Back in WoW (sort of)

I honestly can’t believe I’m coming back to WoW, after what has happened in WoD. I guess I’m willing to give Blizzard a chance. From all the videos I’ve heard, they all say that “they’ve learned their lesson”. With the fact Blizzard had lost so many subscribers, I feel they have as well. Good work to all that did unsub. We told them that we don’t want this shit with our wallets.

.
But anyway, since the past week..all I could think about was this week coming and quick. Mainly because this is when I get money and will be able to pay my sub fee better with no risk of not having the money due to other expenditures.
Currently downloading the game as I speak. With this faster connection, I’m getting something like 8-10MB/s, with some times going to 12MB/s (compared to 2MB/s). I expected speeds around 20+MB/s (since I’m now paying for the maximum speed that Time Warner can give (300MB). However, I must remember that this is based off of how reliable Blizzard’s P2P network is (aka, other people downloading and uploading the client’s files at the same time I am).

What somewhat concerns me about coming back, is the new ability changes to all the classes. For example, BM Hunters have lost Arcane Shot (which was my main DPS). It seems a lot more complicated to play a BM Hunter as it did pre-7.0, with all of this “make sure this, this, and this are all on cooldown”.
I could put the blame on the “we want a CHALLENGE!!” people, as they will put the blame on me being a ‘casual’ (and/or a ‘scrub’).. but it isn’t going to make it any better.
Change is an understandable thing to be afraid of, but it’s overcoming that fear.. which leads to a lot of me bitching about I can’t solo jack shit anymore and I’m forced to “learn my class” to be able to do so.
It’ll take a few days if not a week of playing to get a feeling for the class, especially having not played WoW for two years. And that’s just a simulation. Another one is me doing the same thing I did of trying to re-learn how to play as a Monk; I trashed the char because I kept fucking up (no matter how much reading on rotation I did).
I was damn good at playing as a Monk. Best damn melee class I’ve ever played. And then it got ruined from months of not playing. …And that was just my Monk. This is my Hunter — my MAIN.. if I can’t re-learn how to play him (and deal with the changes to the class)..I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.
Maybe I’m just being silly and over-exaggerating, fearing the worst case scenario (as I usually do since I’m a Pessimist).

The other thing that had concerned me but stopped being one, was feeling all the addons (mods) I have were going to be so out of date that WoW wouldn’t even run(or be sluggish). Yet I’ve uninstalled the game completely, which has wiped out the old addons folder. Though I don’t even remember what mods I had.

A final concern (which can be ‘easily’ fixed with money and access to a professional), is Legion’s system requirements. I still remember MoP, and how I had this really bad turning lag. I believe I fixed that by getting the GPU I still use to this day (the 750 GTi) and upgrading my RAM to 8GB. If Legion’s requirements are double that, I’m possibly looking at having to buy that questionable $400+ GPU, a new PSU(for the GPU), and 16GB of RAM.
I pray that’s not the case. …But if it is, then I know the time to upgrade is now.

.
So I just got done with downloading the game. It’s pretty much ready to go. I’m going to wait ’till the morning before I purchase Legion for my main account (not going for my alt just yet) and then re-establish my subscription. Again, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I thought I was -done- with WoW, mainly because how I’ll never learn how to fully play my class (for raiding, mainly) and it’ll just be a waste of money to go back.
But, as always, I’m a glutton for punishment. πŸ˜›

Also, before you ask, no.. this won’t get in the way of me doing the GNE. It’s my ‘freetime’ after reaching the next WP.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on Back in WoW (sort of)

GNE update – Almost to Jaques!

As a response to the emails I’ve gotten of wondering how the Galactic Nebula Expedition in Elite Dangerous has been going, it has been going great. The meetups are still fun. Though Tea_Rex derped by boosting into the planet and losing a lot of hull; he’s now down to 27% (and his canopy is nearly cracked). Ouch.
He made a video about it, which you can find here (I’m the red Conda in the video…and you can hear my awesome voice at the start of it πŸ˜› ).

As for me, I’m currently at WP6 with 94% hull left (and three SRVs). Found the LZ quite quickly (it’s in a large crater). And the view was killer. Saw two stars infront of me; the main star of the system and an L-type star that’s very close to the planet.
But yeah. We’re two Nebulae away from reaching Jaques! Very hyped about that. So sometime after October 15th, I’ll be there.

Plus the 2.2 patch is coming by the time we reach Jaques (and start scanning the neutron fields around the core). And by then it’ll be sooo much fun being around them (due to the FSD boost they give). And also the cool superheated jets they produce.
So.. that’s about it for now. Sorry if you expected a video or me streaming.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on GNE update – Almost to Jaques!

Destiny – PS4 Game Review

You could say it was my ‘destiny’ to review this game. And so, it’s time to see if its ‘destiny’ is to be a really bad game.
Alright, enough with the really bad puns. On with the review.

.
Title: Destiny
ESRB Rating: T
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Activision
Price Tag: Unknown (No way to get the release base price)
Release Date: September 3rd, 2014
Game Engine: *Unknown*
Available for these other systems: PS3, XBox 360 & One
Number of Players: Multiplayer(with Single Player-like levels)
Genre: 1st/3rd person shooter with Co-op, RPG, and PvP elements

Game Features: You are a ‘Guardian’, hand picked by the ‘Traveler’ to defend your homeworld, Earth, from an ancient ‘darkness’ who has followed the Traveler for a very long time.
Get your boots on the ground at Old Russia, Earth’s Moon, or even Venus in a 1st person shooter and shoot up some aliens, while meeting your fellow Guardians(other players). The Traveler is counting on you, Guardian.

Story: 700 years in the future, humans are leaving Earth and populating other planets via colony ships due to the discovery of the “Traveler”; a planet-like being found on Mars. This was known as the “Golden Age”. Time went on, and these colonies mysteriously went dark. The Traveler managed to save what’s left of Humanity by the “Darkness”, a race of unknown alien who have perused the Traveler for centuries. Due to this, the Traveler was greatly weakened and is slowly dying.
With the darkness reaching the Sol system, the Traveler sees the resilience of the human race and hand picks several to be “Guardians” of the being; to help combat the darkness and protect humanity’s last city — ‘Old Russia’ on Earth.

Main Character: The main character is the player itself(and other players in the game), who can choose between three classes; Titan, Hunter, and Warlock, as well as three races; Human, Awoken, and Exo.
The player has limited customability (and options). They’re able to set their face, hair, and markings. But there’s no real custom face settings. Infact, there’s very limited face options.
Once created, a small flying robot called a ‘Ghost’ manages to bring the player to life, and then instructs them through the prologue.

Side Characters: The player’s small talking guidebot, which is simply called “Ghost”. The player soon discovers it was created by the Traveler to assist the Guardians. The reason it’s called ‘Ghost’ is it has the power to move through matter (which is how it was able to bring the player back to life).
Being a guidebot, it has a built-in NAV system to help the player reach their objectives. This is also the only way to get back to the player’s ship (or summon their Sparrow).

Enemies: The player starts with dealing with members of ‘The Fallen’, who aren’t really that good at combat and often make themselves easy targets for the player to take down. As the player progresses in level, they will encounter tougher enemies, such as ‘The Hive’ and other groups of enemies.
Most enemies are ranged-based (using a specific weapon or ability), with some getting in the player’s face around Level 3 and beyond.

Combat/Health System: Combat is done in first person (with weapons such as assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles), but with no leaning animations as modern shooters. And if the player has to give a quick “FUCK YOU!!”, a one-hit melee to the face is also an option on most weak enemies.
The health system works with regenerative health(indicated by a bar at the top), which goes up if the player isn’t being attacked for 3 or so seconds. If the player dies, they can respawn at the nearest waypoint to them. But when it comes to ‘Darkness Zones'(which usually have a mini boss or a boss), the player respawns back at the beginning of the event and all progress is lost, which can make the game to near ‘brutal’ levels.

Maps/Levels/Chapters: Early in the game, the main levels are in locations of ‘Old Russia’. It isn’t until Level 5 when the player is able to unlock a hoverbike called the ‘Sparrow’ to get around the level more efficiently.
Each area of the map has a level that would either be below, at, or above the player’s level. By Level 7, the player can go to Earth’s Moon to quest there.

.
What I liked;
-First person combat.
-Game runs pretty well, staying at 60FPS.
-Graphics are very pretty, such as the water reflections. The place really looks ran down and rusted.
-Upgrading armor is shockingly simple.
-Health regenerates instead of having to heal myself with potions (or shoot needles into my arm).
-The game tends to give me these “Woah.. how in the FUCK did I survive?!” moments.
-Unused armor and weapons can be sold while on the field, via Dismantle.
-The multiplayer aspect feels optional, as you can pretty much solo any level.
-On Earth’s Moon, looking up shows a pretty cool easter egg of the ISS (the International Space Station) greatly damaged in orbit around the moon.

What I didn’t like;
-Enemy AI (non-melee) don’t chase after you (or try to flank you) if you fuck up. They like to hide like pussies. Plus they tend to spam their shots in hopes I’ll come out and be hit by them. Really bad AI.
-Very limited player customization and options.
-Excessive number of loading screens (and times).
-Selecting a location of where to go, feels like I’m playing Warframe. It just has that clunky feeling to the GUI(minus a chat room).
-It has microtransactions for the game’s currency.
-The ‘Patrol’ missions are highly repetitive.
-The game’s auto aiming system tends to get in the way of accurately lining up shots.
-The version I have feels like a ‘free trial’ as I’m not allowed to join a party without purchasing the DLCs.

Minor nitpicks;
-On Luna (Earth’s Moon), I saw a flag that was..blowing in the wind. Uhh. The moon has no air! How in the FUCK is it moving?!
-It seems the player is not allowed to go *jump* “weeeeeee!!!” on Earth’s Moon (due to the near 0g gravity well). It’s possible that future tech has raised the gravity well of the moon to be near Earth’s.
-Weapons don’t show the max ammo you can have for each of them. The only way I know it’s full is with a message.

Final Opinions/Thoughts;
Going by the number of dislikes outweighing the likes(by 1), you’d think I would dislike the game. Not to mention there is another “I didn’t like”, but it would be more of the fault of Sony for not allowing us to skip updates (they allowed this before) and just play the game as-is.
But overall… I actually kind of like it. Sure, enemies are predictable. But they seem to really make it up as you level up. Infact..I ragequitted at Level 10(halfway to 11) and sent the game back to Gamefly, after spending a half an hour trying to keep from dying..and then doing so and losing ALL of that fucking progress. FUCK that!

And yes, there’s also microtransactions. And this alone keeps me from sort of recommending this game. However, from what I’ve seen in my playthrough, it seems to be completely optional at best (as there’s other ways to get the main currency of the game). Plus, said currency seems to be only really needed when reaching the Level 40 level cap (as I’ve gotten some pretty good gear upgrades just by quest rewards and drops).

If the price of the full collectors edition drops (to $30 or so), I might consider grabbing a copy. Really, this is actually a pretty fun game. It’s a shame I died, and I understand that failing is actually a good thing as you learn from what happened(and this has undone previous mistakes). But losing all of my progress is such a pain in the ass!
But at least it’s not like Warframe, where you can only die a certain number of times and then it’s game over. Plus I’m not losing XP, so isn’t really that brutal.
It was made for Multiplayer, but I can’t invite my fellow Guardians to help me as I need the full game. That alone is pure BS. Even with me not having the expansions and they do, shouldn’t make me excluded.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on Destiny – PS4 Game Review

Blizzard’s ‘silent treatment’, and my (two months late) thoughts

No, this isn’t about Blizzard giving the silent treatment, as it’s been announced by Bellular that they’ve been having weekly Q&A sessions before Legion’s release (and hope to do so in the future).
That is a good thing. However, what they rolled out on July 12th (before the release of Legion) is a questionable one. Of course, when has Blizzard ever done anything that wasn’t questionable in one way or another?
Anyway, this is a system that many claim will be abused by SJW’s (or “Social Justice Warriors”).
That system is called the “Silence Punishment”. How it works is similar to how temp bans work — get reported enough times and Blizzard takes action on the offender’s account, as they should. The twist is the offender doesn’t get banned, but their chat gets muted for a day. And this affects their entire account, so they can’t be circumvented (they cannot get on an alt to continue spewing their racist remarks).
And if they’re reported again, the time to become unmuted increases another day per infraction (and could lead to the offender possibly never talking ever again).

Since it’s been two months of when the system was put in, I can’t really comment too much about it(as I was doing other things at the time). And at that time until now, I didn’t even know that this was a thing until I watched this video which explained it, and him saying it has the potential to be highly abused. I didn’t know exactly how until I saw this video who claims he was ‘silenced’ for simply saying “I love WoW”.

Watched the video. He had 30 people in his Garrison and did this “as a test” to see what happened. He says, in /say.. “MY NAME IS ASMONGOLD AND I LOVE WORLD OF WARCRAFT!!”, and I just wanted to /ignore him for using all caps. He’s the kind of player I would immediately do that without hesitation(which is really the smart thing to do when a player annoys you). All 30 start to report him all at once.
Less than a minute later, he gets booted off the server as if he’s been banned. When he comes back, he discovers he’s been silenced (aka his chat features have been muted).
What he was ‘testing’ is to see if what Blizzard is claiming to be doing in that article, of doing an investigation before issuing the silence. Clearly it wasn’t, yet people in the comments section began to get wise and felt he deliberately did this, just to get views on the video.

He also showed, that this presents a problem that the system was being abused back then. But what if this was isolated and it’s never happened since? I did my best to look for any relevant videos of the system, yet nothing else of others reporting of having the same thing was happening to them. The only other things I found was one that was nothing but a “I TOLD you so!!” response(that was also made two months ago) of what happened to Asmongold. There was also one other two month ago thing explaining the system in more detail(including his thoughts of why it became a thing).
With no recent video proof the system was still being abused, I did some local research of asking a few people who play WoW, that I knew that would give me honest opinion. And what I concluded are two things: one of them didn’t even know about this system was until I showed him the link, and the other claims it’s not even being used on the ones it’s made to punish.
So I don’t get it. Why even have the system, if it’s not even being used(or know it’s even a thing)? It feels like a waste of resources and manpower that could had gone to more important projects (instead of trying to be our parents). I actually expected both parties to not know what it is, which would had told me that they got rid of the silly thing (at least from their POV).

So it’s hard to say if this is a real threat to legit players, or if it’s just business as usual. And since I couldn’t get any responses to help me, I’m just not going to care anymore. Not until it actually happens to me. If it does, then I have the proof I need.
But even with said proof…what good will it do? There’s been reports of people complaining to Blizzard two months ago, that this is a bad thing. And then their thread gets downvoted to the point it disappears. And going from the news history, there doesn’t seem to be any plans of hotfixing the system to punish the abusers.
There are also the people claiming that their freedom of speech is being ‘violated’ by this. Ahahaha.. right. Next time, fully read the TOU as you should be doing, and you might discover that they have the right to revoke your right to play. WoW is not a Democracy. You have no ‘freedoms’. You are not a special snowflake.

That’s all I have to say about this matter. I need to now switch gears and get ready for the meetup to get to the next WP of the GNE in Elite Dangerous.

.
UPDATE: Less than a month since I came back to WoW, and I have seen absolutely no abusing of said system. So it obviously was an isolated case. That and I typically keep General and Trade switched off.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on Blizzard’s ‘silent treatment’, and my (two months late) thoughts

Fascinating facts about planet Wurm (I’m bored :P)

“When you feel you’ve played Elite Dangerous too long..”

Early in the year, I thought of going on a grand adventure to all of the islands of the Freedom server. Yet I never got around to it, as my desire to play Wurm has dropped off nearly completely. I still come on to make sure my deed is well-funded so I won’t make the mistake I made back in 2011 and lose it.
I’m still planning on making the journey. I even have a thing wrote down of where to go and what angle to reach the next island. Not to mention I have an idea on redesigning my house.

Since I’m bored (the reason I’ve been wanting to play WoW again), I opened up the WurmClock and was checking the seasons. It’s currently fall ingame, and it seems it’ll be Spring again on October 5th.
And then a thought came into my head, of why the seasons are like they are instead of the way Earth has its. And what I believe is this ELW (aka ‘Wurm”) is in close orbit around an M-type star. This explains why its sun looks so close (yet can survive being close as an M-type is a cooler star). Yet Wurm’s unique atmosphere makes it look like a G-type star.
—-
It also doesn’t have a standard orbit around its star, which explains why its Summer months are longer than its other seasons. As for the fact it has three moons(with one being planet-sized) in very close orbit of the planet, it’s possible that Wurm’s weather is just so fucked up(yet not to the point of having dangerous weather). Which seems to relate why the wind suddenly dies down and blows in another direction.

As to why the wind direction, the sun and moon position remains the same on every island.. well, that isn’t something science can answer. But the rest of it, I just found how the seasons move, really interesting and wanted to use science to help figure out what’s going on.
Not to mention, the planet ‘Wurm’ and the new “Haven” planet (rumored to be where Golden Valley is) are the only two planets in this system.

And this has been another pointless post by me. πŸ˜›

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on Fascinating facts about planet Wurm (I’m bored :P)

With Legion released, is it worth coming back to WoW?

So, Legion was released back on August 30th. As you guys know, I’ve been anti-Blizzard for two years since WoD’s flop (not to mention caused a major “should I trust this dev to keep working on the game?” feeling of other games).
I felt there was no way Legion would save WoW, and even had a blog post ready to go to announce that “the king of MMOs is dead”.

Well, I’ve actually been hearing high praises for the 6th expansion for WoW, with some saying it’s as good as what WoTLK was. And this is coming from respected Youtubers who were very much against WoD (with some saying they were going to stop covering WoW if Legion didn’t ‘save’ the game).
It seems like it has, but I still have my doubts. And this is mainly of three things; the Honor Halls, the endgame ‘daily’ system, and the new way that Professions are being handled.
Note that all of these things, I’ve heard from BellularGaming’s videos. He’s the guy that finally cracked about WoD being bad, way after HeelzVsBabyface did.
———————————————————————————–
The first thing, Class Order Halls(or just ‘Order Halls’), is where you get your artifact weapon and learn how to use it. But there’s a feature of this that I don’t like, and that’s the fact they’ve put a Garrison-like system in. The purpose of this is to play alongside the artifact weapon.
Once you hit Level 102, you will start getting artifact power by doing normal questing, raiding, dungeoning..whatever you do via an item that you just right click and it’ll give you an X amount of power to start working on your artifact weapon.
Once you unlock the 13th ability of your weapon, the demand for more artifact power rises quite quickly. This is where the Order Hall plays into the mechanic, by getting ‘Order Resources’.. aka, the same thing as Garrison Resources(just spray-painted with a different color). But with these resources, you will get a multiplier of the amount of artifact power you earn. And this thing reportably stacks, which means even more power earned.
What annoys me is the entire “let’s find a way to make one of the most hated mechanics of WoD, into Legion!”
However, it’s not like the Garrison. Infact, they’ve designed this in a way that you won’t feel you need to stand around and wait! Plus, Heol told me they now have an app for Android and IOS phones to do this out of the game. That’s good, but I doubt the app will work with my phone as it’s so old.
———————————————————————————–
Second on the list, the endgame ‘daily’ system (called “World Quests”) which open up once you hit max level(110). Now it’s good to finally have the daily quest system back, but as you guys know… even though I never bitched on the forum that dailies are grindy as hell, I feel like I contributed to the fun system of slowly losing our sanity of Apexis Dailies.
This system, sounds pretty good. First off, it can be accessed from anywhere instead of just your Garrison(aka your world map). You can get rep, gear..and even lore. Plus, they actually feel like a challenge for endgame (as soloing old zones is impossible due to level scaling)
The mechanic even has more of a challenge mode for soloers such as myself(or people waiting for their dungeon/raid queue to pop) of three icons. All three of these require the player to complete five World Quests to unlock a specific item. Once you unlock, that option will be unavailable for (I believe) a few days.
The reason I have my doubt with this, is there’s nothing really being added to the table. I mean sure, they’ve taken out Justice and Valor being currency to get geared up in the endgame, and hearing unlocking lore is kind of cool, but I can see myself losing interest in maybe less than a week (even shorter than that if they’re true dailies and are repeating every fucking day as if what you did yesterday, meant nothing).
———————————————————————————–
And finally, the new way Professions are being handled. Hell, almost everyone saw the trainwreck that was a part of the WoD Beta (and Blizzard did nothing about it). Aka, I mean how your professions that you worked your ass off to raise up were only going to your Garrison, instead of players in need.
This time, it seems what I do for a pastime in hopes of making a bit of money on the AH(selling what I collect), Blizzard gives no shits. Of course, I could be completely and utterly wrong for saying that.
But the way you rank up in your professions, is through questing in Dalaran (yes, you actually have to leave your Order Hall and be with other players to do this). And in my opinion, that is a damn good thing compared to the Garrison. This is supposed to be an MMORPG!
Sorry for going off-track there. As I said, you quest in Dalaran. You give your supplies to them, and you can do really immersive, content-driven questing with them. It isn’t just about making money, but having fun collecting stuff.
At least, that’s how Bellular has stated it. Wherever or not this would change the way I do my own professions, remains a mystery until I try it out for myself.

And that’s basically it. But wait, there’s MORE! There’s talk of everyone’s favorite controversial topic, flying. Of course, flying will not be a thing at max level. However, you can now do the Loremaster quests to get ‘80%’ into being able to fly. And when a ‘mid-game patch’ happens, you’ll be able to fly.

There’s also this..rather disturbing “big brother is watching” thing that Heelz and a few others are saying is a thing, which is this highly vague of who’s it against ‘Silence Punishment’. I’ll be making a separate post on this in a few days from now.

.
So..yeah. Do I feel it’s worth coming back? Do I feel Blizzard has learned from their mistakes? I’d urge caution, but I say go for it. Next month, I’m planning to re-subscribe and get the digital version of Legion. It sadly is $50, like WoD. But from what I heard out of Heol, he feels he “got his money’s worth”.
It would be good to play WoW again, even though I claimed it was better off that I never played since I don’t play like a true WoW player. But Blizzard doesn’t fucking care, and neither should I.

Posted in PC | Comments Off on With Legion released, is it worth coming back to WoW?

Starbound ‘completed’, thoughts

I’ve completed Starbound’s main questline. Found the ending so cheesy. And the best way to explain it without spoiling — kill the final boss, get caught in the blast, your friends are devastated, unknown being tells you that you did well, you come back, credits roll. Just wow. That’s it. Maybe it couldn’t had been made better, but it just felt real cheesy to the point I feel it was recycled from games with similar endings, of the player ‘giving their life’ to stop the final boss and then coming back.
And now I’m faced with a new dilemma. A dilemma that I create from playing these kind of games. The dreaded “what now?” feeling.

However, there is still lots to do in this game. But the main thing to do it’s nearly impossible for me, for I’ve lost my creative side many years ago. I’ve barely decorated my ship. I kind of know what rooms are to be what, but I have no idea on how to decorate them; it’s very frustrating. It isn’t as simple as placing furniture down — it’s knowing, what things to put in which rooms, and how to place them.
And that’s just the ship. There are also colonies that I have yet to mess with. But from me playing co-op with a friend, they seem to only be good for collecting rent. However others see them being more then that, by creating small towns. It’s an idea I had back in Terraria, but I never did it as the execution was just..non-existent.

Moving on from that, there’s Archeology to mess with. But the minigame is hard as hell. A few days after initially writing this post to say I was done with the main questline, I tried my hand at doing this. You got to first craft the table, then buy some brushes(since even the Master brush goes *poof* after the first try) and then find a fossil deep underground.
The minigame compromises of chiseling away at stone and dirt until you reveal all of the bony heads. What makes it hard is these tools you have, have a limited use. And if you’re not careful, you’ll end up incompleting or screwing up the fossil(either way the fossil becomes useless).
I’ve watched videos in hopes of learning how to do it, but the fact it’s randomized per every fossil, there’s no clear way of doing it. Maybe it’s based on pure luck.

And lastly, there’s my crewmates. I had 6, now I have 3. What happened? I fired them for being red shirts. πŸ˜›
Seriously, they are red shirts(and yes, the old Star Trek reference is fair); constantly getting themselves killed. I expected my crew to protect my ass like the Secret Service with the President, instead they shoot at the sky for no reason and say idiotic things like “That’s a lamp!” or “That thing looks pointy!”… FFS! Why is the crewmate system so.. lifeless?! It’s nothing like games such as the Mass Effect series. These guys feel nothing but robots, with barely any interaction with the player. There’s no reason to grow a relationship with them. It’s pretty disturbing.
Not to mention, they can’t keep up with you. And then there’s the hilariously bad times where they say “I can’t reach you!”…yet you’re right next to them.
Yet without them, the game feels lifeless. Which is why I haven’t decided yet on just making a base on a planet, and use the ship to just get me to where I need to go. It would get boring fast without watching the NPCs walking around and stuff.

That’s really all there is. And this is the same game I had in my Steam Wishlist for 3+ years, debating if the $15 pricetag was worth it. I still remember reading about how the main writer left the team (or something like that). The only thing that sold me, was the story.
Yet, I still read how “the game is dead, not enough updates”..yet we just got a hotfix yesterday. However, a handful of people have been reporting (mods or not) that they can’t beam down to planets, their colonies, or the Outpost anymore. Thankfully I wasn’t affected, but it’s understandably pissed off a lot of people.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on Starbound ‘completed’, thoughts

Starbound – PC Game Review

Terraria in space, and a procedurally generated universe. What’s more to ask for? Oh yeah, there’s now an actual campaign!
.

Title: Starbound
ESRB Rating: T
Developer: Chucklefish Games
Publisher: Chucklefish Games
Price Tag: $14.99 on Steam
Release Date: May 26th, 2016(Re-release)
Game Engine: *Unknown*
Available for these other systems: Mac, Linux (PS4/XBox One versions TBA)
Number of Players: Single, Multiplayer Co-op
Genre: 2D Action Adventure

Game Features: Earth is destroyed, and the player is the only thing that can stop it from destroying even more worlds. Beam down to the planet surface and hunt for resources, while also defending themselves from hostile alien creatures, humanoid or monster.
The weather is also their enemy, depending on the planet type. Fierce rains cause flooding (with acid rain causing damage as well as pools of acid to form), while asteroid storms will kill the player in one hit.

Story: Waking up from a good rest on Earth, the player attempts to get to his graduation ceremony to be part of ‘The Protectorate’ (an intergalactic peacekeeping organization) and get their hands on their own Matter Manipulator. During the ceremony, Earth gets fucked by an unknown alien threat. The player is forced to abandon the planet, using a derelict spaceship.
Now stuck in another system with the FDL Drive damaged(but the teleporter is still intact), the player is forced to beam down to the nearby Earth-like planet below them in hopes of finding someone or some thing to unravel the clues as to what happened (and most importantly, how to stop it from claiming more worlds).

Main Character: The player character (you). The player can create a customizable character based on one of six different alien races(including Human), and can also choose their sexual orientation.
It’s then up to the player to follow their destiny, or do nothing and act like this is just another Terraria level(but without the floating eyeballs and zombies at night).

Side Characters: Esther Bright, a former Protectorate who is located at ‘The Ark'(no, not Noah’s Ark). She’s the old lady who does her best to help the player on their quest to stop the horror, that could take even more worlds.

Enemies: Depending on the the type (and difficulty) of the planet, there are three types of enemies; flying, spitting(or firing a projectile), and sprinting ones. Some enemies use more than one ability.

Combat/Health System: The player has a wide variety of weapons to choose from. Daggers, swords(1 and 2 handed), staves, throwing weapons, and conventional weapons such as pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, rocket launchers, and grenade launchers. All ballistic weapons use Energy as ‘ammo’ to use.
As for the health system, the player can heal themself with Salve, Bandages, Medical Kits, and even syringes. If the player dies, they lose 10% of their Pixels(the currency of the game) and teleport back to their ship. This can be especially frustrating when the player could be down in a mine and dies.
The player can also make Racial Flags that serve as teleport markers, allowing the player to get to these specific places (useful for Colonies). They can also be named to whatever they wish.

Maps/Levels/Chapters: This is up to the game’s generator, as the planet surface (and the galaxy) is procedurally generated. Never expect see the same generated planet, or the same galaxy as the player’s last save.

.
What I liked;
-It’s Terraria, with an actual story. Plus you don’t have to build anything. You can just focus on the story.
-The /admin command can be your best friend in getting through really brutal areas of the story, for it keeps enemies from killing you.
-The game has Steam Workshop support, with mods that can make the game more fun for a lot of players.
-Doing the main questline (finding artifacts) feels(to me) of Spore’s Space Stage’s EP of having missions.

What I didn’t like;
-Checkpoints don’t exist, which is really bad for quests (you die, the quest resets).
-Multiplayer mode starts to lag really badly after 30 or so minutes of use.
-Side quests get boring after awhile. It’s only four quests, which are recycled by all races (“go here and kill this thing”, “go here and kill this thing and escort this person back”, “find this person and escort them back”, and “grow these things for me”). The first three are literally copies of themselves, but in different variants.

Final Opinions/Thoughts;
Despite the frustration of being beamed back to my ship when I die, or the major lack of side quest types, the game is actually pretty good. It has that Terraria flavor, while also not being Terraria (the lack of floating eyeballs tapping your roof trying to get to you at night, and the sound of zombies banging on your doors).
The game also doesn’t feel focused on building a base and having NPC slaves to keep the baddies off you. It feels more of an adventure, especially beaming down to a planet for the first time. That itch to explore kicks in.

Don’t get me wrong — Terraria is a good game in its own right. It has that really good soundtrack. But Starbound has more weather effects than Terraria, such as having a planet with heavy rains, watching the rain go nearly sideways into your base (and end up flooding it).
Things like that, give Starbound a nice touch. The true bread and butter (for most people that I’ve spoken to) is building Colonies on planets. Mainly because you can create a really nice town using Colony Deeds with just one person moving in. And they give you rent every half an hour.

I dunno. Starbound just feels more.. lively compared to Terraria.

Posted in PC Game Reviews | Comments Off on Starbound – PC Game Review

The Galactic Nebula Expedition is underway

One thing I just don’t get, though. Why even have a large-scale exploration expedition, when there are these individuals who are all “screw this, I’m just going to the next WP!”?

And also, why even have ‘EU’ and ‘US’ launch times, when it’s better off just calling it ‘afternoon launch’ and ‘night launch’? Of course, I see it like this. But in reality, timezones are a bitch, and these are what times are best for which areas of the globe. Yet I almost fucking wish it was restricted to “non-US people take the EU launch”.
Never dealt with two timetables in my life. Not like this anyway. Makes me feel ‘ohh, it’s so cooler to be part of the EU launch! Because the US launch BLOWS!!’

Especially yesterday, when we were meeting up for the launch. I was waiting for the 11pm EDT USA launch, while a majority of CMDRs were setting up for the EU launch. And the numbers of the EU and the US launches..were HUGE. So, so many more people during the EU launch.
Granted, this also caused a lot of issues with phasing (aka instancing). The worst of this came from the pre-US launch. We were ready, but the lead ships couldn’t get to us. They could see eachother, but not us. It was so much similar to what the IW dealt with when it came to escorting me back to the bubble. It’s good that I’m not the only one having these issues, but also bad that it’s a gamebreaker.

The EU launch was quite chaotic. Meaning, studdering…LOTS of studdering. There was over 25 ships here, and MAN was it doing a number on my framerate! However, the instancing that people claim was really bad, wasn’t affecting me. But we were seeing a few SRVs bug out that was similar to what a friend of mine caught my own SRV doing while we were checking out this alien wreck (a week before the launch).
That bug, although hilarious to watch, is also annoying at the same time. Because this screws up things like SRV racing.

I did learn something from being part of this event (after failing horribly at doing a mass jump while still inside a planet’s landable zone). Turns out, if the destination is visible (and you’re at 2km or higher), you can jump to it without having to leave the planet.
Yet I think by failing at doing a mass jump, I survived a major fuckup. Heard from Tea_Rex, something about a ‘clusterfuck’ happened after the mass jump and a few commanders had to go back to the bubble to get repairs, before going to WP1. Wasn’t really a smart idea.
But DAMN…was that mass jump so cool!! I’ve only seen it happen on video during the CNE and the DWE, but never happen right infront of me.

During the US launch, we had our own “mass jump”. It was a mass dismiss of our ships. I didn’t get the Que and dismissed mine about 10 seconds late. But again, it was like God was protecting my ship as we saw a lot of “OMG LOL!!” from the local chat — ships ramming into eachother on takeoff. My ship was saved. Others.. not so lucky(dinged hull but no exploding ships), but thankfully, the bubble was close.

So yeah. That’s what happened. Tomorrow’s the big one; the first 5+Ly distance to the next WP(which would be WP2). Though I would imagine with my nearly 45Ly jump range, I would be there in less than a day. Then again, it could take nearly the entire day. That’s why I’m debating if it’s wise to go with the EU group than the US group. This way I’ll have more time to jump. But with the US group, I’ll have more time to explore this moon (and possibly the moon above our heads). Plus, it’ll be past dinnertime and I would had already ate and stuff.
Or maybe I’ll make up my own time and leave after dinner (as others seem to do so, but for their own reasons). Who knows.

Currently, we’re basically heading in the direction of where Jaques is (to say hi, meet up with the ‘Jaqueasses'(no, I didn’t make this up, this is what they’re called) who are helping the station, and get any necessary repairs done), before turning towards the core.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on The Galactic Nebula Expedition is underway

Ready for the GNE! (But at what price?)

My Conda is ready for the GNE! All engineer mods have been done. Everything’s ready. All there is to do now, is toΒ finally …. chillax until the launch, which is just a few days away from now.

But the price paid for such luxury, wasn’t blood — it was lots and lots of drama-filled tears. Tears of “I don’t wanna” and “I’ve been looking for hours and NOTHING!!” Yet it also had tears of joy, such as finally seeing what a Grade 5 FSD mod can really do (such as going to Bernard’s Nebula and back in less than two hours (which originally would had taken several..just to get there)).
As I said, I decided to go with the T3 FSD mod. Not to mention, Ash was also being a ‘bit’ of a jerk to me (even though I actually deserve it for being such a crybaby for being interdicted a lot).
I did Sothis runs afterwards to be able to cover the future explorconda build I kindly asked another member to do for me. Already had the credits, though. Just wanted some more.

Later on, I managed to get my hands on the elusive T5 FSD. What made it ‘elusive’ was finding Datamined Wake Echos and Specialized Legacy Firmware (with the Datamined Echos being the biggest issue for me). But Ash stopped being a jerk (was just a temp thing) and suggested I head for the Community Event and scan the wakes there. So I did. And an hour later.. I had 9 on me from managing to scan three of them. That is awesome!
Finding the Specialized Firmware was actually a LOT easier than I thought. All I had to do was get an SRV bay and then run around a Low or Medium Security ‘++’ base and scan the data points. However, my first interaction was actually bad, because I attacked a turret thinking I had to(because I remembered before to attack them before they activate after scanning a beacon there). This lead to my first SRV ever being destroyed, and receiving a “Dormant Bounty”. Was not too happy about this. Was told to just stay away from the area for a week, and the bounty will expire.
So yeah..not the way you’re supposed to do it. Scanning anything that’s listed as ‘PUBLIC’ when selecting it, will not cause the base to go under attack (and you won’t have a bad day).
And that’s what I did, and it paid off! FINALLY got what I needed! Much…MUCH better than orbiting an ELW and looking for USS’ in hopes one is an ‘ENCODED EMISSIONS’ signal that might have what I need.
With five Arsenic I found from my solo expedition, all I needed was to buy the purchasable commodity; five ‘Magnetic Emitter Coil’. Asked the Discord server, and they said there are places close to Farseer. So I went there and got them, and made it to Farseer with absolutely no problems! Seems this type of commodity isn’t ‘pirate food’.

After a decision if I should remove the old T3 FSD upgrade, I did that and made the roll. They told me it wasn’t -that- good, and did it again. The second roll, they said it was “much better”. And I went with it. My jump range has only slightly improved, though. Still isn’t 50+ as I had hoped, but it’ll do.
Tried to go to Sothis one last time. 15 jumps. Not bad at all. And with this final run complete, someone mentioned getting T3 Clean Drive Tuning. I asked how good this is, and they say it’s not that good, but it’s not bad either.
Once again I got everything I needed and went to Farseer. This time I only had three rolls. First roll was OK but bad. Rolled again, second roll was quite bad. …Final roll, and a debate started between three people. Two saying it was even worse than the last roll, and one trying to convince them that this roll was better than the first one. Seriously, fuck Math. πŸ˜›
Finally the decision was made to keep the roll, and I went with it. I can now boost to 315. Not that big of a difference. However, it definitely made one later on (in the terms of acquiring power).

The build I was given, wasn’t designed around the thruster. Infact, I never realized until after getting the mod that the thruster in the build was downgraded from what I had. When I told them this, they told me to “just go with it”.
So I did. I got the build all set up (including ‘just incase’ weapons). But when I left the mailslot and tried to boost, I was unable to. And I… well, they would had never known it wouldn’t work. I just expected them to know, since they’ve dealt with the engineers a lot longer than I had.
To make a long story short, I said things I’m not proud of and ended up later apologizing to everyone. I really just want to be DONE with the engineers! They have drove me up the wall with their requirements. Yet I keep being reminded that it was a lot worse when the update launched, requiring lots of grinding. “Now it’s a joke”, says one of the ones I worked with. But he got me set on the right foot; getting me a better power distributor that will handle the increased output of the thruster mod. It even showed ‘This module will not allow you to boost’ when attempting to buy the one that the build suggested.

The only problem, is I required a Beam Laser (to do this ‘just incase’ weapon build). He suggested I mod my current Power Plant to give it the juice it requires (and to make sure I don’t have an overload issue). The T1 version of ‘Overcharged Power Plant’ (only one that Farseer can do), required one Sulphur. I had plenty, so that wasn’t a problem. Went back to Farseer, and the first roll was actually pretty good, and went with it.

And now everything’s ready! But boy, what a ride that was. A ride I never want to go on again. And I think getting the T5 FSD mod was was easier to acquire and deal with than the T3 one. Doesn’t really feel right. I guess because I took care of the really hard part of it, which was Arsenic. Hear that it’s a bitch to find, and I found five of them. Damn. Glad I never gotten rid of them.
Though personally, the hard part (to me) was acquiring those Datamined Wake Echos.

Posted in Other, PC | Comments Off on Ready for the GNE! (But at what price?)