you can lock down an enemy turret with only autoattacks. Q is Withering Fire, which auto-targets the nearest hostile and does a bit of damage and has five charges that regenerate fairly quickly. If an enemy minion dies near you, you'll get another charge, so once your team levels up enough, you'll be able to wipe out squads of minions in mere moments (especially if you opt to have it hit two targets with a talent.) Cursed Blade will put a DOT on a target, but this damage-over-time spreads to nearby enemies (I can't remember if there's a target limit) just in case you weren't happy with how fast you were wiping out minion teams. E is Banshee Wail (I could totally be getting some of these names wrong.) This is a long-range cone attack (you can easily shoot into enemy bases without getting in range of their guns) that passes through targets, damaging them. As an added bonus, hitting E again while the Banshees are doing their thing will teleport you to where they are, making it a nice escape ability.
Sgt. Hammer - Specialist
One I only discovered today, but that I'm falling in love with already. Sergeant Hammer is the pilot of a Terran Siege Tank (one of my favorite SC units.) She gets a bonus to her damage if her enemies are far away from her. E is her most important ability, but let's talk about her others first. Q drops Spider Mines nearby, which will burrow into the ground and charge at approaching enemies before exploding. W is a short-range cone-attack knockback, which does send things pretty far away, but again, has a low range. E allows you to enter Siege Mode. This will make you immobile, but it will vastly increase your range and also make your basic attacks do splash damage (a late talent causes you to gain a larger range the longer you're in Siege Mode.) By setting up in Siege Mode, you can easily outrange turret defenses and devastate enemy fortifications. Given her range, Hammer's also good at dealing with enemy heroes - they'll either be too low on health by the time they get to you (through a field of spider mines) or by knocking them out with a big blast as they fail to get far enough out of range. Obviously, the immobility of Siege Mode makes you vulnerable, but the idea is that you scare off or kill enemies before they can get to you. Also of note: instead of a mount (because a tank riding a horse would be more absurd than even Blizzard can handle) you get a little speed boost on a cooldown.
Kael'thas - Assassin
While Jaina (who I also like) brings the Frost Mage toolkit, Kael'thas is all about the somewhat fel-enhanced Fire magic. First, his trait is Verdant Spheres - those three globes floating around his head. Activating them will make the glow brighter and will empower your next non-heroic ability, making it a little akin to Arthas' Frostmourne Hungers, but a little more interesting. Q is Flamestrike, which will create a circular area that will explode for fairly high damage on anyone who is still standing inside. Empowering it will increase the damage and size of the circle, and make the fire green. W is Living Bomb, which is a DoT on the target that, after it goes off, will do area damage to anyone standing near the target. There are some fun talents to really turn this one into a nasty spell. Empowering this removes the cooldown and mana cost, so you can use it twice in a row - the only downside is that I think the explosion won't happen if the enemy is killed before it can go off. E is Gravity Lapse, which is an aimed stun. Empowering it will stun the first three targets the spell reaches. Finally, heroic abilities are Phoenix, which you can summon to fly forward to a location and bombard enemies within its range and Pyroblast, which is a big blast of damage that takes a little while to cast. Kael'thas is an Assassin, so he's technically designed for taking out heroes, but he'll also chew through minion parties very effectively. I'm a particularly big fan of Living Bomb, as DoTs have a lot of value in a game where people (or at least AI) won't retreat until their health gets fairly low. And with the right talents, you can have more powerful Living Bombs that are spread by Flamestrike and spread a second iteration of themselves upon explosion - you can get massive chain reactions.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Final Fantasy VII Remake Announced
For the longest time, players have been asking for a remake of Final Fantasy 7, and perhaps never was there a bigger tease than when the opening of FF7 was used as a tech demo for the Playstation 3. Ultimately, that turned out to really be just a tech demo, just like the old Gamecube (then "Dolphin") Zelda preview (what we got instead was the divisively cartoonish Wind Waker, though I'd argue that Twilight Princess made good on that promise.)
But it is a tech demo no more: Square Enix has officially announced a bleeding-edge, modern remake of the original Playstation classic. The teaser trailer is just that - the game is likely years away at this point - but the words "the promise has finally been made" are part of the trailer's voiceover - it's definitely happening.
So, confession time: I haven't ever actually played FF7. I played through X (and got way too powerful leveling up in the Omega Dungeon, so that I actually wound up two-shotting the final boss when I finally got around to that fight) and I played through some of VI (sadly not on my SNES, but on the PS1 port on my PS2.)
Personally, all the "most iconic" versions of major series tend to be the SNES version, because as a kid who was born in the mid-80s, the SNES was the first "current" system I was really aware of (though I didn't get mine until the N64 was out.) So to me, FFVI is "the" major Final Fantasy series. Still, the 32/64-bit era was a big part of my childhood as well, and I was certainly aware of the game.
And all in all, FF VII is probably the most famous entry in Squaresoft's, and later Square Enix's flagship franchise.
I loved their stuff from the SNES era, and I liked FFX a lot, but since then I haven't been terribly impressed with them. I thought FFXII was a total mess in terms of combat, and since then, I've kind of been put off by their abandonment of the battle system they had in the older games. The turn-based system recreated the strategy of a tabletop RPG, and I think that in trying to make the game control more like a modern video game, they wound up making it unwieldy. I never played XIII, but in a real way, I feel like the combat system was what defined Final Fantasy games.
Anyway, the thing is that I'm not personally invested all that much in FFVII, though given its popularity, I'm eager to try it out, and given that the PS1/N64 era's graphics have not aged as gracefully as their previous generation's sprites have, it might be nice to try something out that looks super-shiny. That said, I totally know the big plot twist.
One of the pitfalls, of course, of remaking a game - or any work of art, for that matter - is a question of why. Sometimes the motivation is just to update it, to make it look cleaner and more up to date. Of course, that's how we get things like Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. With games, of course, the visuals have progressed significantly the last, what, eighteen years? (Of course, as time goes on I imagine graphics will improve at a less noticeable rate. Already the difference between what I'll call 256 era (PS3) and 512 era (PS4) graphics is pretty subtle.) Another question is whether the gameplay will change, and if so, how? I'll sort of contradict myself here by raising the question of whether FF's old menus and turn-based combat can survive today. (I don't remember how Lost Odyssey did, but I haven't seen a sequel yet.) Even with new graphics, a pure remake of a game seems somewhat unappealing. So how can they remake the game and still make it feel new, while retaining the soul of the original?
It's an interesting question (if I do say so myself) that I'm ill equipped to answer. Either way, though, Square Enix stands to print a lot of money here from the massive nostalgia market.
But it is a tech demo no more: Square Enix has officially announced a bleeding-edge, modern remake of the original Playstation classic. The teaser trailer is just that - the game is likely years away at this point - but the words "the promise has finally been made" are part of the trailer's voiceover - it's definitely happening.
So, confession time: I haven't ever actually played FF7. I played through X (and got way too powerful leveling up in the Omega Dungeon, so that I actually wound up two-shotting the final boss when I finally got around to that fight) and I played through some of VI (sadly not on my SNES, but on the PS1 port on my PS2.)
Personally, all the "most iconic" versions of major series tend to be the SNES version, because as a kid who was born in the mid-80s, the SNES was the first "current" system I was really aware of (though I didn't get mine until the N64 was out.) So to me, FFVI is "the" major Final Fantasy series. Still, the 32/64-bit era was a big part of my childhood as well, and I was certainly aware of the game.
And all in all, FF VII is probably the most famous entry in Squaresoft's, and later Square Enix's flagship franchise.
I loved their stuff from the SNES era, and I liked FFX a lot, but since then I haven't been terribly impressed with them. I thought FFXII was a total mess in terms of combat, and since then, I've kind of been put off by their abandonment of the battle system they had in the older games. The turn-based system recreated the strategy of a tabletop RPG, and I think that in trying to make the game control more like a modern video game, they wound up making it unwieldy. I never played XIII, but in a real way, I feel like the combat system was what defined Final Fantasy games.
Anyway, the thing is that I'm not personally invested all that much in FFVII, though given its popularity, I'm eager to try it out, and given that the PS1/N64 era's graphics have not aged as gracefully as their previous generation's sprites have, it might be nice to try something out that looks super-shiny. That said, I totally know the big plot twist.
One of the pitfalls, of course, of remaking a game - or any work of art, for that matter - is a question of why. Sometimes the motivation is just to update it, to make it look cleaner and more up to date. Of course, that's how we get things like Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. With games, of course, the visuals have progressed significantly the last, what, eighteen years? (Of course, as time goes on I imagine graphics will improve at a less noticeable rate. Already the difference between what I'll call 256 era (PS3) and 512 era (PS4) graphics is pretty subtle.) Another question is whether the gameplay will change, and if so, how? I'll sort of contradict myself here by raising the question of whether FF's old menus and turn-based combat can survive today. (I don't remember how Lost Odyssey did, but I haven't seen a sequel yet.) Even with new graphics, a pure remake of a game seems somewhat unappealing. So how can they remake the game and still make it feel new, while retaining the soul of the original?
It's an interesting question (if I do say so myself) that I'm ill equipped to answer. Either way, though, Square Enix stands to print a lot of money here from the massive nostalgia market.
Mass Effect Andromeda
I loved the Mass Effect games - a futuristic shooter game that was more about the characters and dialogue than the shooting. Mass Effect 3 is of course fairly infamous, as it could never live up to expectations, but also because the ending was fairly bizarre and baffling - the extended cut free DLC did explain things a bit, but any way you sliced it, you wound up with a totally transformed galaxy. I kind of deny the existence of the "refuse" ending, but of the other choices, Domination I suppose leaves things the most like they were, only know with (hopefully) benevolent Reaper overlords rather than flying apocalypse machines. Destruction leaves us with no more Geth (and given the revelations about their true nature, that's also a big downer. Also EDI.) Synthesis, being the more or less 100% completion bonus, seems to me the best option for the "canon" ending, but it also leaves literally all life in the Milky Way cyborgs. It's a kind of benevolent indoctrination - because literally all life is now upgraded with Reaper tech, and this time in a way that doesn't turn them into horrifying zombie abominations, the source of conflict is theoretically gone.
But there are two problems with that. The First is that there can't really be "canon" with Mass Effect, because the whole point of the game is that your version of Shepherd changes the world by his or her decisions. The other is that a game set after its events would need to either pick a canon ending or have extremely different starting situations for all players.
Also, Shepherd is only hinted to still be a living human being in the Destruction scenario (and could just be dead.) In Domination, he/she is essentially the Reaper overmind, and in Synthesis, he/she has been disintegrated in order to provide the Catalyst with an appropriate model for how to mix biological and synthetic components just right. Granted, Shepherd could live on in the Lifestream or whatever, but there's no indication that he/she does.
On one hand, I applaud Bioware's ballsiness in creating a massive AAA series that really can't do sequels, but it's also kind of a shame, as they came up with such a rich and fascinating world for a setting.
Well, we're getting our Mass Effect 4, specifically Mass Effect Andromeda. Andromeda will be set within the Andromeda galaxy, and... that's about all we know.
The trailer we see indicates a certain freedom of exploration as a suited-up figure scrolls through a series of planet destinations before picking one that looks like Monument Valley while "Ghost Riders in the Sky" (I want to say the Johnny Cash version, but I might be betraying my dearth of country/western music knowledge here) plays.
Anyway, there's really not a lot of real information in the teaser, but if I had to guess, I'd think we've got a more open-world format to the game. We know that the figure in the trailer is human, as he/she has an N7 insignia, but we don't really know how he/she got to Andromeda. After all, while FTL travel was possible with normal technology, true interstellar, cross-galactic travel always required the Mass Effect gates, and as far as we know, the Reapers only made those in the Milky Way.
Perhaps our hero traveled via some intergalactic ark? In that case, I hope that they came with a bunch of members of the existing Council species - one of Mass Effect's strengths was always the thoroughly imagined alien species (though let's maybe see female Turians? They had an excuse with the Salarians and the lack of male Asari, but Turians were supposed to be sexually egalitarian.)
I'm sure we'll also meet new species out there as well.
Anyway, it might actually be nice to have a Mass Effect game with somewhat lower stakes. The Reapers were so incredibly powerful and scary that it made the game a bit depressing by the end (Mass Effect 2 seemed poised to be more like Empire Strikes Back - the dark middle chapter before the triumph of the conclusion, but then 3 wound up being even more dark and depressing.)
The return of the Mako seems to suggest that we'll get more planet-hopping that was dropped after the first game. I'd love to see the more elegant combat of the second and third games combined with the greater freedom of the first. Though hopefully the planet-exploration will be more rewarding and interesting. Maybe fewer planets, but with more stuff on them?
Still, as a huge fan of the original series, warts and all, I'm eager to see what they do with Andromeda.
But there are two problems with that. The First is that there can't really be "canon" with Mass Effect, because the whole point of the game is that your version of Shepherd changes the world by his or her decisions. The other is that a game set after its events would need to either pick a canon ending or have extremely different starting situations for all players.
Also, Shepherd is only hinted to still be a living human being in the Destruction scenario (and could just be dead.) In Domination, he/she is essentially the Reaper overmind, and in Synthesis, he/she has been disintegrated in order to provide the Catalyst with an appropriate model for how to mix biological and synthetic components just right. Granted, Shepherd could live on in the Lifestream or whatever, but there's no indication that he/she does.
On one hand, I applaud Bioware's ballsiness in creating a massive AAA series that really can't do sequels, but it's also kind of a shame, as they came up with such a rich and fascinating world for a setting.
Well, we're getting our Mass Effect 4, specifically Mass Effect Andromeda. Andromeda will be set within the Andromeda galaxy, and... that's about all we know.
The trailer we see indicates a certain freedom of exploration as a suited-up figure scrolls through a series of planet destinations before picking one that looks like Monument Valley while "Ghost Riders in the Sky" (I want to say the Johnny Cash version, but I might be betraying my dearth of country/western music knowledge here) plays.
Anyway, there's really not a lot of real information in the teaser, but if I had to guess, I'd think we've got a more open-world format to the game. We know that the figure in the trailer is human, as he/she has an N7 insignia, but we don't really know how he/she got to Andromeda. After all, while FTL travel was possible with normal technology, true interstellar, cross-galactic travel always required the Mass Effect gates, and as far as we know, the Reapers only made those in the Milky Way.
Perhaps our hero traveled via some intergalactic ark? In that case, I hope that they came with a bunch of members of the existing Council species - one of Mass Effect's strengths was always the thoroughly imagined alien species (though let's maybe see female Turians? They had an excuse with the Salarians and the lack of male Asari, but Turians were supposed to be sexually egalitarian.)
I'm sure we'll also meet new species out there as well.
Anyway, it might actually be nice to have a Mass Effect game with somewhat lower stakes. The Reapers were so incredibly powerful and scary that it made the game a bit depressing by the end (Mass Effect 2 seemed poised to be more like Empire Strikes Back - the dark middle chapter before the triumph of the conclusion, but then 3 wound up being even more dark and depressing.)
The return of the Mako seems to suggest that we'll get more planet-hopping that was dropped after the first game. I'd love to see the more elegant combat of the second and third games combined with the greater freedom of the first. Though hopefully the planet-exploration will be more rewarding and interesting. Maybe fewer planets, but with more stuff on them?
Still, as a huge fan of the original series, warts and all, I'm eager to see what they do with Andromeda.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Demonic Nature and the Art of the Reveal of World of Warcraft
I made a post a few days ago about the lore bombshell that Alex Afrasiabi dropped - namely that even among the myriad, perhaps infinite alternate realities that allowed for this Draenor we're currently adventuring in to be different from the Outland we know, the Twisting Nether is One. The Nether transcends all realities.
And demons, being denizens of the twisting nether, also transcend all realities.
Thus, the Archimonde that we face in Hellfire Citadel is in fact the same one that was defeated at the Battle of Mount Hyjal.
This lore development could have been handled a lot better, if you ask me. A huge change for the fate of one of Warcraft's most important characters is fine if done as a twist in-universe. If we see a bunch of quests in Tanaan where our questgivers are just as baffled as we are about Archimonde's return, then I think all should be forgiven. An in-universe twist feels less like a retcon, even if it actually is. Think about twists in movies -isn't it always a better twist if we're finding out the truth at the same time as the protagonist? We always want to feel like it's not just that the authors have thrown us a curve-ball, but that we were justified in feeling things were a certain way - because that's the way that the world presented itself.
Anyway, we got a few new tweets on the subject (again, I'd really like to see this plot development revealed in-game, even though the cat's out of the bag already.)
The main idea is that demons are far more eldritch in nature than we might have previously thought. The Old Gods were always the ones to play heavily on the incomprehensibility angle (what did it even mean that we were inside Yogg-Saron's brain, for example?) But until now demons more or less seemed primarily like a collection of humanoid, or sometimes beast-like or elemental-like races that are just inherently evil and infused with far more magic than a mere mortal could take (indeed, it seems like a magic overload of one's physiology is what turns one into a demon.)
But until now, that made them just kind of mustache-twirlingly evil people who want to destroy the universe because they have an instinct toward corruption and destruction.
Yet now it seems like they're something utterly different, utterly alien. If this is the case, the inconsistencies effectively stop being plot-holes and instead become part of the inherent mystery of demonic nature. Essentially, the answer to "but wait, what happened to all the different mortal Archimondes when Archimonde became a demon?" becomes "you know, no one in the Kirin Tor or even the Circle of the Black Harvest has been able to figure that one out."
That might not be a satisfying answer to you. It depends on whether you think that H. P. Lovecraft's horror style was effective. Lovecraft's tendency was to describe horrific things as inherently indescribable - that our petty human (or in the case of Warcraft, mortal) minds just can't comprehend their nature. Is it a cop-out or does it solve an inherent problem in writing horror - namely that nothing is scarier than what an audience's imagination can come up with on their own?
Even handled well, this is bound to piss some people off. It's a matter of artistic preferences, but also a question of how well-thought out things are at Blizzard. I'll give Metzen and co the benefit of the doubt and say they've probably talked a whole lot about the nature of demons - and how much of that nature they wish to reveal to the audience. If we learn too much about them, they do start to be less of a threat, but if things are kept too vague, it starts to feel like "whatever's convenient at the moment."
Fantasy as a genre asks a lot of its audience in terms of the willing suspension of disbelief, and so it behooves a fantasy writer to be consistent in the rules of that universe.
But fantasy also requires an air of mystery - magic would just be a different kind of physics if it could be broken down and understood. So the fantasy writer needs to strike a balance between the consistency that would allow for a world that has wizards and sorcerers, and the mystery that allows that magic to feel fantastical.
The reveal of Archimonde's nature should elicit dread, shock, and horror, and it should be the heroes of Azeroth who feel that way.
AFTERTHOUGHT:
Ok, this isn't actually an edit, but I wanted to distinguish this from my main point without making a separate post. First off - isn't it funny how Warcraft and Lovecraft should be opposites, but aren't?
Secondly: We actually got a big reveal (again, sigh, through a tweet) about the nature of the Twisting Nether and its place in the cosmos. The Nether is between the Light and the Void. This suggests that the Light is a realm of its own, as opposed to just a force or energy that exists throughout creation (though it could be a bit of both.) It also suggests that the Nether isn't really inherently evil. It's just the chaotic borderland between the everything and nothingness.
And yes, the Void is nothingness, which makes the existence of Voidwalkers pretty freaky. Did they start as something else (Naaru, for example) and transform after traveling the void? Or are they walking (floating) paradoxes - somethings out of nothing?
Last, but certainly not least - Sargeras does not transcend all realities. There could very well be many Sargerases out there - which makes the existence of the Burning Legion even stranger. Which of these Sargerases does the Legion serve? There's so little we actually know about the Titans that it's hard to speculate on this, but the definitive answer about Sargeras is that no, he doesn't transcend all realities. Also, the Titans themselves are searching other universes for other Titans. Maybe the Titans in all realities are different? Alternatively, maybe the "one true timeline" is the one the Titans are from, and that they had to travel to this Draenor to put it in order just like we did?
Actually, one last last thought: We're on an alternate Draenor, and this Draenor seems to exist in a full universe. We've often wondered about why the Iron Horde didn't invade Azeroth B. But we've been told that Azeroth is a special planet, and is important to Sargeras because of that. Could it be that it's special and unique because there are no alternate Azeroths? That Azeroth is the only Azeroth across all the universes? It would go a hell of a way to explaining why our actions are special (though admittedly it would also make End Time kind of hard to explain.)
And demons, being denizens of the twisting nether, also transcend all realities.
Thus, the Archimonde that we face in Hellfire Citadel is in fact the same one that was defeated at the Battle of Mount Hyjal.
This lore development could have been handled a lot better, if you ask me. A huge change for the fate of one of Warcraft's most important characters is fine if done as a twist in-universe. If we see a bunch of quests in Tanaan where our questgivers are just as baffled as we are about Archimonde's return, then I think all should be forgiven. An in-universe twist feels less like a retcon, even if it actually is. Think about twists in movies -isn't it always a better twist if we're finding out the truth at the same time as the protagonist? We always want to feel like it's not just that the authors have thrown us a curve-ball, but that we were justified in feeling things were a certain way - because that's the way that the world presented itself.
Anyway, we got a few new tweets on the subject (again, I'd really like to see this plot development revealed in-game, even though the cat's out of the bag already.)
The main idea is that demons are far more eldritch in nature than we might have previously thought. The Old Gods were always the ones to play heavily on the incomprehensibility angle (what did it even mean that we were inside Yogg-Saron's brain, for example?) But until now demons more or less seemed primarily like a collection of humanoid, or sometimes beast-like or elemental-like races that are just inherently evil and infused with far more magic than a mere mortal could take (indeed, it seems like a magic overload of one's physiology is what turns one into a demon.)
But until now, that made them just kind of mustache-twirlingly evil people who want to destroy the universe because they have an instinct toward corruption and destruction.
Yet now it seems like they're something utterly different, utterly alien. If this is the case, the inconsistencies effectively stop being plot-holes and instead become part of the inherent mystery of demonic nature. Essentially, the answer to "but wait, what happened to all the different mortal Archimondes when Archimonde became a demon?" becomes "you know, no one in the Kirin Tor or even the Circle of the Black Harvest has been able to figure that one out."
That might not be a satisfying answer to you. It depends on whether you think that H. P. Lovecraft's horror style was effective. Lovecraft's tendency was to describe horrific things as inherently indescribable - that our petty human (or in the case of Warcraft, mortal) minds just can't comprehend their nature. Is it a cop-out or does it solve an inherent problem in writing horror - namely that nothing is scarier than what an audience's imagination can come up with on their own?
Even handled well, this is bound to piss some people off. It's a matter of artistic preferences, but also a question of how well-thought out things are at Blizzard. I'll give Metzen and co the benefit of the doubt and say they've probably talked a whole lot about the nature of demons - and how much of that nature they wish to reveal to the audience. If we learn too much about them, they do start to be less of a threat, but if things are kept too vague, it starts to feel like "whatever's convenient at the moment."
Fantasy as a genre asks a lot of its audience in terms of the willing suspension of disbelief, and so it behooves a fantasy writer to be consistent in the rules of that universe.
But fantasy also requires an air of mystery - magic would just be a different kind of physics if it could be broken down and understood. So the fantasy writer needs to strike a balance between the consistency that would allow for a world that has wizards and sorcerers, and the mystery that allows that magic to feel fantastical.
The reveal of Archimonde's nature should elicit dread, shock, and horror, and it should be the heroes of Azeroth who feel that way.
AFTERTHOUGHT:
Ok, this isn't actually an edit, but I wanted to distinguish this from my main point without making a separate post. First off - isn't it funny how Warcraft and Lovecraft should be opposites, but aren't?
Secondly: We actually got a big reveal (again, sigh, through a tweet) about the nature of the Twisting Nether and its place in the cosmos. The Nether is between the Light and the Void. This suggests that the Light is a realm of its own, as opposed to just a force or energy that exists throughout creation (though it could be a bit of both.) It also suggests that the Nether isn't really inherently evil. It's just the chaotic borderland between the everything and nothingness.
And yes, the Void is nothingness, which makes the existence of Voidwalkers pretty freaky. Did they start as something else (Naaru, for example) and transform after traveling the void? Or are they walking (floating) paradoxes - somethings out of nothing?
Last, but certainly not least - Sargeras does not transcend all realities. There could very well be many Sargerases out there - which makes the existence of the Burning Legion even stranger. Which of these Sargerases does the Legion serve? There's so little we actually know about the Titans that it's hard to speculate on this, but the definitive answer about Sargeras is that no, he doesn't transcend all realities. Also, the Titans themselves are searching other universes for other Titans. Maybe the Titans in all realities are different? Alternatively, maybe the "one true timeline" is the one the Titans are from, and that they had to travel to this Draenor to put it in order just like we did?
Actually, one last last thought: We're on an alternate Draenor, and this Draenor seems to exist in a full universe. We've often wondered about why the Iron Horde didn't invade Azeroth B. But we've been told that Azeroth is a special planet, and is important to Sargeras because of that. Could it be that it's special and unique because there are no alternate Azeroths? That Azeroth is the only Azeroth across all the universes? It would go a hell of a way to explaining why our actions are special (though admittedly it would also make End Time kind of hard to explain.)
Reputations in Tanaan Jungle to be Better
If there's one feature of Warlords of Draenor that I have been very, very unhappy with, it's reputations. In the absence of daily quests or dungeon championing, the only way to gain rep after finishing the initial quests (and in the case of the Laughing Skull and Shatari Defense, you don't even get that,) is to just kill, kill, kill (kill, kill, kill) mobs over and over.
It's a return to freaking vanilla-style reputation grinds. The rewards are cosmetic, yes, so you can safely ignore them if you're focused on progression, but of course, cosmetic stuff is the type of stuff that remains relevant forever, so it's more than a little frustrating.
And the WoW Dev team agrees. In the big Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas, he referred to the existing Draenor reps as "indefensible." They were tacked on later on in the process, and didn't have a structure build in for gaining reputation.
When it was announced that the flight achievement for Draenor would require revered status for the three Tanaan factions, I was disheartened, but thankfully, these reputations are being designed with, you know, content in mind.
It looks like there will be daily quests (though probably not on the level of Golden Lotus - it might even just be a single, broad quest a day like the Apexis Dailies,) and you'll also gain rep for killing mobs as a bonus, but the whole thing is designed so that you can get exalted (I believe) in three weeks, and the requirement for flight is revered, which should take significantly less time (it's possible that the three week estimate is for revered, which is probably a bit longer than I'd design it, but we'll see.)
I think it would be a great time to significantly boost the rep gains for the existing Draenor reputations. There is no reason that one should have to spend hours and hours just to fill a single bubble on the rep/xp bar. The 6.0 reps were clearly broken, so I think it would be a nice band-aid to increase the rep gains for mobs and turn-ins for them by a factor of five or even ten.
6.2 is coming soon. I'll be eager to see how it is.
It's a return to freaking vanilla-style reputation grinds. The rewards are cosmetic, yes, so you can safely ignore them if you're focused on progression, but of course, cosmetic stuff is the type of stuff that remains relevant forever, so it's more than a little frustrating.
And the WoW Dev team agrees. In the big Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas, he referred to the existing Draenor reps as "indefensible." They were tacked on later on in the process, and didn't have a structure build in for gaining reputation.
When it was announced that the flight achievement for Draenor would require revered status for the three Tanaan factions, I was disheartened, but thankfully, these reputations are being designed with, you know, content in mind.
It looks like there will be daily quests (though probably not on the level of Golden Lotus - it might even just be a single, broad quest a day like the Apexis Dailies,) and you'll also gain rep for killing mobs as a bonus, but the whole thing is designed so that you can get exalted (I believe) in three weeks, and the requirement for flight is revered, which should take significantly less time (it's possible that the three week estimate is for revered, which is probably a bit longer than I'd design it, but we'll see.)
I think it would be a great time to significantly boost the rep gains for the existing Draenor reputations. There is no reason that one should have to spend hours and hours just to fill a single bubble on the rep/xp bar. The 6.0 reps were clearly broken, so I think it would be a nice band-aid to increase the rep gains for mobs and turn-ins for them by a factor of five or even ten.
6.2 is coming soon. I'll be eager to see how it is.
Ryu's Unique Style in Smash Bros.
Ryu is the first character, I think, to actually come from a fighting game (one could make an argument for Little Mac,) and it's exciting to see that Nintendo is thinking outside the box with his design.
Fighting games are all about subtle nuances of control that can have profound effects on the way the character plays. Street Fighter, the arcade game and on the Sega Genesis, used six buttons in contrast with Nintendo's standard four, so they've had to come up with a way to open up more moves.
Essentially, holding down the A button while making attacks for varying amounts of time will change which attack you make. Quick taps will allow you to make rapid, weaker attacks, while holding the button down will make for slower, more powerful ones.
But beyond that, a lot of his special attacks have alternate inputs. Your standard B I believe will do a Hadouken (and I believe the power and speed of this depends on length of button press as well,) but you can also achieve this attack by doing down, down-forward, forward and then A.
Performing these special moves with the more complicated controls will result in a more potent attack.
Additionally, Ryu's Final Smash will change depending on whether you're in melee range of an enemy or not. In melee range, it will be a super-powered version of his... and forgive me if I spell this wrong... Shoryoken. At a distance, it becomes a super-powered Hadouken that works a bit like Mario's Final Smash.
Ryu's stage is fairly simplistic, but will likely be popular with more hardcore players.
The DLC for Smash Bros is actually available right now, but the store is experiencing a bit of an overload, so I'm holding off.
Fighting games are all about subtle nuances of control that can have profound effects on the way the character plays. Street Fighter, the arcade game and on the Sega Genesis, used six buttons in contrast with Nintendo's standard four, so they've had to come up with a way to open up more moves.
Essentially, holding down the A button while making attacks for varying amounts of time will change which attack you make. Quick taps will allow you to make rapid, weaker attacks, while holding the button down will make for slower, more powerful ones.
But beyond that, a lot of his special attacks have alternate inputs. Your standard B I believe will do a Hadouken (and I believe the power and speed of this depends on length of button press as well,) but you can also achieve this attack by doing down, down-forward, forward and then A.
Performing these special moves with the more complicated controls will result in a more potent attack.
Additionally, Ryu's Final Smash will change depending on whether you're in melee range of an enemy or not. In melee range, it will be a super-powered version of his... and forgive me if I spell this wrong... Shoryoken. At a distance, it becomes a super-powered Hadouken that works a bit like Mario's Final Smash.
Ryu's stage is fairly simplistic, but will likely be popular with more hardcore players.
The DLC for Smash Bros is actually available right now, but the store is experiencing a bit of an overload, so I'm holding off.
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