League of Legends: Nautilus

So a new patch has come and gone and a new champion has been released. Nautilus was a billed as a tank, and I thought I’d play him a bit to see just how everything works on him. Almost sorry to say that 3 days and a dozen or so games, I have yet to build this guy once as he was intended. Almost sorry. Nautilus is just insanely fun to play with a variety of builds, each one having a specific style to it. So, bear with me when I say I play Nautilus in lane or jungle, and my build changes drastically. How drastically? Well, before opening that can of worms, let’s look at his skills…

Alright, I lied. First let's look at the Big Daddy.

 

(Passive) Staggering Blow: Nautilus’ basic attacks bind the target in place and deals bonus physical damage. Effect can not occur more than once every 12 seconds on an individual target.

Dredge Line: Nautilus throws his anchor in a line pulling himself and the first enemy hit together. Dredge Line can also be used on terrain, quickly pulling Nautilus along and reducing the cooldown by half.

Titan’s Wrath: Nautilus creates a shield around himself, scaling off of bonus health. While the shield holds, Nautilus’ basic attacks inflict a short damage-over-time effect on the target and near-by enemies.

Riptide: Nautilus sends out a pulsing shockwave, dealing damage and slowing anything caught in the pulse. Subsequent hits from pulse dead reduced damage and slow less.

(Ultimate) Depth Charge: Nautilus sends out a pulsing shot that seeks out a single target. As the charge travels, it will knock up any enemy it passes under, finally knocking up and stunning the target.

TERAble Points

This post is brought to you by Agonizing Puns, Inc. Anyways, today we’re going to look over a few of the things from the TERA Online beta that I didn’t like. To varying degrees of vitriol and hate. Now, do keep in mind as much caustic hate as I’m about to throw around, I do really enjoy this game. I still have footage to upload where I was playing almost four times longer than I thought, it was just that fun to play. But there is no such thing as a perfect game, and it’s utterly foolish to just ignore the bad points of a game. Gotta look at the bad as well, so let’s get cracking.

Character Creation:

So, as you know there are a wide variety of races and classes, and all of those races are very distinct from each other. However, half the races have problems differentiating individuals from the race. There is very, very little you can do to make your Elf or Human look different from the next Human or Elf, outside of tweaking the face. Which is the thing people will almost never see unless they specifically zoom into your face to check. Even then, your options are limited. While you can change the color of your hair, skin tones and eye color are completely static. You can’t change any of it to try to stand out more. Even worse though, what you can use to differentiate yourself still falls flat, because the animal ears for the Elin and the horns for Castanic are tied into specific hairstyles, so you can’t put, say, fox ears and long hair together. It will always be the one style and one ears/horns.

TERA: First Impressions

So yesterday marked the beginning of the NA TERA beta tests, and I’ve spent the better part of the past day hard at play work running around and seeing just what is what. Besides some rather… jarring graphical glitches, the game is very solid and looks to be shaping up to be a great mmo launch later in the year. Especially with one of the high-points of a fresh combat style in the way over-done market of tab-target hotkey based combat. So what does TERA look like on the inside?

Well, as we covered before, the combat is absolutely amazing. I’ve gone through and played 3 classes so far (Lancer, Berserker, and Archer) and each has a distinct, noticeable play-style. Some happen to be very slow burners, like the Lancer. If you happen to pick the good ol’ tank, keep in mind that it won’t really pick up until around level 10ish or so. However, as the game rolls along you steadily get to the point where bloody near nothing in a 1v1 environment can kill you, just by virtue of the absurd block rating on the Shield itself. Other classes like the Archer are pretty much set to go the second you log in to the game. You have a bow, and you have a jump back. Go nuts. Skills added along the line add to the fun, but the same core style remains the same.  Combat is also extremely fluid, with monsters having noticeable, but not blatant, tells so the observant can try and time out the last second of a block or dodge when the less-sure can easy just block or evade earlier, losing a bit of damage but staying safe in the process. How does combat look in TERA? Well… (Audio is kind of borked, Trying to sort it out for future videos)

League Basics

First and foremost, you may be thinking, “Kana! Why are you posting Wednesday morning?” and the answer to that is simply: TERA Online beta this week! Yes, the closed beta to my Monster Hunter-surrogate begins Friday. So, I’ve decided to push back both posts, though honestly depending on how much footage I record Friday may mean the post is pushed back to Saturday morning. Hoping to get some solid gameplay with at least 2 classes this test cycle. Thinking Berserker and Archer, but if there is a class you’d rather see, by all means let me know! I’d be glad to get some footage about more of what people want. Now then, that out-of-the-way…

Today I wanted to cover something a little different from game mechanics. Going to go over a few of the basic mechanics of League of Legends and how you, the play, can interact with them to improve your game. Going to covering a decently wide range of topics so we won’t dive into too much detail, but if there are questions I can always expand on them later.

Zone Control:

First, watch that. Yes, the video is old, but it’s still every bit as accurate now as it ever was. Zoning has the effect of controlling your opponent through what are essentially mind games. What you want to do is bully the enemy lane (most effective if it’s 1 enemy in the lane, but it can be done against 2) until they have to retreat, then moving into position to prevent them from farming. Even better, if you can hold them well while only last hitting minions, your minions will only push very slowly. For every minion of yours that dies in the middle of the field, as opposed to the enemy tower, is another bit of experience you can deny, gaining more of an advantage. Some champions have insane innate zone control; Ziggs can completely lock out an enemy mid just by using Hexplosive Minefield, though the large radius will probably wind up pushing the minion wave bit by bit.

League of Legends: Ziggs

Well, it’s been forever since I’ve done one of these first impression articles, so I thought I’d get back to it, especially for some of the more recent champions, and maybe for some general stuff. Plenty of great things to talk about in the wide world of league, but for now, let’s start with the most recent champion released: Ziggs, the Hexplosives Expert.

Ziggs is a ranged mage with an ungodly amount of zone control, however he is lacking in any short of hard crowd control outside a single small knock back (For comparison, it’s a little bigger than Maokai’s). He is extremely squishy, and lacks a reliable escape as well, so once you close the distance he’ll go splat real quick. However, unlike most other mages, Ziggs is amazing at area-denial and psychological attacks, keeping enemies from moving in specific directions, or even from leaving specific areas at all. For starters, let’s look at Ziggs’ kit and how it all ties together.

Sea of Dreams (And also League)

So, today something a little different. Since the new champion in League of Legends is (hopefully) releasing sometime today, I thought I’d move my schedule back a day and get out a first impression of Ziggs tomorrow. So, rather than leave you with nothing again, I decided to repost my BioShock 2 articles from way back yonder, from before this blog even got it’s overhaul. With BioShock Infinite looming closer with every day, I thought it’d be fun to go back and check out the first two again, just for old-time’s sake. Without further ado…

Right then, BioShock 2. Now, before the caustic hate goes out, let’s start off with some caustic love. BioShock 2 was very much what I was hoping for in many ways, and being back in Rapture was a blast. Voice acting could have been improved, but I’m biased on account of having to hear southerners every time I walk outside. The whole experience was still as visually stunning as I had expected and immersive as I’d hoped. All in all BioShock 2 was a great game by itself and probably going to be one of ‘Games of the Year’. But there is the problem, BioShock 2 isn’t a stand alone game. It’s a sequel to BioShock. This is where things start to fall apart, and BioShock 2 falls much farther than before.

BioShock was a fantastic game that drew me in and never let me back out until the credits started rolling, and considering how decrepit and insane Rapture was, that was no small feat. I felt like I wasn’t some gamer, but that I was inside the city, just trying to survive long enough to get the hell out. That I was caught up in the battle between Ryan and Atlas not because I wanted too, but because I had too as a means to escape. And because Ryan was a jerk. But that was later on. BioShock 2 on the other hand, you know exactly what you are doing and where you are. There is none of the chaos and decay of before except for that you leave in your destructive wake. You were often in touch with Atlas, but he was more of a guide, either suggesting where to go or begging for help to save his family. Atlas, not Fontaine, stick with me people. He was a human in need, also caught up in the madness of Rapture’s fall. Sinclair on the other hand is hardly hurting for anything, he’s been loaded from the plasmid business and wants to go to the surface just to exploit them too. Hardly a sympathetic character. Tenembaum makes an appearance for all of two levels at best, before disappearing and all but saying ‘This is Sinclair, he is my replacement. I’m on vacation now.’ The good path I took didn’t even have Tenembaum talking to me, it was Elanor instead. The very person I’m supposed to be rescuing.  That was another thing, plasmids/ADAM aside, Elanor just talks way too much. It’s hard to think she’s ever in trouble when she’s shooting something off every time you do something. Would have been more believable if a Little Sister had been waiting for you to tell you a little bit, maybe even team up with you. There was a lot with the characters that either went against how we were supposed to feel about them or just flat out replaced it. Time for a few examples;

Living Ambiance

Some of you might remember an older article I wrote about music in video games, but there was something in there I mentioned in passing that I wanted to expand on. Namely, ambient sounds. This is a place where a lot a developers drop the ball, because coming up with dozens to hundreds of sounds that a good number of people won’t even notice can’t be worth it, right? On the contrary, people might not notice when it’s there, but we’ll notice when it’s not.

First and foremost, what is ambient noise? Simply put, it’s the sounds the world makes. Bugs creaking in the night, the winds rustling through the trees, the groaning of stressed metal. Dozens of little things that come together to truly bring the world to life, that make it feel like it’s in motion, as opposed to stuck in permanent stasis until the protagonist comes along and sets off something nearby. Some games do use ambiance to bring in the player, but it’s almost always a calculated move for that specific area, and will usually stop as you move away from the event trigger.

Hello? Anything there?

Stop SOPA!

Mini-update today, trying to spread the word. If you didn’t know by now, there is extereme legislation in the United States’ Congress that could potentially destroy a free internet. It can be bad enough that my little hole-in-the-blog could be shut down by anyone just by using one piece of copyright material without getting approval. Even under free use, like say, a screen shot of a game. Think about what that means for gaming journalism, streamers who make a living playing games, professionals in the eSports world. We could use a very significant and important part of gamer culture if this passes. Do your part, spread the word. Fight SOPA.

If you’d like to know more about how damaging SOPA can be, or even just WTF it is, TotalBiscuit did an excellent video. Take a look, pass the word, and keep the internet open for us all.

Into Auraxis (PlanetSide 2)

So, last time there was actually a lot of interest in the new Planetside, so I’d like to get a little more info out there. Starting with basic things like who everyone is, and faction benefits, then going on to the delicious scraps of info we’ve been fed so far. First and foremost, the best news of it all. PlanetSide 2 is free-to-play, and will feature a cash-shop like what’s found in League of Legends. Power won’t be for sale, but you can buy convinence items and cosmetic changes. Hard to think of anything they can do to make Vanu look more amazing though.  Hopefully we can generate even more interest in the game and give a long, long life. Part of the joy of PlanetSide is the massive battles and the world filled with constant warfare. So, let’s start with the basics; the Three Empires.

Terran Republic:

One of the more common in promotional materials (that I’ve seen), the Terran Republic are loyal to the Earth government that has been cutoff ever since Auraxis lost it’s connection with Earth. The TR weapons and vehicles focus on speed above all else, whether it is vehicle speed or rate of fire, the Terran Republic can’t be matched in terms of speed. They are also more reliant on numbers than the other factions, needing more people to fill the air with as many bullets as they possibly can. Their designs also tend to be fairly fluid and slender. Good choice if you want to be group oriented, to bring the most out of your Empire’s strengths.

New Conglomerant:

The New Conglomerant are the second of the three Empires, and are a group of misfits ranging from massive corporations to thieves and terrorists. Their weapons may not be as state-of-the-art as the Terran Republic’s, but don’t let that fool you. In terms of raw power, nothing can beat the NC. Their weapons and vehicles pack the biggest punch and will hurt like hell if you happen to be caught by them. They also tend to be more armored than what you’d expect, but all that firepower and armor comes with a cost, and they aren’t the most mobile of the empires. Their designs tend to be extremely bulky and have more than a few sharp angles. Good for more solo (relatively speaking, you will still need backup) players, giving a bit more punch to make up for a lack of numbers.

Vanu Sovereignty: 

The third and favorite Empire of mine, the Vanu Sovereignty. The VS are a group of transcendentalists who believe the ultimate evolution of humanity can only be achieved by incorporating more of the ancient Vanu technology. As a result, their armor and weapons tend to be the most out there, having lasers and plasma where other empires might use bullets. While the Vanu Sovereignty aren’t the hardest hitting or quickest of the Empires, their mobility is second to none. While the Terran Republic may be quicker, the VS have greater mobility with anti-gravity technology. While the New Conglormerant hit harder, they can’t match some of the utility the VS bring to the table. Though, I could be biased about this. Maybe. Vanu design is more out there, with triangles and overlapping metal plates. Also, their color is purple. Whats not to love? Good faction for players who want to abuse the greater mobility of the vehicles or use the different weapons the Vanu have at their disposal.

PlanetSide: War Unending

So, today is a special day. Not because of any holiday (although Riot did release 4 amazing skins for the New Year), but because of an influx of information about a game I absolutely loved. So today, you’re going to be getting a story. But first, a little set up. As you can probably guess, the game I’m referring to is PlanetSide, the old MMOFPS of yesteryear. I can’t tell you when, exactly, I picked the game up, but it was early in the MMO journey. It was a little bit after I stopped playing EverQuest, but couldn’t sate the desire of a game… bigger, than what other games were offering. I wanted something massive. Something to scratch that budding shooter itch I was developing. And then I saw it in my local E.B. Games, PlanetSide. A PC game that captivated me just from the box art. I took my money and bought the game, and got a family member to buy me a month-long time card. And thus my adventures on Auraxis began.

There is plenty of story to the game, but to keep things brief, there was a mineral rich planet found on the other side of a wormhole, that people flocked to for riches and wealth. Sadly, the wormhole began to destabilize, isolating the world of Auraxis. To complicate matters, alien artifacts belonging to a race known as the Vanu, and some of the technology that was recovered preformed miracles. Death became nothing, as Vanu technology gave people the ability to be reborn instantly, and the world quickly shattered. The Terran Republic remained loyal to the Earth government that it had been separated from, and formed the first of the three empires. The Second was a miss-match New Conglomerate, a democratic empire founded by everything from industrial giants to lowly terrorists and mercenaries. And then, the Third empire, the Vanu Sovereignty, who believed human evolution would only come through the Vanu technology. Transcendence through Alien tech, oh gee, I wonder what faction I was playing as?