Benie's Games Blog

And I’m sure a lot of you are asking “Where’s the next mini-playthrough?”. Well, please see this blog post.

Anyway, so I’ve been somewhat to strongly considering of getting Elite: Dangerous, and the Horizons DLC. Since I saw the videos back in 2015 about this game, I thought … “WOW!!” My favorite thing was the “jump drive charging!” voice. I so…SO want someone to put that in Space Engineers! Make it a thing! And the second thing is, the game world is freakin’ huge. You can pretty much even go to the Sol system (our system) and visit Earth in the future.
Yet the one thing the game lacked, is being able to land on planets. But that’s were the Horizons DLC comes into play. Not only can you land on landable planets, you can deploy a rover! How cool is that?

Yet there’s been three things that have been stopping me from being all “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!! 😀 ” And here they are;
1. Price. Both the game and the DLC cost nearly $70, and that’s the normal price. The DLC is more expensive than the full game, which gets me in that bad, untrusting feeling.
2. Reviews. This is ironic. Getting reviews while I’m a reviewer. Most feel the DLC has ‘spat in the faces of the fans’ for being $8 more expensive than the original game. Some say it has the original game with it, but you literally have to pay for the game again (+ $8 more) as it’s a DLC.
And lastly, most say the game is boring. They say landing on planets is boring. I find that completely opposite. Exploring an alien world feels fun to me(in Space Engineers).

And finally, the 3rd thing. The ‘requirement’ to have a joystick, and the reason for this blog post. Most of the videos I’ve seen all say “get a joystick!”, mentioning about theirs costing ohh.. a mere $200+. That’s more than my GPU (though it was on sale at the time on Newegg)!

So I did something I should’ve done back in 2015; made a post in the Elite: Dangerous section of the Steam forums. And the responses have been, shocking to say the least.
Most, if not all, are saying that I can use a keyboard/mouse with this game. They say the keybinds are fully customizable, and even recommend I try it with a keyboard/mouse and see if it’s worth needing a joystick. …If only I was told this MONTHS ago, I would had gotten the game sooner (when it was on sale)!

Anyway, the only way I would be able to get both Elite: Dangerous and Horizons is through something I’ve never done before, which is to buy a Season Pass. I never put that phrase with gaming, as it just sounds weird. But the term “Season Pass” means that the owner has access to pretty much everything available (for that year). Basically, like an amusement park pass to have access to all the rides of that year.
Since when did they pair it with DLCs? Guess sometime after the term ‘DLC’ was created.

But from what I know, a Season Pass gives access to all future DLC for free. Yet, from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t actually include the game. Yet what I read, you will get the game and all future updates of that DLC for free. Made another thread asking about it. Haven’t gotten a response yet. Though I’m confident I will in the morning.
EDIT: Indeed. But I didn’t just get one response…I got four. And they all misinterpreted my question 100%. *facepalm* They think I’m asking if the base game is included in the DLC. I never said this in the OP.
At this time (from reading the section), I can only assume you would get the DLC. But I just want conformation before I slap down $37.99.

But I haven’t said why I want this game, when Space Engineers is fun. Yes, you can build bases, rovers, ships, etc.. but I’ve reached the point where it’s gotten pointless. Pointless as in “why even do this?” Right now, there’s just no real desire. What I want, I doubt Keen can give me. And that’s AI players. Players that will fly ships and dock them at your base (or see a mining ship on an asteroid, or a planet). It would make the game feel much more alive and fresh.
Bringing back cargo ships was a nice touch, but it still doesn’t feel.. real. I want an option for those ships to try to get close to me and attack (instead of me being forced to go off-course and engage).
The closest thing that I could have is a scenario. But it would be scripted. Things like the Cyberhounds, and the bugs.. those are the unscripted encounters I want to see. Make the game feel like it’s breathing.
Yet I doubt I would ever see that. Not with Keen’s fantastic track record of breaking shit after every useless weekly patch. Which…is why… I want this game. Infact, I can use it to get me ideas for Space Engineers. To build bases on planets. To only use a small ship to get around (and find some way to get a jump drive installed in them).
Yet the thing that kills me is… how in the fuck are those tiny ships able to have a hangar bay for a rover?! Those are the things I want to know. And I’m hoping by buying this game (and the Season Pass to get the DLC), I will know these secrets, in time.

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EDIT2: More into the whole “Season Pass” thing. I’m explained by them that simply put — it’s a bunch of DLCs, that are bundled. But instead of using the proper term ‘Bundle’, the devs are European and decided to use the term ‘Season Pass’ instead.
Either way, I’ll get the DLC if I pay for the Season Pass.

And like that, I bought it. But I bought the ‘Elite Dangerous Deluxe Edition’ for $60. So it saves $7. Gives me the base game, the DLC, and I also got a ‘Pilot Starter Pack’ DLC, which contains four ship skins and a bobblehead that bobbles in your ship. I have read not to do this, but due to the fact I never got the base game (and ways, it was cheaper), I decided to get it.
Though I have this really bad nagging feeling in the back of my head, saying I should had waited for a sale. Oh well. It’s not like $60 is going to put me in the hole. I even made sure with my bank if my balance was still going to be in my ‘comfort zone’ after getting it, and I see no problem.
Plus, hopefully the extra money will help to make the game good in the future. I am hearing more landable planets are possible in the near future.

I’m not exactly talking about Tulsi, even though I’m strongly considering of unfriending him. No offense to him, but I don’t like being known as being friends with a 10 year old. Maybe when he grows up a little and stops…. nearly having a heart attack everytime I discuss ‘troubling news’ to him, thinking I’m going to unfriend him.
But I don’t know how to keep it going, without him finding a way to whine and carry on until I break down and re-friend him, or find out he…killed himself over it. :/ He would seriously do this. This is the problem. I want him to understand, but he doesn’t seem to have the thought in his head.

But I have…well, sort of another problem on my hands. Was playing Space Engineers, heading to Artifex 5 in my newly redesigned large ship, when I got a random friend invite in Steam from a ‘VladTheImpregnator’. I decided to friend him, and he said how he “saw my profile” and is looking for someone to play with. So I thought “what the hell” and went with it. Afterall, I thought he could possibly help with my ship suddenly spinning out of control.

Vlad seems like a nice guy. We talked a bit (had to use Skype to do so). He seems to nearly feel the same feelings that I do about Keen. As in, if they’ll ever get the game out of Early Access. Says he tried to get his friends into the game, but they’re being turned off due to Keen’s constant broken updates.
So I had to do the server. It’s actually quite easy, and it seems my computer can definitely handle it. When Vlad spawned in, he spawned into the start station. Had to make a faction for him to use my ship’s Sick Bay to port in.
Showed him around the ship. He didn’t really seem interested in it, though. At least, not as interested as Adm. Zalex was.
Decided to jump to Artifex 5, so we can head down to the planet surface together. First jump, and the ship spun out of control. Thankfully the ‘delete a block on the ship and it stops’ fix, still works.
Showed him the hangar bay and of my Pyro (and how I feel its cockpit could be causing it), and he said it’s either a bug with the game or the ‘Tea Industrial Modular Cockpit Pack’ mod (the mod used for the Pyro’s cockpit). I still say it’s the mod, as that’s when I started noticing the shaking. Thing is, looking at the modder’s page, no one is reporting this problem. That’s quite troubling.
Anyway, made it to Artifex 5…it was a bust. Again, no planet. Same thing happened with Artifex 2. He starts saying he too was getting shaking, yet I wasn’t. Strange. It’s not just happening clientside. So I hopped out of my chair in the bridge and deleted a block, and he said it stopped.

Saw a nearby space station, and flew over to it. Got close enough, then went down to the hangar bay and got in my Pyro. Told him to take the passenger seat. He was having issues trying to get in, and decided to jetpack over. So we went over. Was one of those trading stations that are part of the ‘Grand Space Exploration’ mod.
We explored for a bit, then went down an elevator shaft. He stopped moving, and disconnected. Never came back. He did later tell me that he accidentally pulled out the power cable of his computer.

And that’s basically it. Not much else to say, other than I don’t think he likes exploration ships (as he didn’t seem that interested in mine). Well, we all have our favorites.
One good thing to note, he nearly feels the same feelings about Keen. As in, if they’ll ever get the game out of Early Access. So yeah.
I did report how Artifex 2 and 5 are missing to the modder’s page. Hopefully they will respond back with a helpful response.

So I’ve been informed of some “troubling” news about the future expansion for WoW, and was told several freakin’ times to post my thoughts about it through this.
No matter how many times I tried to tell them “I’m not interested in WoW anymore! It can burn in hell for all I care!”, they persisted.

And so, I give the fans what they want. You want my opinion? Fine. The news has to do with what our good friend, Watcher (aka Ion Hazzikostas) said to all the Legion Alpha testers. Most of you are also friends of AZ and saw his video on it, which is why you all wanted my opinion.

And before I do, please understand that these words are my own and do not share the same feelings as most players. And with that out of the way, here we go…
So there’s a problem. A problem that Blizzard are putting hints of the Garrison Command Table into Legion. Now there is one thing I absolutely agree with AZ, and that is…every expansion, no matter what game it’s for, should feel like it’s OWN expansion, and not an ‘addon’ of the previous one. This is why I liked Cata and MoP, because they were completely different from eachother.
They had their own core game mechanics, and everything about them wasn’t like the other expansions.
MoP and WoD are the same thing, just WoD…was done wrong. Very wrong, in any people’s minds. Staying on topic, we got WoD and Legion.

The problem here, is we got the Honor Halls and the Adventure Map. The Adventure Map, reminds me so much of what Dragon Age: Inquisition did; being able to actually go to where you pick on the map, instead of get NPCs to do it. Sadly, it also feels like the Garrison Command Table. If you need a refresher course, you can watch my video of that game right here, where I explain how it feels like it.

So yeah. Blizzard put in the Command Table with a fresh coat of paint and thought people who were utterly pissed off, would be OK with it. Heh. The heck were they thinking when they did this? It looks, and smells JUST like the very thing that made over 3/4’s of WoW’s subscriber base to tank. Doesn’t Blizzard know, that if you take a piece of shit, and put a little bow on it… it still looks like a piece of shit?!

And now we move on to the messenger of the incompetent Cory Stockholm (the one that invented ‘Garrisongate’)…Mr Ion Hazzikostas. I find it funny that Cory has to send out his lackey to discuss something literally franchise-breaking to an unstable community, instead of doing it himself. Either he was too busy, or he doesn’t have the balls to do so.

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Reading over the lengthy discussion, it is clear Mr Ion Hazzikostas doesn’t have a clue what the remaining fans of WoW, want. Once again, it seems Blizzard thinks “you guys…you THINK you don’t like this, but we KNOW you DO! Trust us! We know what we’re doing!” The same. exact. words said when people doubted WoD.
Wow. I nearly made myself bust out laughing. Never ever put the words “trust” and “Blizzard” in the same sentence, or sarcastic laughter will be heard. If Blizzard was running for the President of the United States, he would be Donald Trump…. oh wait.

But what if Blizzard actually listens to their testers and makes the Command Table-like interface, not so much like WoD? No.. that’s not happening. It’s currently mid-April, and June is 2 & 1/2 months away, The release is quickly approaching, and the expansion is still in Alpha. Even WoD went beta by this stage of its development. Of course, they hope to put more work into making non-content.
Plus, to ‘listen to their testers’ isn’t something they know how to do (eversince Ghostcrawler left).

I guess this is the part where we’re all “I’m calling it! WoW is DEAD!!” I went over this before in many…many posts about this subject. WoW is not dead.. yet. However, I will say the Warcraft movie (if people are smart and well-informed) isn’t going to save the franchise. And not listening to their testers (JUST like in WoD), definitely will not help the situation.

I will predict, that a few weeks (or maybe a month) after the release, the remaining subs of WoW will leave, and Blizzard will shut the servers down. Then, WoW is dead. It’s possible they’re doing this on purpose, to focus on their other projects (like Overwatch).
WoW’s almost 11 years old. One of the oldest-running MMORPGs to this day. And it’s time for it to die a good death. Unfortunately, Blizzard has no intention of giving it a mercy death. Not when they can attempt to milk as much money out of people.

In closing, I’m unsubscribed to AZ. Mainly due to the whole “done with all MMORPGs” thing. But there’s now an even better reason. A reason, that he is very true (yet it’s also hurtful).
He says a casual who logs in to do a few things and logs out, “doesn’t contribute to the game”. In other words, dissing soloers such as myself who are anti-social. Even though it’s true, it’s still painful to hear coming out of someone I supported. It feels like people like myself are being blamed for WoW’s downfall. Of course, we are. There’s hardly a post with “damn casuals” in it.
In my defense, I never wanted WoW to go down like this. And Garrisons being ‘anti-MMO’ isn’t the reason I left WoW. I’ve explained the reasons hundreds of times. It was mainly the reason that I was ignored as a beta tester. But it was also the real lack of endgame content for soloers.

If the Garrison was an optional thing, instead of forced content, I think WoD could had been a better expansion. Just like Legion. All Blizzard needs to do is to make it optional content. However, that’s not going to ease the pain of the loyalist MMORPG players.
Seriously, though. Please stop speaking for me. Everyone is able to play WoW their way. Even RPers need love. You speak for no one, but yourself. Same with me. I don’t speak for you guys. You guys wanted MY opinion! You never wanted me to tell you how much you miss the way WoW was in the past!

I’m sorry, but I’m tired of it. That’s why I stopped listening to them. Sadly, Youtube doesn’t get the fucking message that I don’t give a fuck, and to STOP adding people’s opinions about how good WoW was, in my suggestions!!! Keep your nostalgia to yourself FFS!
But has Youtube EVER gave a fuck about you? And that’s where I’m going to stop this post. I gave you guys what you want; a reaction of Ion Hazzikostas’ post in my own words, instead of the words of a normal MMORPG player.

I’m back in Orsinium, and I managed to kill a standard V16 mob in less than 10 seconds. Something that would normally take 15-30. How? The title answers that question. Though I went through hell to get to this point. Namely, my Guild.

First off, though.. ZoS managed to fully get back my chars. Even managing to restore Guild status and got their banks (though I feel like I got a bit more money than I was supposed to have). All the stuff I bought on the Crown Store is still here as well.

Anyway, I needed to replace my Level 46 gear with VR1 gear. Taking the advice of that thread I made, I asked for Superior(Blue) quality on all pieces. Got the sword done, but the rest of the gear took an hour until I got someone to do it.
The next day, I looked up what I would need to make all the glyphs. Including getting ‘Crushing’ on my sword to greatly reduce the Armor of my target and ‘Foulness’ on my bow.

Instead of asking for the glyphs to be made (or hunting down the runes to make them) I asked the Guild for the runes, hoping I could make them myself. Turns out…I cannot. 😛 So I had to send them back.
To get the glyphs, took a lot longer than the gear. They didn’t understand why I would need such powerful glyphs (was asking for Superior quality) for my champ rank. One of them even said they’ll make them if I pay for them. Really, though..I’m desperate. I want to do and complete Orsinium (and prove to myself that it was the gear and not my skill holding me back).
Finally I got the glyphs (didn’t have to pay), even got some ‘Increased Physical Harm’ ones for the future accessories that I bought via the Guild Stores at Windhelm. Using a new mod that gives me an actual search feature (to look for a specific item).

With that, I was all set and went to Orsinium. Near my port, I saw a lone V16 not too far from me. Tried out my bow, and was amazed on how fast their health bar was going down! And it was dead, in less than 10 seconds.
I’m half-convinced. The other half will be from being able to solo that ‘unsoloable’ dungeon that nearly caused me to break my left wrist in rage. Revenge is a bitch, and revenge I hope to have. But from what I’ve seen in my attacks, I have high hopes that it’s possible. Especially with the Superior quality glyphs.

My only weakness, is I’ll need to relearn my combat style (and when to move if I see red).

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EDIT: Turns out I didn’t have to complete the dungeon to advance the quest. Also, I actually had ‘help’ from a few players who were soloing the dungeon at the same time I was.
Haven’t had too much trouble with other mobs. Still dying normally (but I don’t feel like I’m taking forever to kill someone). The only thing is I’m trying to grind my Bow skills (especially Snipe). For some reason, the damn thing is taking a very long time to get up to the point that I can morph it into ‘Lethal Arrow’, which lowers the effectiveness of healing done to them (aka, will lessen their healing ability if the mob has one).

I am slightly concerned that once again, I may not be using my DK effectively. Mainly due to the PvE abilities, mostly using abilities granted from PvP. Other than that (and having done a few group bosses with a Group of 10+ people.. one time, starting my own group), nothing really to report.

Well, one other thing. My DK is now VR2. Feel like I’m half done with Wrothgar. I’ve solo’d all the delves without too much trouble.

“To say yes to one plan in SE and leave the other behind (because you need to focus on the first plan)…”
I’m having that feeling since yesterday. Not to mention, split between what games I should play (as I grow bored with SE).

See, I have an underground base in a modded world I got from the Steam Workshop. Kind of like the base design. Yet I wish I could do more with it. But I have no idea how to improve it.
I want to add a ground vehicle maintenance area. Again, no idea how to do that. And then I saw this video and I’m thinking “Ohh damn… I’d LOVE to have a VTOL entrance like that! Except do a huge elevator to raise/lower small ships and rovers in!”…but I don’t want to void out the old base, especially due to how fucking LONG it took to Voxel Hands the fucking thing (carving it out)!

And then I started getting ideas for a new large ship, after seeing this thing on the Steam Workshop. Yet what stopped me from that is he based it from Star Trek. 😛
Yet I thought, with the new bridge that Adm. zalex did for me, I could do a new ship using this. But then my brain stalls on how to do the hangars! I could see the hallway from the bridge to the back of the ship. But the rest is a complete blur. And it would look too close like a copy of this guy’s ship (even though I would give him credit).

I mean, I like the ship that I made. But really… it looks too bulky. And I think the fault is I should’ve went with hallways.. THEN the rooms. I want a more slim, faster-looking ship.
But what I think I really, really want, is like the ‘small ships gone wild’ ships of Elite: Dangerous Horizons. As they all have a rover inside the hull…somehow. How in the fuck did they manage to fit a tiny rover in there?! Is this a classic “the inside is bigger than the outside” smoke and mirrors thing?

Speaking of that game, I also so…so badly wanted to do a space station similar to the ones in Elite: Dangerous. People have done it, but not recently. There’s several entries of stations from that game that were done in SE, but all of them are (forever) unfinished WIPs. Kind of makes me a bit sick to my stomach, of all the “HOLY SHIT I WANT THIS!!” hype, isn’t being seen by others.

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And then there’s the debate in my head about what games I should play. Most of them end with “yet I don’t know how to do that”. The only one that hasn’t is ESO. Haven’t come back to that game yet (haven’t even reinstalled the client).

When Space Engineers (SE for short) first launched, seeing weekly updates was freakin’ awesome. But now…. now, they’re becoming nothing but “UGH REALLY?! Now THIS is broken?!?!”
Keen’s latest update, was mainly focused on people that run servers. Yet it had *some* fixes for Single Player. However, it introduced brand new bugs that have never been seen in my life.

-Lights no longer work, making the lighting I have in my underground base… obsolete.
-Rover wheels have been nerfed for reasons unknown. They seem to no longer use player-set controls (and behave really badly). All of my rovers are pretty much shit now.
-The helpful block status info “Opened”, “Closed”, “Off”/”On”, when the blocks are added to the bars for easy access, no longer show up.

All three of these game-breaking bugs, have crippled me. And we are.. what? HOW long has it been since the release? 2-3 YEARS, now? And we have bugs like these, this late in the cycle?
This game’s NEVER going to be leaving Early Access at this rate…

Most people (including myself), wish Keen would go with a system that the Subnautica devs are using. Aka, having a Stable and a Dev build. Not to mention, slowing down the weekly updates to one every month. Because now, the updates are feeling like they’re being rushed out the door without extensive testing.
It was awesome before, because we could typically forgive them (as each update was feature-packed). Now… it’s bug-packed with very little features. Yet Keen doesn’t feel like they should slow down with the number of updates. If they did, they would have more time for testing (and we would be able to play a more stable game).

And also, this would cause the need for a lot less hotfixes. Speaking of which, I hope we get one to fix the issues I’m having in this post.