Benie's Games Blog

EDIT: Steam Early Access (aka an Alpha launch) is scheduled to be October 23rd, 2013.

Finally, some actual Video Game news and a reason for this blog to exist! On Monday, Keen Software House (the developers of Miner Wars 2081) have unveiled a brand new game called “Space Engineers“.

The title pretty much sets the game. There is no plot. It’s a giant Sandbox in space, based off of the Miner Wars 2081 universe (asteroids instead of planets). It will be a 1st/3rd player game.
Based off of games like Garry’s Mod and Little Big Planet 1 and 2, you’re a engineer in Space, who can build stuff like ships and space stations. There is currently no limit of how big a ship can be.

The main developer, strives for realism. Everything you build, will have a purpose. Engines, Lighting, and Thrusters won’t be powered by a magical source; you’ll have to actually wire your ship up to do so, to a Reactor of some kind. That reactor is going to need something to keep it going, which you have to provide. There will be no fake interiors or anything like that.
It’s like imagining Kerbal Space Program, in realistic mode, where you really have to do your homework to get off the ground. But since you’re already in space, you don’t have to worry about that.

To build ships and stuff, there is no separate world builder. As soon as you start playing, you can build stuff.
You can have a network of Space Stations, or even build up a fleet of interplanetary ships with actual interiors. You decide.
And the best thing of all? Realistic collisions like Rigs of Rods. And you can have cockpits that can go into 1st person. And you don’t live in a ship anymore. You can get out and jetpack around. It literally is, the ultimate Sandbox.

A Steam Early Access release is scheduled to be on October 23rd this year, but unknown of the price. The full version of the game won’t be anytime soon. I just wonder if there’s going to be Solar Flares, where you got to put reinforced armor to protect your ships and stations from solar wind.

If you’re asking for that awaited sequel for Miner Wars 2081, sorry to say that the wait continues. The reason the developers are doing this, to show they’re getting better at making games.

(Actually, it’s been 1 month, 1 week and two days. But screw it)
On July 29th, I made a tough but firm decision to resign as a moderator on the MRT Server. Since my resigning, I became what is known as a ‘Trusted Member’. Of that month, I’ve been off and on the server, but on frequently since July 31st.

Do I miss being a Moderator? At times. I mainly miss having WorldEdit and that compass. But what I definitely do not miss, is walking away grinning from ear to ear while the other staffers get bombarded with WorldEdit requests.
Also, I can finally do things I want without getting called for a WorldEdit, or having to deal with unruly people on the server. I can also leave the server as long as I want to (or whenever I want to, without having to say “I’ll be back, guys.”), without feeling ‘binded’ to it. I won’t get demoted from Trusted, of not coming on the server for months.
Now I know Frumple has been trying to ram into my thick skull, that I am NOT ‘bound’ to the server and I can take off as much as I want/need. It just never sank into my head. When I was gone for 3/4 months and had no desire to come back to Minecraft, I was surprised the Admins weren’t trying to get me back on the server for being gone so long.
And the best thing about not being a mod? No more of those stupid Staff Meetings! No more having to be on at a certain time! No more stress of trying to be perfect and professional! 😀

I’m not saying that being a Trusted is easy. It’s easier than being a Mod, for sure. But being a Trusted is riskier, when it comes to watching what you say and do (the rules apply to you a lot harsher, than being a Mod). I can’t just “I can do that, I’m a mod”(shouldn’t be saying that anyway).
Having to depend on a mod to help me, feels degrading at times. This is why I do my best to limit asking for help unless I really need it, or if a mod that I know who is really nice (like MinecraftYoshi26) is on.

I do really wish there was a [Retired Mod] rank that would give you limited WorldEdit powers. But thinking practical, only I would use said title as I’m currently the only Former Mod that’s active on the server.

Do I feel I made a bad decision of quitting? No. I should had done so, months ago. With how much stress I was putting on Frumple and the Admins of trying to be perfect, and the whole road debate, and screwing up left and right by saying the wrong things, and/or doing the wrong things.
Unfortunately, this still happens even with me being Trusted. I still at times don’t know when to shut up, or say the wrong things (even though some of them are actually true).
For example, people were asking about one of the recent banned members. I said “This person was just a whiny brat that couldn’t get what he wanted”. A mod got on me and said to respect banned players. Though he adds “even though that’s true”.
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Another time, someone was saying “wow, my internet sucks!”. I have had it up to here by people blaming ‘their internet’ and told him off constantly, trying to ram it into his skull that it was his connection or ISP that is bad, and he doesn’t own the internet. Frumple got on me and told me to let it go.

Will I ever return to being a mod again? Some people wonder why I resigned, saying I always had what it took to be a mod. I mostly just want my old powers back, without the WorldEdit requesters. Since that will never happen, I’m contended enough to stay Trusted.
I do hope, far in the future (if I live that long), I’ll feel like doing it again. But I got people like CG who ask me “how do you enjoy your retirement?”. I feel old when I see the word “retire” as what I’ve done. I’ve resigned, not retired. Retiring means I have no desire to ever do whatever, ever again for the rest of my life.
I wouldn’t be on the server anymore (or on the MRT Skype Chat), if I truly retired.

I also at times, wish I still never joined the server. I think I possibly would had been better off if I never joined. The fact I’m still screwing up and saying slightly immature things, or things that have no real meaning (to them), are reasons why.

First off, we got four new mods and a new /call command that can teleport the person to another, if they use /bring to accept it.
There’s been certain times when I dreamed about the past of the MRT Server, how it played out to this very day. Being on the server since Day 1, it’s good to know this history.

One piece of history was ActualFacts. A Guest who started like any other, but there was something different about him. When he rose up in ranks to eventually be a Mod, he tried to be over-helpful. I tried to get him to calm down. Though he did, he saw me as a mentor and was of the first to believe I had what it took to be an Admin.
He fell one day, and was demodded and banned later on. That was a dark day for me.

Then about 5 days ago (the 31st of August), I’m bored, so I check the DynMap and see a shitload of the elders on, and wonder if it was “Elders Day”. So I decided to show up to see what’s going on. I had forgotten this was the day of the Staff Meeting; the first staff meeting since I resigned as a moderator.
In Mumble, I was notified that Actual had sent a ban appeal, wishing to come back to the server. I was shocked, yet happy to hear he still cared for the server.

Time had passed, and then Frumple popped into the main channel, and asked if he could drag me into Staff Chat. I agreed and was brought in, and it was about Actual’s ban appeal. They asked Yoshi and I if we felt it was a good idea to bring him back, and told us about the email he sent. I asked for said email, and Frumple showed me it. Went over it, I was convinced that he wasn’t going to go all ‘Dan’ on us again. But what I never saw is he wasn’t the same ActualFacts, before he went bad.

A day later, Actual was formally unbanned by Frumple. And later on, he showed up. I gave him a personal tour of what I’ve done since he was banned. He liked the island that Yoshi helped me with.
He also helped me on a project we had just started, which would had been an dragon-themed adventure map.

Going back to the reason for this blog post, I had told Actual that the “server is going downhill” since he got banned. It really is. But what started the chain of events that lead to Actual getting re-banned (yes, it happened, and I’m the one that pulled the trigger) was what happened south of Spawn. A WorldEdit fail of two lines dug into the ground in a straight line. I checked it out and noticed the pattern. The new mods didn’t want to tell us, not even a former mod (me). They were being all ‘hush hush’ about it.

I felt they were deliberately not telling us, and wondered “whatever Frumple spoonfed the new mods, was effective.” I told Actual, and then the hell started with him saying that they were idiots, and Frumple doesn’t know how to run a server, needs better management yadda yadda yadda.
This was all said in Skype… but some of it was also said on the server which caught Frumple’s attention, who got on me about it and asked me personally, why I felt the server was going in the wrong direction. I actually had forgotten how it was, so I went to the matter at hand. Frumple was all “it isn’t that big of a deal if the mods did or didn’t tell the members, that’s their discretion.”
Then he told me something I couldn’t believe; “what’s the difference between a grief and a worldedit mistake?”… really, Frumple? As long as you owned the server, you can’t tell the difference?

So I told him, then I found out the new mods didn’t know it was a WorldEdit mistake; they thought it was a grief, which is why they kept it secret. And actually, he’s right. It could had been another rogue mod, like Actual was, or giggi or whoever. But going by the pattern, that’s impossible it was done on purpose.
Actual, didn’t believe it. And it got worse and worse to one point, he wanted everyone to go on a ‘protest’ to not come on the server, thinking if we never came on, Frumple wouldn’t have a server.
I talked him out of this, telling him it wouldn’t work due to new Guests showing up everyday, and telling Frumple directly would just make him say “if you don’t like it, find another server.”, and he’d be right. But Actual just didn’t seem to get it through his head.

Then yesterday, it reached the peak as I was working on a new house. There was only one mod on at the time, but he was AFK through this entire thing. Actual came on, and started to troll me for no reason. He even put a void hole in one corner of my basement for no reason. I had to speak up and he finally stopped, then went to the chat. It seemed fine at first. There was only one mod on at the time, but he wasn’t paying attention to the chat.
Then Actual opens that can of woop Frumple’s ass, and says to one member “I think your story is utter bullshit.” Even not being a mod and knowing the current one isn’t paying attention, I step in to defend the server by saying “Actual, language. You can’t use that here”. What I meant by “you can’t use that here”, is what he had said in Skype was leaking on the server.
Two members actually defended Actual, saying “it’s not ‘excessive swearing'”, then I said in defense; “The mods will get you for that. At least I would”.
And then Actual opens the can even wider, saying “they are too pussy to”, and how Frumple will just bad mouth him and if they’re going to ban him then do it, then left.

Later, I tried to talk sense into him. But Actual was saying that I didn’t have the guts to stand up to Frumple, how he was ‘downgrading’ me. Then he acts like he’s more mature than me, comparing our ages.
I also told him, over and over: “I don’t want to lose you!”. But he said that he truly did not know me, acting like this has always been the way he was.
That there, I just couldn’t take it anymore. This is NOT the ActualFacts I remembered. The Actual that was kind and loved the community as much as I did, in the past… he was gone. This person, was nothing but a shell of his former self. It was a relapse of bringing him back on after being demodded for bad-mouthing a guy after him picking on Actual; what started the whole ‘Dan’ thing. I think that’s what made him snap and I still do. Apparently that snap hasn’t fixed itself, as I’d (and I’m sure all staffers) hoped it would by now.

With a heavy heart, I knew what I had to do… I had to undo my mistake of wanting Actual to come back to the server. If my keyboard was a gun, I would be having him at gunpoint until Frumple(the police) showed up to ban(arrest) him. I gathered what evidence I had (logs of the chat, plus what was said in Skype) and wrote a lengthy email to the admins and the mods, stating my request to re-ban him, then sent it and sighed, saying “Goodbye… old friend”. The same words I had said the first time he got banned.

A half an hour passed, Actual logged back in and immediately began to troll me again. Finally Frumple came back on and said he would do the deed. Actual tried to /call me to follow, but I ignored it, then begged me to. I said “I’m sorry, I cannot.”, he said “You can.” My final words were “I must undo, what I have done.”
Two minutes passed…
‘Frumple has banned ActualFacts – Banned!’ showed up on my screen. The other Members understandably were all like “what…?”. Me? I felt as if a burden was lifted from my chest; an over a year burden that was nagging me all of that time. Not anymore. That is gone, like my former friendship with him.
I knew there was going to be fallout after his banning; people being mad at me for not telling Actual what I would do, and/or for getting him banned due to opinions. It did happen, but it was minor and I feel by now (of this edit), It’s blown over. The staffers were worried that the members would not trust them, thinking they’ll ban anyone for no reason. Luckily, that never came true. Well, at least for what I saw.

And so, there you have it. Losing Actual twice, as the old saying goes; “fool me twice, shame on me”. To undo what I’ve done has brought some closure. I will miss him, though. Not as much as I did, but still.
If I had never, brought up about how bad the server was, this wouldn’t had happen. But I did, and he did this. That’s why I had to undo what I’ve done.

The point to this story? Though the past will always be locked in time, bringing it forward to the present and expecting it to stay the same shape as you remember, is stupid and pointless. Things change, even when you don’t want them to… even once long-lasting friendships. The whole ‘server is going downhill’ statement, was just more changes I didn’t want to see.
Some things in the past, you can bring back without incident. This, was one of the things that is best to leave in the past.

Since I’m planning to come back to WoW next month, something caught my eye on Youtube; a new update for WoW. It’s the dreaded one that we finally get revenge on the asshole, Garrosh Hellscream. He’s all “bring it on, scum! I’ll take you all on!” in the video. He’s risen what he calls, the “true Horde”, by using the corrupted power of the old gods that sent Deathwing over the edge.
The patch is set to go live around September 10th-11th.

Am I going to gear up and engage Hellscream in a raid with other people? Nah. He’s not a threat like Deathwing was. Leave it to the raiders. And I agree from what I’m reading in a thread that this isn’t really our fight. Hellscream has his former Horde pissed at him. Let the Horde kill him for power, while us Alliance get fat and watch Youtube. We killed Deathwing, The Lich King, and …and..shit. The “You are NOT PREPARED!!” guy. Yeah. Anyway, what more of a threat is there? Though I’m sure in the future, Blizzard will answer that question to keep the game alive. Maybe the Old Gods will come out of the ground and “doom all of Azeroth blah blah blah”, since Deathwing couldn’t do it.
But Hellscream has to be all “come at me bro!” by dumping some weird shit in the waters of the Vale, and has drained all the water from the zone. That really sucks. I wonder if this is going to make that zone impossible to fly to now, or even have a purpose to go to.
Though I do wish the Dragon Aspects made a return to assist. It appears they really have vanished from Azeroth (just frozen in time, literally. Aka Northrend and Dragonblight). They feel mortals can take care of the planet now and are no longer needed.
This dragon isn’t going to worry about this pointless war. Not my fight.

There’s also some nice features with this patch, including one that can actually train you to play your class (actually any class), in a dungeon-like experience. This is what I’ve wanted for years, especially how rusty I will be when I get back.
According to what I’m reading, you can choose a class you want to play. If you want to see how hard a Tank is in a Dungeon, there’s the option. Even a Healer. And there’s DPS, which I will need to practice most. You can do this as many times you want to, which is awesome.
To get in it, you need to fly to the White Tiger Temple and speak to someone to get access. There you will be pitted against enemies of increasing difficulty. It sounds like the daily version when you go here, and defeat enemies in honorable combat.
There’s four levels of difficulty; Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless. Endless is when the combat stops when you can’t take it anymore.

There’s also a new zone, called the Timeless Isle. It’s said where the former water of the Vale is being stored, transported by the serpents of Pandaria. It’s also a rare gem, where “the sun never sets or rises”; that time has no meaning. Due to this, it’s sparked a lot of controversy amongst dragons and even the Pandarian.
I personally want to see this magical island for myself. It’s rumored to have treasure Who knows? Might find something quite interesting.
It’s appeared East of The Jade Forest. Reading shows that it’s for soloers, but mentions “powerful enemies”. I imagine I’ll still need full Valor gear to survive. Probably going to be the same as the ‘Jurassic Park’ zone, as terms of enemy difficulty. But I will fly there, just to check it out.
To get there, you got to fly to the Vale apparently (seems to still be accessible after what Hellscream did) and speak to someone on your faction. Another page says you can go directly to this island.

Reading about what they did for Hunters. We seem to have gotten nerfed and buffed at the same time, though it’s mainly for Hunter Pets. Dash, Dive, and Charge no longer take away Focus, Glyph of Mend Pet now has a 100% chance to cure your pet of most ailments of disease, and last.. pets can be revived without the Hunter having a line of sight (awesome).
And Stampede has been “buffed”(no longer reduces damage to 75% when not in a PvP area).

So yeah, the patch looks really cool. However, I’m not seeing the promised changes I’ve read that will make getting Valor easier to acquire. So it’ll still be a grindfest of doing Dailies for 5 VP each. … Meh. Makes me not want to play.

A flash game I’ve played since Minecraft was just first starting, but stopped playing it and assumed it’s dead by now (the community died), somehow has survived all of these years.
So apparently there’s new levels, the old levels have gotten a facelift, and new ways to play this beloved game. It even has sound effects and music. Unfortunately, walljumping is still something you really must master. I used to be somewhat good at it, but I’ve gotten rusty over the years.

If you don’t know what Transformice is, well it has nothing to do with Transformers. It’s a game where you play as a mouse, trying to get the cheese and take it back to your mouse hole. It sounds simple, yet it really isn’t. The purpose of getting cheese in this game is mainly for bragging rights. You can get titles like “Plump Mouse”, and also hats and stuff that you can buy with this cheese. Also with the cheese, you can donate 40 cheese that you can make a map, that it will eventually cycle to on a room for people to play on.

You play on a public server (known as a Room) with other people; real people with their own feelings, that it sometimes feels I’m reading the YouTube comments section. I see constant flaming and racism, but I tend to ignore it and focus on trying to get the cheese.
There’s some maps, where everyone needs to work as a team. Those are where the cheese is in the middle, and there’s a balance beam. Too much weight on one side can knock out everyone, making it impossible to get the cheese. It also leads to people either laughing or yelling “WHY WE NO TEAMWORK?!”.

Now there’s also a special class of mouse called the Shaman, which is chosen of the mouse that is one of the top two scoring mice in any given round (for example, if you have 67 points, and the guy above you has 72, you still have a good chance of becoming the Shaman in the next round). As a Shaman, it’s your job to help your fellow mice to the cheese by making stuff appear in thin air, such as crates and planks for the mice to walk across.
Now to be a Shaman, you really need to know what you’re doing. And if you don’t, well, you doom your fellow mice in getting no cheese, and also get bashed to hell and back. Unfortunately, the game eventually will give the option for everyone in that room, a chance to be a Shaman (even though they might not want to).
When it comes to my turn, I bug out of there by joining another room or quitting altogether. I just can’t handle the abuse of screwing up by not knowing what I’m doing. :/
Before, sometimes I have been lucky to get maps that don’t require me as a Shaman to do much.

But sometimes it’s also funny to be a Shaman, when you can build then summon the dreaded Anvil God. The Anvil God is where the game’s physics are at their worst, with anvils flying everywhere, smacking into everyone and eventually causing them to die. It’s quite humorous when a Shaman decides to make one.
There’s also the Box God which pretty much does the same thing, except it’s made out of boxes instead of anvils.

Not all maps require a Shaman, and some maps have two Shamans (blue and pink). These tend to have a Shaman duel with each other trying to cannon the other away. And if they cannon eachother… well, you’re fucked as a mouse.

So if you’re interested in this game, it’s 100% free of charge and available both online and a downloadable version, at transformice.com.
I personally wish the Tutorial part of the game was longer, as in would show you how to be a Shaman with AI mice (that won’t pick on you when you screw up).

So I’ve been playing Cube World for awhile. My Lizardman Rogue/Ninja spec, is Level 20. At times it gets boring killing things just to level up. Other times, I feel it’s a challenge of survival of how fast I can use my hands to control my guy.

So I’ve compiled a list of what I feel is Good and Bad about Cube World. I’m sure in the future, a lot of this stuff I can take advantage of will go away to be more realistic.
Note some dislikes on my list, are actually things the game should improve to make it more realistic… ok. Most of the things I have to say are Dislikes.
Do note that none of these are feature requests, as it’s kind of pointless to do so, with the game being so… stagnant on updates.

Likes:
-Not having to pay to have cooking/armor/potion-making skills.
-Its combat system (as a Rogue) is simple for simple minded people (me).
-I feel like Samurai Jack when I’m welding my sword. 😀
-It’s like a Single Player version of WoW. No one to annoy me of how sucky my gear is or the fact I’m a fail Rogue.
-You can endlessly travel.
-Your pet can become a mount (if it’s ridable)

Dislikes (complaints/what should be fixed):
-The game’s GUI doesn’t scale correctly for low resolution monitors. I have to run it in 1124×768 fullscreen just to see the scrollbar at shops. And the “you acquired item” messages cover the recipe info of crafting.
-If a dungeon goes from Blue to White colored after dinging, then why are there Blue colored difficulty enemies inside?
-Don’t like the thirst meter of pet mounts. Their thirst meter decreases even when you’re not moving (when riding) and/or decreases after you start moving again. And, I can’t seem to get their meter to 5. There’s no way to tell if it will stay at 5 for awhile. It will drop to 4 quickly if you don’t spend some time in water.
-Wish pets were controllable (as in like WoW). Send them after the mob (you can use one to pull the mob away from others for a clean kill).. but I think that only works if you’re a Ranged class.
-Speaking of pets, when you move really far away and your pet is lagging behind, it won’t despawn like it would in WoW. You got to remove the pet in the Pet area of the Pet tab (clarified enough for you?) and add the pet back. The pet will then pop up behind you.
-Pets that aren’t ridable have a thirst bar as if they were.
-Pet thirst bars are global, not per pet.

.
Dislikes (what should be improved to make the game better):
-Daytime is too long. And what’s with the sun rising at 4-5am? So unrealistic.
-World Bosses (aka “Outdoor Bosses” as the wiki shows them being) should be more rarer. I shouldn’t be allowed to farm the same boss every day. That is a potential XP exploit.
-Having money is rather pointless after you get the boat and hand glider. They should make it cost to get a faster boat or better hand glider.
-They claim World Bosses are harder than Dungeon bosses… hardly. Only a few I’ve seen are pretty hard. The rest, with a ton of potions and waiting for cooldowns, can be taken down with time.
-I was able to recreate my mid-leveled once Rogue now Ranger in a new world.

.
Dislikes (stuff that makes NO sense):
– … Why in the hell are you giving animals, junk food to tame them?! Bubblegum for a dog.. Candy for a cat? Really? None of that makes sense! Cats can’t even eat candy!
-What’s with the Temp and Humidity readouts? Are they for a future feature that will make it harder for you to survive in harsh climates?
-Why is Agility called “Tempo”?
-Why is the Turtle the only Tank class pet you can get, and all but the Spitter as Melee (Spitter being a Healer and Ranged attack)?

So there you have it.

Went on and bought it. Parts I like, others.. well there’s a few bugs but nothing game breaking that I’ve seen.
Ok, I’m cheating, but sometimes the game almost encourages you to. It even said when I bought it, that there’s an option to cheat. So why not take it? I did try to play legit before, but seeing how I was near the end of the game and I kept on dying repeatably trying to assault a heavily-armored ship.. their fucking homing missiles seemed to know where I would show up.

So the story, I’m trying to make sense of it. On 2070, a project is launched to do something to harness the power of the Sun. Instead it backfires and causes the Sun to destroy all planets in our solar system in a cataclysmic solar wave (called the “Solar Event”), including Earth. What’s left are billions of asteroids. Since then, the major nations of Earth have made specific territories in space. 11 years after that solar event, is where the game takes place.

You’re part of a group of Mercenaries (aka Guns for Hire) known as Greenlight, which is funny since that’s the name of the service that got this game on Steam. You’re the good guys, of course. Russia, wants something very important that they will kill anyone to get it. The more you play, you finally know what they want, but don’t know why (I haven’t gotten to that point yet).
So you’re busy doing favors for others in your ship, clearing bandit and slaver camps, stealing refined Plutonium, killing key targets, hacking computer terminals.. typical Merc stuff. This is all so they will give you what you need. Aka, ‘scratch my back and I won’t put a dagger in yours’.
One thing about this, everyone you see is in a ship. So when you talk to someone, it looks like you’re talking to a ship. It’s almost like they are just AI bodies, yet they act alive (because you see the person in the ship when talking). Can they never get out of their ships? How do they eat? How do they use the bathroom?
Dunno. But you need Oxygen, so there is a living human in that ship.

I do like the fact I can go back to a place I’ve been to before to collect resources (like Ice for my ship’s engine to keep my fuel reserves in check) whenever I need to. The game encourages exploration.
Speaking of exploration, the game world is massive! It makes space truly endless. So the map that gets pulled up when you’re in your Mothership, you can click on any node to go to that sector; doesn’t have to be nodes related to the current mission. You can also go beyond the level borders (known as sectors) to fly to other levels manually. The freedom of being able to do that is… wow.
Only bad things, when playing legit, fuel becomes a problem, and Solar Flares can catch you offguard if you’re not careful, and with a lack of a compass, it’s not really a good idea to do so (you’d think this being the distant future, we’d have onboard compasses). Then again, what if they worked like in KSP? Since there is no cardinal direction in outer space.
Coordinates are in the game, yet you can’t even use those for navigation.

So on the bottom here, I’ll attach the bugs I’ve encountered;
– Dialog that’s been said before can be said again by accident. For example, in the Barth’s Moon sector, when you go there, the dialog about pirates and more of their friends might show up happens again, even though you’ve already passed that point in the game.
– The effects of Solar Flares can sometimes affect you when inside of an asteroid, giving you lethal doses of radiation. Also sometimes you might see the solar flare passing by when inside of a building.
– The Intergalactic Highway sector, the “cars” there, there’s a point in this highway where it goes through an asteroid, you can see them stuck inside it. Also for some reason, I can’t bore through “this type of asteroid” to free them.
– There’s two missions where Marcus says he’s going over here, yet you’ll see him following you (like the mission where he’s getting a damaged ship to load a mineral, yet he’s following you at the same time).
– Your friends can sometimes get stuck behind doorways. Bad AI pathing.
– Your friends tend to get in the way when backing out of a room for an attack, causing you to waste bullets. Again, bad AI pathing.
– Fighter enemies (small ships) seem to spin out of control when being attached, making them easy to kill targets. This only happens when you’re in a structure and the enemy is near you.
– The game may crash when alt-tabbing out and then going back in. There’s no way to have a Windowed Fullscreen mode, and the Windowed mode isn’t really helpful, as I can’t drag my mouse to Monitor 2.

Besides the flaws, I say this is worth the $20. I wonder what the ending is going to be like.

I made a post on October 12th about “An awesome new game I can’t stop thinking about”. That game is Miner Wars 2180. The game I would never be able to play on my old hardware. I said “I’ll pay any price it asks for. I can’t get those sweet graphics out of my head.”
Well, it’s for sale; $20.00. There’s three things that hold me back.
1. The bad ratings given by players and critics. They say the story is confusing, and it’s not a Descent wannabe. They also say it’s unfinished. But the biggest threat they say, is the Online DRM which requires you to be logged into their servers to play their game.
2. The demo crashed on me once, but only once.
3. $20 for such amazing graphics and gameplay, sounds like an unfinished game.

Now, the DRM doesn’t bug me as I have a solid connection (just as long as it doesn’t decide to reset on me, or refuse to connect). What does, and I do have to agree, the story makes no sense. In the demo, it seems to be a need to know basis; as in, you need to know these people even though you never met them.

The demo goes as “this place is going to blow! But there’s stranded miners inside, they need to be rescued!”, then it goes to a point where I’m seeing a timer counting down. I’m panicking, since I can’t pull up the NAV to tell me where I need to go. Then when it hits 0, all is good. All it was, was a “survive this long, help is coming” scenario.
It never told me this, because I was focusing too much on what was infront of me instead of the dialog.

There’s also mineral collection. It never tells you what these minerals can be used for. I believe one is for Oxygen supply. The others.. *shrug* maybe for newer weapons or ship upgrades? Or maybe it’s just a limit of the demo.

I’m sure these two things I mentioned will make sense, if I was to get the full version. When I did get “outside”, I could literally go anywhere I wanted. But I also had to worry about fuel. And there was one time where this large enemy ship was firing on me (this was when I had a “The Demo is complete!” splash on my screen, and caused me to die).