Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-02-28
- Werewolf: How a parlor game became a tech phenomenon http://is.gd/8Xp5m #
- Warfare for D&D4e http://is.gd/90lbx #
- RT @mouseferatu: Available *today*, from Spectra: THE CONQUEROR'S SHADOW, my first published non-tie-in novel. http://tinyurl.com/y8lbh6y #
- RT @wordwill: Announcing RAZED: http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=823 #
- PHB3 Spoilers at RPG net http://bit.ly/9ro3oY #
- RT @Wizards_DnD: Join the discussion on the Dominating Warlord bit.ly/aJg9pj #dnd #
- RT @Wizards_DnD: Join the discussion on the Dominating Warlord http://bit.ly/aJg9pj #dnd #
- RT @io9: Behind The Wiki: Meet TV Tropes Cofounder Fast Eddie http://io9.com/5479423/ #profile #tvtropes #
- RT @RobinDLaws: Now Out: The Armitage Files: my new Trail Of Cthulhu setting book, is now available. http://bit.ly/bGBJT5 #
- RT @RockBand: Full schedule of PAX East Panels! (Look for all your fave HMX devs! ) http://www.paxsite.com/paxeast/schedule.php #
- RT @gregbilsland: Woohoo. Final Fantasy I & II now available on iphone (http://tinyurl.com/ygkxg4k). FFI is kind of meh, but II is awesome. #
- RT @Wizards_DnD: Add your movie quotes to @davethegame 's "Warlords From the Movies"article! http://bit.ly/b7iPja #dnd #
- Our podcast was added to iTunes: http://is.gd/9bQzm If you've enjoyed our podcast, please rate, review, and spread the word! #
- RT @joshgeeksix: Life without #DnD : My formative childhood tale of the #RPG I created. Long, but fulla heart. : ) http://bit.ly/9u7NrI #
- RT @loganbonner: RT @gamasutra Going Free Boosts Turbine's DDO Revenues 500 Percent http://bit.ly/a5FCVn #
- "The adventurers feel bad for him, because they’ve got 99 problems and a serving maid at an inn ain’t one" 4e Hommlet: http://is.gd/9heFD #
- Deathwatch RPG announced- play as a Space Marine (finally) http://is.gd/9jH4u (via @purplepawn) #
- RT @DNAphil: Gnome Stew's secret project has just been revealed: Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters! http://bit.ly/bY6BIB #
Review: Mass Effect 2
Never Let It Be Said That BioWare Doesn’t Listen
Last year, I played Mass Effect. It was pretty much destined to be a good game due to the tried-and-true BioWare formula: fantastic writing wrapped around a pretty good game engine for everything else.
There were a few things that annoyed me about the first game, most notably the strange and unwieldy inventory system. You had a lot of different weapons and they all had upgraded versions marked with Roman numerals (a MkIII shotgun was better than a MkII etc.) and you got sufficiently many of these that you would literally have to clean out your inventory every 10 missions. This was a pain. A large part of the game was flying to other worlds and cruising around in a moon buggy with a big gun on it. This part was a personal favorite of mine (it turned on my inner 8-year-old’s ‘wheeeeee I love outer space!!’ mode), but there were a lot of people that hated the buggy.
BioWare clearly decided to listen to user feedback on the sequel, though I don’t know that it made the game better for it. Let’s start with the positives. The inventory system was pretty much completely gutted and massively simplified. Now you find or build a weapon once, and anybody who has proficiency in that weapon type can automatically use it. If your main character can’t use a particular weapon type at the start of the game, there are opportunities to change that later. This is especially great if, like me, you didn’t know how amazing the sniper rifle is. You can use minerals you’ve collected to upgrade these weapons, as well as your armor, abilities, and the ship (which is REALLY important if you want a non-depressing ending). At the end of the day, all this is way more streamlined, and now managing your stuff doesn’t get in the way of the good stuff anymore. The combat gameplay is also much improved, and now it’s a lot more cover-based.
Now for the bad stuff. My beloved moon buggy is gone. You don’t get to roam around planets and shoot stuff with your big huge gun and make sweet jumps over craters anymore. This makes me very sad, but the rest of the game is good enough that I can forgive this. The new mining mini-game, though, is soul-crushingly awful. In the first game, mining consisted of going to planets and pressing a “scan” button. It was kind of like those when you see instructions hand dryers in public restrooms that have been vandalized and changed to read “PUSH BUTTON – RECEIVE BACON” – but you got minerals instead. This somewhat boring system was replaced by having to run a little targeting reticle incredibly slowly over the entire surface of a planet, and launching a probe when you detected minerals. Scanning an entire planet is quite literally a 10 minute process, and you’ll want to be scanning the whole galaxy full of them if you want enough minerals to trick out all your stuff. You can buy a ship upgrade that can speed your scans up this somewhat, but it is still a frustrating waste of a VERY large amount of time. I kept falling asleep on the couch while mining, and when I would wake up and see the mining screen still on my TV, I had to fight the urge to throw my controller at the screen. (I am grumpy when I wake up.) I’m Commander Shepard, dammit. I have lots of people on my ship that can do this crap for me. Or have Tali’Zorah write a super complex program that makes the reticle go up and down and fire a probe when it finds something. It’s called COMPUTER SCIENCE. Perhaps it is a lost art that died with the Protheans?
The Crunch And The Fluff
The “running around and killing stuff” portion of the game has also been streamlined, and now combat relies much more heavily on using cover. So much so, in fact, that it’s almost too obvious. If you see a bunch of waist-high stuff lying around, you can pretty much bet at least one bullet is about to try to make sweet love to your head. For some reason, a lot of your powers won’t work on enemies that are shielded in some way – and there are three separate types of shields that require different methods to take down efficiently. This means you’ll have to make educated guesses on who you’ll be fighting, and make educated guesses as to what party members to bring to have the right mix of countermeasures. On the “Normal” level of difficulty, I found the fighting to be a little bit easy, but still exciting enough that I never got bored. There are “boss” characters in most areas, but usually it’s just somebody with a little extra shielding that you can hear calling out some variation on “Space feces! It is Shepard! Kill him or her!” Several “boss” areas consist of defeating waves of opponents. There are a couple fights where they throw something ginormous and unexpected at you, and these battles are not very hard either. Though I haven’t played them, I suspect playing on higher difficulty levels would be more frustrating rather than fun because the only real ways to scale the difficulty are to add more guys (of which there are many already) or to make the AI cheat more. Overall, I found the combat fun but mediocre.
That being said, if you come into a BioWare game for anything but the writing, you’re missing the point. This game, like all its well-written brothers and sisters, has great character development and a plot that doesn’t bother waiting around with its twists. You’re put at odds with some of the people you met in ME1 right out of the gate, and I found many of these omg uncomfortable moments more exciting than getting shot at. You also get to decide the outcome of a few events from the first game by “remembering” events via a teammate asking you how they transpired. I forgot a few names from the first game and wound up with a complete asshole ruling the Council. Oops. Sorry about that, humanity. Martin Short Sheen plays the Illusive Man, your boss for this game (well, sort of), and the performance makes you feel like you’re in a deliciously old sci-fi movie from the late 60′s or early 70′s. He sits in a director’s chair and smokes while plotting humanity’s total domination of the galaxy, and he’s got an awesome view of a closeby star to help him think just because he CAN. Just like the first game, you have to go find and convince most of your team to join you. However, every last one of them has some sort of personal problem they need your help with. In the story, helping them frees their mind so they can focus on the mission. A little hokey, but their subplots are all so good I got over it fast. Even if you don’t care about any of that (and if you don’t, why the hell are you playing a BioWare game?!), you need to complete these quests for your crew because doing so unlocks their SECRET POWER. That’s right, they each learn to do something new once they’re loyal. Again, a little hokey, but I got over that really fast when I started capping people in the dome with WARP BULLETS. Additionally, you will need to have most (if not all) of your crew loyal if you intend to get an ending that doesn’t depress you.
SPOILER-FREE ADVICE ON GETTING A GOOD ENDING:
- Get your entire crew loyal.
- When it’s time to do the last mission (you’ll know) do it IMMEDIATELY.
- Don’t leave people who don’t usually run around and shoot things with you to fend for themselves.
- Pick the right people for the right job.
- Upgrade your ship fully (you can leave the med-bay out, though).
Ignore this advice, and live with the guilt forevermore (or until you do another playthrough of the end like I had to).
The Most Important Part Of The Game
There is one more very important element to this game, and I think you all know what it is. WANG. DANG. SPACE POONTANG. I was a little disappointed in the sex scenes in this game on a couple fronts. I played Dude Shepard, so I cannot vouch for the level of titillation the sex scenes for anybody but the female crew. Unfortunately, both Mass Effect games are unlike Dragon Age in that the space-booty you have locked your reproductive torpedoes onto keeps its shields up until the end of the game, right before you go on your final mission. I’m not sure if this is how they handle birth control in the future, or what. Dragon Age was much kinder in this respect. It was kind of nice to sleep with Leliana about a third of the way into the game, and then hook up with Morrigan and carry that guilt with me all the way to the Battle of Denerim. However, Mass Effect 2 does take one unfortunate cue from Dragon Age in that the sex scenes tend to feature an awful damned lot of clothing during the long-awaited galacticoitus. Did someone delete all the 3D models for nipples at BioWare? Is that why everyone is wearing a bra, a snuggie, burlap, or a full environment suit?
SPACE-CONCLUSION
Overall, the things I loved about this game vastly outnumbered the things I didn’t and shot them in the face with warp bullets. It’s not the best shooter you’ve ever played. It’s not the best RPG you’ve ever played. Hell, it might not even be the best BioWare RPG you’ve ever played. But it is a very tasty blend of a lot of different things, and it all works out into a great game that I can happily recommend. I just wish they’d left out the stupid mining part and gave me a little galactic sideboob.
Ashes to Ashes, Death to Life
RPG Curse Words
Character death. Total Party Kill. These words have long been the bane of DMs and players. DMs face scornful players and upset friends when a beloved character dies, and a possible coup when a TPK comes around. Players see their invested time, work and creation disappear before them with a single roll of the dice. Nobody, DMs and players alike, enjoy the idea of starting again or losing a beloved character within the game. However if death is never an option, if DMs fudge rolls so nobody dies, then the thrill and tension of grand battles can very quickly dissipate and the campaign can grow stale. While there are already several methods of resurrection and many ways to cleverly avoid death already in existence, here are some flavourful ideas that may provide an interesting twist on death and resurrection, for the next time a PC kicks the bucket.
Heavenly Tricks
The numerous gods of the realms have the power to take and grant life as they wish. When a PC dies, their benevolent god may choose to restore their life upon them in payment for their duty and service. This gift is usually reserved for the greatest champions of the gods, the mightiest of Avengers, the most steadfast of Paladins and the purest Clerics. However there is one god, who freely hands out this amazing gift to any follower of any god.
Mezanerin is more commonly known simply as the Trickster, and he is an entity capable of taking on any form he desires. Throughout the years many heroes and scorned gods have tried to kill Mezanerin, and some even believe they succeeded. While not a true god, Mezanerin is immortal and immensely powerful. This conniving Trickster will often appear before the spirit of powerful adventurers in the form of the god they feel closest to, offering to restore their life in exchange for more devout faith within the god. Agreeing to the verbal contract places a curse upon the warrior’s soul, diverting all their faith to feed Mezanerin’s ever-growing power. Fables and legends of Mezanerin state that a cursed soul can only be redeemed by another who refused an offer of the Trickster, but the exact details of such a ritual are unknown as any who refuse Mezanerin tend to stay dead. For the remainder of their life the cursed warrior will have Mezanerin appear to them, requesting certain tasks be accomplished in payment for their life. Some are trivial tasks such as drinking from a particular well within a certain town, while other commands are more morbid and sinister, with entire families being killed for Mezanerin’s inane plans. No one knows what the Trickster’s goals or intentions are except for the demi-god itself. Some believe it is an entity of pure chaos, intent on destroying the realms. Others believe the enigmatic entity is a protector of the realms, commanding its indentured clergy to complete numerous tasks that stave of the end of the world. However the true intentions of the mimicking god may never be known.
A Price Too High
Unfortunate adventurers can often find help with resurrecting their fallen comrades within most cities and some towns. Clerical Priests and Tribal Shamans will often offer their services of resurrection to passing adventurers, usually for a price. In some circumstances the price is far too great.
The smooth ageless features of the cleric Hilis should warn seasoned adventures of the impending danger. Her nubile skin and firm body are often accentuated by ceremonial robes unfit for a clergy member of her status. Her sharp crystal blue eyes hold the unforetold wisdom of countless years, while her thin lips are often pursed as if her mouth were permanently soured, much like the words she throws at the rest of her clergy. Hilis is famous within her hometown, and questions about her are quickly answered with smiles and regaling stories of miracles and acts of generosity. Ask about her age, and be met with blank stares and confused looks as people stutter over their answer before simply stating that Hilis has just always been around. This miraculous cleric is made all the more benevolent through her acts of generosity. Hilis refuses monetary payment for any of her acts of miraculous healing and resurrection, instead she requests that one drop of blood be spilled in the name of her saviour. Polished to a perfect shine, the inside of this silver chalice is half filled with the dried blood of the countless people Hilis has saved.
For many of the grateful souls that Hilis has healed, a single drop of blood is a highly acceptable payment in return for the life and well being. When some of the poorer inhabitants of the area offer more blood than asked out of simple gratitude, she graciously denies. The ageless cleric actually gains her powers from a Warlock’s pact, made countless years ago on the verge of her own death. A horrific demon offered the young Hilis eternal life, beauty and power in return for the completion of a simple task: to collect a drop of blood from sixty five thousand willing donors. This task, after countless years of using her Warlock powers to heal and raise the dead, is almost over. When the final drop of blood is given freely into the chalice, the seals holding the almighty demon within the Abyss shall break. Unleashing a demonic presence across the realms that would bring about the end of days. If discovered for her evils, Hilis will quickly flee from any form of confrontation. The ageless Warlock uses her fame and presence within the area to rally support and protection from the people around, countless people will rally against any that wish Hilis harm, willingly risking their own lives to protect the healer they love so much. These mobs of protectors refuse to listen to reason or logic and blindly act in anyway they believe will protect their innocent and miraculous cleric. A final confrontation with Hilis can be resolved quickly as the Warlock has only healing spells and abilities. However if Hilis is able to willingly shed her own blood into the chalice, it acts as the last drop, unleashing a far greater threat across the realms.
Life of a Reaper
Death is an inevitability for almost all within the realms, the multitudes joining the ranks of the immortals. As such the Reapers of the world are forever engaged with collecting the lost souls of the fallen. It is not widely known that reapers are flesh and blood… mostly. They walk upon the material plan like any other, guiding the truly lost to their final resting place. Reapers are not born, but chosen. Epically powerful heroes can often be chosen whilst on the verge of death. As a Reaper stands over the fallen hero, they can offer them a chance to change their destiny. This offer is reserved for only the greatest and most noble of heroes. Reapers have a deep seeded disgust for any malevolent spirit that remains upon the material plain to inflict harm or revenge. Ghosts, Spectres, Wraiths and every other ectoplasmic entity will flee from the presence of a Reaper, whose powers grant the ability to instantly smite the undead. Reapers have families, friends and enemies. They are not completely immortal but they can be killed with enough perseverance. Excessive physical harm will fell a Reaper; they are also particularly weak to weapons smithed from pure iron. A regenerative ability keeps them standing far longer than any other mortal, and they can also see clearly into the ‘shade’, the demi-realm where spirits and souls wander. A Reaper will often develop more abilities when they become particularly successful at guiding the lost. As each soul is guided to the afterlife the Reaper is slightly empowered by the passing. Telekinetic abilities can manifest in numerous ways and they can also become capable of entering the shade, moving freely through walls and obstacles.
Critical Hits Podcast #19: 4e DMing Tips Seminar
Lead by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish, and joined by Matt James of Loremaster and Dave The Game (myself), the last seminar from synDCon 2010 was about tips for DMs, primarily for 4e D&D but also some help for GMs of all RPGs. The first part focuses on how to plan a game (and the creative process in general) and the last part talks about tips for running at the table, including ways to run initiative and track conditions.
Products mentioned: Masterplan Software, Dark Platypus Action Stands
4e DMing Tips Seminar (50 minutes, 23 MB)
[Download iPod version | Download MP3 version | Podcast Feed]
Character Concepts: Dragonborn
The first of the race specific supplement books from Wizards of the Coast is out, Player’s Handbook Races: Dragonborn, and in a nutshell if you’re playing or thinking about playing a dragonborn character this is a book you will want to check out. More of a booklet, this is a 32-page softcover that is roughly half story and background for the entire race of dragonborn as well as for individual characters. The other half includes one paragon path for each power source (martial, arcane, divine, and primal), a large selection of new feats, a handful of new items, and a race specific epic destiny. This book is a great resource for a player with a dragonborn character or for a DM with particular interests in the race, and it provides a lot of great options for making your character stand out from the crowd and really feel like a dragonborn PC.
The elemental energy that surges within you also courses through your blade.
A dragonborn fighter is one of the toughest adversaries, not only because of the racial boost to strength but also because of the ability to combine combat challenge with a breath weapon to mark multiple creatures at one time. With the Honorable Blade paragon path for martial characters presented PHB Races: Dragonborn you gain even more ways to utilize your breath weapon to maximum effect. The level 11 path feature Dragon Breath Action allows you to use your dragon breath power whenever you spend an action point, even if it has already been expended during the current encounter. In addition, the Draconic Sidestep encounter attack power allows you to use your dragon breath power another time even if it has already been expended, giving you a minimum of three dragon breath attacks per encounter. With the ability to mark any target that you attack, this allows you to change the course of a battle several times. If you also take the Hurl Breath feat you can use your dragon breath up to a range of 10 as an area burst 2, which allows you to mark a large number of targets from a distance. [Read the rest of this article]
Critical Hits Podcast #18: Planning Your Campaign Using the 5×5 Method Seminar
I gave a talk at synDCon 2010 on how to use the 5×5 Method to plan a campaign arc. I took suggestions from the audience and walked through the process, and by the end, we had the structure to start planning.
This one is a bit more heavily edited, since it was a lot of audience participation and the recorder didn’t pick that up as well. Hopefully it still flows pretty well and you can follow along- be sure that you check out the table below to see the final 5×5 grid.
Planning Your Campaign Using the 5×5 Method Seminar (33 minutes, 14 MB)
[Download iPod version | Download MP3 version | Podcast Feed]
Gears of Ruin: The Phantom Rails, Part 1
This series of actual play reports concludes the ‘Ruiner’s Gambit’ prelude adventure to my new Gears of Ruin clockwork D&D Campaign. The action continues where it left off last time…
Behind the Scenes Jitters.
I did precious little prep in the last 2 weeks, partly because a lot of the work had been done, but mostly because I had to prepare the many training seminars I’m going to teach over the next 4 months (including one starting this week).
The little prep I did was to flesh out the elements that the players could explore around and within the Baron’s Factory/Mine. My dungeon map was a flow chart made of ‘areas/scenes’ (You can download it here to see what it’s like). Each area was a potential scene where I described a list of props, likely occupants and, more importantly, a list of what could help PCs (friend/info) or hurt them (Foe/Hazard/trouble) should they attempt any skill checks.
The one rule I gave myself was “Shape the adventure based on the questions your players ask you” and “When in doubt, ask for a skill check”.
It worked wonderfully. So much so that my first true sandbox dungeon adventure probably felt like a seamless linear adventure narrative to my players who probably thought they were just following the path I had made for them.
Chgowiz would be proud.
Incompetence is the best disguise!
As the PCs rested for a few minutes after the last fight, they starting rooting around while I described that the ‘agent’ was also rummaging in boxes and under tarps. The PCs found ammunitions for the Titan Clank cannon, Thuderwave missiles, a replacement head for the Claw-Crane and drums of highly flammable clank engine oil (yeah, don’t Fridge Logic that one please).
I was secretly setting the Rule of C4 for the players, but oddly enough, they chose to focus on something else instead.
Eric: So what does the agent do really?
Chatty: Kinda hard to say, he makes sure you only see his back.
Yan: Of course, he’s doing spy work
Math: Good work Sherlock!
Eric: Can I try to work out what he does (Rolls Insight, gets a moderate success)
Chatty: He seems to be approaching his secret agent Life-watch against things he looks at but you detect that he’s also leaning in toward whatever he’s ‘watching’ with his other arm too.
When they approached him, I played the agent as so clueless and unable to explain how his watch worked that most of my mastermind players (in the Myers-Briggs sense) players dismissed him as incompetent and ignored him for the rest of the adventure.
At that point I decided to set one of my side plots in one direction…
He he he. Gotcha suckers! (Not that it changed anything really)
Being Deadly Cool on a Mound of Corpses
Instead of lingering near all that explosive goodness (then again, who would?), or exploring the crane by climbing it (they thought about it), the PCs went toward the awful stench and circling buzzards they saw in the factory’s southern courtyard.
There they observed quite a gruesomely well staged scene. A huge mound made up of thousands of humanoid bodies was being ‘worked’ by a group of frakensteinian-undead constructs (Blasphemes from the Open Graves sourcebook) suited up in Clanks that featured giant chainsaws as right arms and large vice-like hands on the left. They were busy cutting up body parts and throwing them on clockwork rail carts that brought the gory cargo into the factory periodically.
The Chain-Loggers as I called them were accompanied by a pair of Blaspheme Disciples (Artilleries) that kept a large number of slobbering Ghouls at bay! Finally, little Foulspawn Chiurgeons were running around the place cutting bodies up for good organs and packing them carefully for later use.
Yeah, many players were grimacing in mild disgust by that time.
After a short survey of the area (I drew a battle map to show how things looked but wasn’t sure how I’d play the scene yet), I had the group roll a group perception check (i.e. you need half the group to succeed) and announced that they spotted a body wearing an Agent uniform (i.e. my ‘fork in the story’ I chose earlier) lying near the top of the mound.
You know what happened next right?
Well think again…
Credit: Steampunk Chainsaw (sans chain) art by shaddam89
Video Interview with D&D Creative Manager Chris Perkins
Nick interviews D&D Creative Manager Chris Perkins about being a killer DM, running D&D for celebrities, making your NPCs memorable by doing voices, and more.
Special thanks to They’re Using Tools! for their video editing work.
Interview with D&D Creative Manager Chris Perkins (19 minutes, 230 MB video, 14 MB audio)
[Download video iPod version | Download audio-only MP3 version | Podcast Feed]
Will of The Forsaken (WTF for short)
There was a full decade of my life when I declared there were two things I’d never play. One was MMO’s. I decided this when a guy I knew quit his job to play Everquest full time and mooch off his girlfriend. The other was collectible card games, because I was astounded at how much money one could drop on them. This decision was made easy to live with by being in college and/or mostly poor. Over the last two years, both of these vows have been broken. I’ve started and quit playing WoW twice now, and last year I killed two birds with one stone by starting to play the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game (which I will refer to hereafter as WoW TCG, as I dislike typing and/or pasting).
I was absolutely not prepared for having both disposable income and my first real introduction to collectible card gaming. At first, it was lots of boosters. I’d hungrily open each pack, hoping for a useful rare or epic draw. At some point, someone showed me the magic of buying single cards. While it never got to “completely irresponsible” levels of spending, I was blowing every cent I had available each week. And usually, it was on cards I “might use” after reading about some strategy on a forum. I shudder to think at how much money I spent doing this. Eventually, I managed to slow down. I started using LackeyCCG for my experimentation purposes, and I haven’t bought new cards in a month or so. I have more than I know what to do with now. More than I want to sit and sort.
I suppose I should actually mention that I really, really enjoy the game itself. I was never much into Magic: The Gathering, but a lot of the guys I play with were. In Magic, you have a ton of Land cards you use as resources to play your spells. Frequently, you find yourself either with not enough lands to do anything, or you have a crapload of lands and no spells. WoW TCG’s solution to this problem is to have generic resources that everything uses. There are Quest and Location cards that act as resources and have effects you can pay or tap for (frequently some variation on drawing more cards). If you don’t have any of those, you can just take one of the cards in your hand and put it face down. Ta daa! No more mana-screwing. This seems like a nice enough solution to me, but to watch a former Magic player see this mechanic in action is not unlike watching someone get faith-healed at one of those giant televised church revivals. Yes, complete with seizures, speaking in tongues, and the surprising ability to walk again.
The game tries to mimic its MMO parent in as many ways as it can, and you play a class with specific powers. You also play Horde or Alliance, which has different ally cards (and sometimes powers), and it provides a varied and rich game experience. That, coupled with familiar characters (to WoW players, anyway), gives the game a lot of personality. You can even stop fighting each other and play a “raid deck”, facing off against the bosses of many of the more popular raids in WoW. I personally have played Molten Core and Naxxramas, and I count these experiences as among my favorites in gaming. Ever. No, really. I enjoyed card-raiding way more than doing the same raids in “real” WoW. The card game is really good.
Therefore, you may understand my concern upon seeing this announcement on the official World of Warcraft forums. In short, Blizzard isn’t renewing Upper Deck’s license to make the game. Okay, so they’re going to change companies. Granted, all my cards have an Upper Deck logo printed on the back, but theoretically they’ll still be tournament legal if we all use opaque game sleeves, right? Right?
Then someone passed me this announcement. Here’s a good formula to raise my blood pressure.
- Step 1: Blow a ton of money on cards.
- Step 2: Read announcement that says “downturn in the economic climate” and “will not go into production” in reference to the card game you blew all the money on in Step 1.
Having seen a lot of CCGs come and go over the years, obviously this has me and the guys I play with very concerned. But this is Blizzard, and Blizzard isn’t known for failures. Here’s hoping they take a few shavings off their giant mountain of platinum and breathe new life into their errant creation. I think the most work needs to go into their marketing and public image of the game. There have been reports of tournament prize winnings not getting paid, which I’m sure they’ll put a stop to. The thing I think they need to work on most is the perception that the game is just an expensive way to buy yourself in-game loot in the MMO. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that. All you get is decorative stuff. Tabards, vanity pets and mounts. For me, selling the loot cards I got was just a way to keep funding the habit – like being a non-smoker in prison with a cigarette economy (except I don’t have Grom Hellscream tattooing a picture of Zy’lah Manslayer on my back for our “date” that night).
Here’s hoping Blizzard takes us out for dinner and a movie first at the very least. We’re not that kind of girl.
Inq. of the Week: A Whole Lot of Class?
Our previous inquisition talked about the game Dragon Age and its impact and inspiration on DMs as well as asking which character origins you’ve played in the game. I personally haven’t played the game yet, and it looks like 24% of you are there with me but I certainly plan on playing it once I get the chance. The Human Noble Warrior origin came out in a narrow lead with 28%, followed by Human Noble Rogue tied with Elf Magi Mage at 26%. Behind them was Human Magi Mage at 21% with Elf City Rogue and Dwarf Noble Warrior tied behind that at 18%. The least popular origins were Elf City Warrior at 6% and Dwarf Noble Rogue at 5%.
Martial Power 2 comes out tomorrow, and having gotten a look at the book I am very disappointed that my current party does not have any martial classes at all out of eight players, not even through multi-classing. This passed weekend I had the opportunity to run an adventure of Dave’s game while he was out of town and really enjoyed seeing the Fighter class in action for the first time as a DM. All of this has led me to wondering exactly which classes all of you are playing and as a result which classes are the most played and which don’t get that much love. This becomes even more interesting when you think about the fact that the Player’s Handbook 3 is coming out in about a month and will introduce six new classes to the game. Since there are playtests available for a few of those classes I’ll include them in this week’s inquisition.
Loading ...I’ve been running my D&D campaign since 4th Edition first came out, and haven’t played a regular character more than once. The few times I have played, however, I’ve played a barbarian in Dave’s game, a cleric in Phil’s Drinking D&D adventure at GenCon 2008, a druid in a delve at GenCon last year, and a ranger in E’s Eberron game. [Read the rest of this article]
