Introduction to Guild Wars 2

Of all the games we all have to play and stick to, we all knew that sooner or later I had to write something about an MMO, and since it's my blog. I know, I know, I havent been posting this weekend, but to save myself from the rage, Here it is! A Big one about one certain game! I choose Guild Wars 2!

let's start with the first one!

Friday Indiegame: FTL (Faster Than Light)

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Ha! well that was fun, no? all right, damn it.

Faster Than Light (known as FTL) is made by Subset Games founded by 2 people with the names Justin Ma and Matthew Davis, both former 2K China employees. This game is their first released title which was the product of a successful Kickstarter campaign which raised over 2000% of their requested budget. How much you ask?

Subset Games asked for 10,000 dollars but boasted in 200,542 dollars instead, using the additional funds on music and more content for the game. (alot of the money went to the Music)

Now then! TO THE BRIDGE!

The game is based on a galaxy with different sectors controlled by different races, coalitions and pirates. The player belongs to a once powerful Federation, which has been weakened by the years of war against Rebels, and it's so severe that the Federation is about to be Destroyed.

The crew on your spaceship managed someone to get theirs hands on the secret Rebel plans that can turn the tide of battle. The problem is that the Federation base is many sectors away from your starting position, and to make it more fun; The entire Rebel fleet are chasing you with a reckless attitude.
Not only that, almost all the spaceship you meet on your voyage wants to kill you and use your spaceship for scrap materials.

OK so that was the story behind it, but what about the game and whatnot?
The first thing that happens when you start up a new game is how you can rename the crew and spaceship, You can change the layout or choose a different ship (although you need to finish the game or do certain achievements to unlock them). All the ships have different weapons, layout and looks. You can choose between Easy and Normal, get used to die, because this ain't a happy place when you try it for the first few times.
The start is in a sector where you have to jump from location to locations until you're at the far end of that sector and to phase to a new one. From time to time you will get some distress calls, ambushes, quests and stores.

TO THE COMBAT! 

The combat in FTL is something new (in my eyes at least), you start with 3 crew members and you need to assign them to different locations on your ship, of course you need a pilot but you also need someone to control the weapons and shield, so you send them all around the ship.

The combat starts with you FTL to a new location, there are times you get ambushed, you got the upper hand or simply the enemy is trying to escape. You have the ship's energy that you need to assign to certain utilities on the ship, at the start you probably need to turn of the power on the first aid station to power up all the weapons for a full attack on the enemy ships or to power up your shield so you can survive the attack. The start is the "best" part since you need to think on how you want to engage the enemy ship.

There is a small speed boost to pick up when you assign people to different posts, for an example how the weapons recharge faster when you have a gunner there, and the shield if you have someone working on that post.

To be honest what makes this game is so addictive, is when you start to play you'll just tell yourself "i'll just play one game" and BAM, you've played through the day/night with no clue of what time it is. After you've failed a couple of times and learned how the game works, you've probably paid attention to how the games you've played haven't been exactly the same, maybe the distress call wasn't there the last time, or how you get attacked by a bunch of pirates so often.
This game take a small time to get used to, but when you do it's a game worth playing forever!

And not to forget the setting, the music, sounds and looks! 
First of all, the graphics are so well done, everything goes so well hand in hand.
The music is really enchanting, when I listen to it while i play i get this wanted feeling, or that I'm in space, ready to fight whatever that's out there.
The sounds are the classic "MIDI" sounds but on purpose, making it even better!

oh great... I started playing it again!
oh well, this should make up for the "Friday indiegame" I hope, and dont forget to +1 the hell out of this one if you want me to keep up the 'good' work ;D

Zombie Games: Left 4 Dead

Right! I got my Coffee and my music, the plan is to make posts about zombie games. So many games, so little time! So let's get this started and hope there isn't a zombie horde waiting for me outside when I'm done!

We've all loved a good zombie movie or TV show, just look at The walking dead; great show and a great game!

But zombie games, we hate them, we love them! We have games that make you a zombie, we have games where you're the survivors. Who doesn't love a great story about a group trying to fight their way through a horde of zombies, praying to whatever gods they believe in to help them reach the safe zone/house/room. Even when the chances are slim that they will survive the oncoming slaughter.

But since I'm a co-op person, I'll be talking about the games with multiplayer/co-op.

Let's start with one of my favorites:

LEFT 4 DEAD

Made by Turtle Rock Studios, Valve bought them during development. Thanks to that it's using the Source engine we all love so much.

"Pennsylvania suffers an outbreak of 'Green Flu'; a highly contagious virus causing extreme aggression, mutation to the body cells, and loss of higher bran functions.

Two weeks after the first infection four immune survivors---Bill, a Vietnam veteran; Zoey, a college student; Louis, an IT analyst, and Francis, an outlaw biker---make their way through the city of Fairfield, only to discover that the virus is creating more dangerous mutations. After narrowly avoiding these new infected, along with horde of others, the survivors are alerted to the presence of an evacuation point at the nearby Mercy Hospital roof by a passing helicopter. Fighting their way through the city's streets, subway and sewers." 

You can read more about it here, although i recommend you to play it rather than reading the wiki and to spoil the story about it all.

What makes this a good game is the mechanic and story, how the co-op works together as you can knock off zombies that's trying to feast on your friend, to even work as a team to take down a huge zombie called 'TANK'. Not only that, the Characters you even have conversation with each other as you were just sitting there watching a movie.

The gamemodes:

Campaign (Singleplayer) - It's self explanatory really, you play all alone but with AI characters who follow you around, they might be stupid but they have the reaction of a snake! The only issues with the AI is how stupid they are when they see a Witch and could get a lockdown on trying to run around her by running in circles (atleast that's what happened to me!)

Campaign (Co-op)  - The cooperative campaign consists of up to four human-controlled survivors who attempt to make their way between safe rooms and eventually to rescue. In this mode, the special infected are controlled by the AI.

Versus - A versus campaign, each team of one to four players plays each chapter of the campaign as both survivor and infected, swapping sides once per chapter. Unlike campaign mode, dead survivors do not respawn. If at least one player-controlled survivor finishes the level, the survivor team earns 100 points as well as bonus points based on their health and the health items in their inventory. These points are then multiplied by the chapter's difficulty level, and the number of survivors who finished. If all player-controlled survivors are killed, the survivor team only earns points according to their average progress through the chapter and the difficulty multiplier.

Survival mode - This is a timed challenge where players try to survive as long as possible against a never-ending flood of the infected. (added in April 2009 in the Survival Pack downloadable content.)

When you've finished all the missions, you can check out the comic.
I do recommend you play it before you read. 
!SPOILERS! THE SACRIFICE !SPOILERS!

LEFT 4 DEAD 2

This is the Sequel of the famous  FPS shooter LEFT FOR DEAD, but now it's about 4 others that have survived the pandemic of an infectious disease that rapidly transforms humans into zombie-like creatures and mutated forms that demonstrate extreme aggression towards non-infected.

"Few humans are immune to the disease, still carrying the infection but showing no symptoms. The Civil emergency and Defence Agency (CEDA) and the U.S. military create safe zone to attempt to evacuate as many American survivors as possible.

Left 4 Dead 2 introduces four new survivors---Nick, Ellis, Coach, and Rochelle, who are immune to the disease and have individual back stories that are provided through character dialogue. While the game is intended as a continuation of the original, occurring one week after the first game begins, Valve decided to create a new group of Survivors because of the change in location."

You can find more about the story here

Now let's talk about the gameplay; they have learned from the bad things from L4D (if there is any!) new weapons and they also implemented melee weapons for those who like to see the heads and body parts fly.

The gamemodes:

Campaign (Singleplayer) - This one is the same as the first game, you play alone with AI  characters that will help you if you get grabbed by any special infected, but they will move so fast you can't even blink before they are trying to save your butt, compared to the first game AI has been improved.

Campaign (Co-op)  - You and 3 other friends fight your way through the infested city to reach the safe zone. With this you will fight AI special infected, from difficulty easy to expert. Easy is too, well, easy! But 

Campaign (Co-op) Realism - Realism is meant for people who play frequently together online. By this it gives the friends a huge challenge on almost everything! You will not respawn (unless your friends have a defibrillator), head shots are instant kills, outlines on friends are gone, the Witch will KILL any survivor they hit, regardless of the difficulty (not on easy).

Versus - Up to four other human players take control of various Special Infected to try and prevent the Survivors from completing a stage. Special Infected are randomly assigned to Infected players; they cannot control the Witch or any Common Infected. Occasionally, as determined by the "AI Director", players will become the Tank. The two teams swap sides once per stage, and are scored based on their stage progress as Survivors. If both teams make it to the safe room with all four Survivors, a 25-point tiebreaker is awarded to the team that dealt the most combined damage as Special Infected.

Survival - A timed challenge where the Survivors are trapped in a section of the campaign map, and try to survive as long as possible against an unending onslaught of infected. This is a great training of communicating with your friends.

Scavenge - A new 4-on-4 mode that requires the Survivor players to collect and use as many fuel cans scattered about a level to fill up a power generator, while the Infected players attempt to stop them

The Zombie genre is one of my favorites, as long as they have co-op in it. Mostly because I like to work together with friends to beat a game, or just to have fun and maybe some scary moments with them! Not only that, I do love the typical zombie apocalypse theme where we're all lost and you have to trust the ones around you to survive.

Yes, you guys are probably mad because I haven't added DayZ to this post, but relax! I will make a huge one about that, just you wait! If not... I bet it wont be zombies by my door, but DayZ fans! (Ha! I'm funny...)

Team Fortress 2

This is the sequel of the great Mod: Team Fortress, originally based on the FPS Quake that came out in August 24, 1996.
October 9, 2007 the game saw it's light once again but now it was a game made by Valve Corporation with a Source engine remake.

Why in the god's name am I talking about a 6 years old game? 
well, because it's still alive with all the hats and updates! They are still updating the game with new game modes, items and maps! The latest update came December 20, 2012. And I bet they got more to come!
Sure I must admit the player rate have gone down since the release but there are still players playing it! And thanks to Valve for going F2P on this game which increased the player rate again.

The story behind it all:

"The game was announced in 1998, and was first powered by Valve's GoldSrc engine, but it changed as it passed through several different design stages. In 1999, the game appeared to be to be deviating from it's predecessors by pursuing a more realistic and militaristic style of game play, but its design metamorphosed over an eventual nine-year development period. The final rendititon sports cartoon style visuals influenced by the art of J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell and is powered by the Source engine.
The game itself revolves around two teams, each other access to nine distinct characters, battling in a variety of game modes set in different environments or maps, often with a factory-warehouse theme.

The lack of information or apparent progress for six years of the game's original development caused it to be labeled as vaporware, and it was regularly featured in Wired News' annual vaporware list among other ignominies. Upon its release, the game received critical acclaim and several awards, being praised for its graphical style, balanced game play, humor and for its use of full character personalities in a dedicated multiplayer-only game."

You can read more about the background of it all here (wikipedia)

















What is Team Fortress 2?

Team fortress 2 is a Multi player-only game that is based on teamwork, Attack and Defend,  Control points, Capture the flag, Payload, Payload Race, King of the hill, Special Delivery Or the new "Co-op survival" Mann Vs Machine.

Let's not forget the Cosmetics! You got hats, socks, cigars, backpacks, scarfs, medals, balloons, "pets" and paints, a whole crap of stuff just to make your character look awesome/horribly ugly. Certain items do have a set bonus, but it's not overpowered in any way, like the game Battlefield heroes is.

Let's start with the typical Game play that we have all seen in games:

Capture the flag - This is mostly what I remember from Team Fortress Classic really, Trying our best to take the enemy flag back to our base and defend ours. What really makes this a different type of game play in the Team Fortress series is that you have engineers that can set down turrets that automatically attacks enemies in a specific area, which makes this more or less "challenging" for a fast type of class to grab the flag and run.

King of the hill - ah the typical "hold this area for a certain number of minutes" game mode. Not my cup o' tea, but it works for a couple of rounds before rotating to a different game type. For me it concentrates too much on 1 spot rather than a whole map.

Attack / Defend -  When the team works together it really pays off, especially if you are attacking. This is where it all begins, the RED team defends the points and the BLU tries to take it. There is 2 points total for every "phase" of the map (it might be different on certain maps, Community made for an example.)

Payload - This must be my favorite, BLU tries to push a bomb cart to the drop off point, while the RED tries to stop them. The deal here is that it's not like carrying a bomb to a bomb site like you do on CS, here you need to push a cart that goes on tracks, which makes it more needed for the teams to teamwork to push the payload to the checkpoints and the goal. If the payload is not touched/pushed for a certain amount of time, it will slowly go backwards toward the last checkpoint/start. Beware though! If you are pushing it uphill and die/go away from the payload, it will slide back down to the foot of the hill, which makes it a pain at certain choke points.

Payload Race - 2 teams. 2 carts. Basically the same as Payload but here you need to push your cart as well as stopping theirs before it reach it's goal. in my eyes this is a havoc, because mostly wants to push theirs and ignores the others, which can easily ruined if a player sees the opportunity to stop the enemy team.

Control Points - The goal for this game mode is to capture all points to win, sounds easy enough? Well it's not, both teams start with 2 control points each and 1 locked neutral, after a set amount of time the locked neutral point becomes available and the fight begins. You cant capture a point that is behind the enemy lines, you always need to capture the one closest to yours. Which makes this game mode bearable with the back and forth, even when the fight seems lost you can turn it around. 

Special Delivery - A fairly new game mode for this game, 1 flag. 2 teams. 1 common goal.
The goal for this is pretty much to get the flag to the goal and it's done! Not exactly, it's usually something more horrible than that. Let me explain: When you get to the end, you have to actually wait for an elevator to get you to the top of the rocket, so you can put the flag into it, but wait, there is more! The top needs to be unscrewed, which then again takes time. If you lose the flag, the enemy team can't grab it until it's reset back to it's original place. So this game mode makes it pretty much back and forth pretty often, but not only that, in my eyes the maps are too small for it and too fast really.

And last but not least, my favorite!

Mann VS Machine - oh man, I jumped in excitement when I saw this trailer. TF2 finally had a Co-op Survival part, finally me and 5 other buddies could work together as a team to kill robots and stop them from deliver the bomb to the MANN CO. building. ahem... well there is also public too if you want, but the deal with this game mode is that you got "boot camp" which usually means it's a public server, where you don't get any reward at all if you finish. 

"MANN UP" is the Mann CO. server to earn Tour of Duty loot and bragging rights. By bragging rights they mean the Hats, backs and weapons you have a 100% chance to get one of them if you finish off 1 operation tour. I recommend you strongly to bring friends, bring friends and communicate because some of those waves are so horrible you want to throw a damn coffee mug all over the place when you fail and fail and faaail! Especially with randoms when they are so stubborn on being the class they want when they are the "lone wolf" in a party of 6. it's often I've had to change to a different class because of that.





Let me talk more about Mann Vs Machine and the costs of real money for it:

If you and all your buddies uses a "Squad Surplus Voucher" which gives 1 item per player when you finish off a mission, so that means you will get 6 extra items! 
But before you get excited; MANN UP Ticket costs 0,74 euro and the Squad Surplus Voucher costs 1,49 euro.

Waaaait! Don't rage yet! this is what makes it so awesome! You can trade weapons with other players to get scrap metal, or even scrap your weapons for metal. Metal has become the currency for the game, as long as they got the random item drop while you play. you gain "money" to buy tickets from players, hell you can even buy keys for the MANN CO. crates that drops, it's not often it's any good in them though since it's random drop but you see a list of the things what you can get.

So if you even think Team Fortress 2 is lame because you need to "Pay 2 Win" you're wrong, you're so wrong you should just beat yourself with your mother's frying pan until you see the hospital sign! The only thing Team Fortress 2 is selling is cosmetics, even them are tradeable and dropable.  Sure you got those tickets and keys, but you don't NEED to buy them to unleash a badass weapon, because they drop... and you can trade them... 

But let's see some of the expensive hats/items there is in the game:

HAT OF UNDENIABLE WEALTH AND RESPECT
oh man, i want this hat so bad! This was a reward for completing all 28 objectives in The Great Steam Treasure Hunt.

 
NOTCH!
yes, this is really Notch from Mojang, and this is a one of a kind hat just for him, which makes it really expensive and... well invaluable! it's non tradeable and nongiftable aswell.










THE GOLDEN WRENCH
This weapon got promoted in the Engineer update, players that crafted items at that time had a chance of receiving a Golden wrench. There is only 100 of these.
Official list Here

TEAM CAPTAIN with fire effect.
this beauty got sold for 1500 dollars, DOLLARS!  Why the hell some people will even pay this much for a virtual item is just... strange, well if I had the money for it, I bet i would just waste it as well.

Watching other people play

I remember in my youth that we sat in front of the TV screen or the big old CRT monitors watching each other play games, mostly because we didn't have enough PCs or simply couldn't afford all the console ourselves, but also because we loved each others company. So with the consoles  we made a deal with each other, one of us buys Nintendo games and others buy Playstation and Xbox. Saves us alot of money and gives the console owners the "upper hand" in deciding what to play and when.

But Nowadays I can't stand to watch anyone else play video games, well, maybe except Zelda, Metroid and things in that genre. I need the co-operation in games, I can't stand to play singleplayer games alone, but I do love to play them when others are watching, makes it more fun. 
I love spending time playing with friends and families to try to beat the last boss, surviving the horde of zombies rampaging against us, or just simple kill other players and to show them how teamwork is done.

Let's make an example: 

Skyrim

Dont get me wrong, skyrim is a damn good game and it got me hooked for over 150 hours and I haven't finished it yet! The reason for that might be that I was never pleased with the character I've made or the fact that I just started to go randomly around and stopped playing for a while. After a while I return to the previous savegame and I got lost in what I was doing. Therefore I stop playing on that certain character. I need to recommend something for the game though, you got so many mods for this game. Enhancing the graphics, giving NPC's cloaks, Weapons, armors and even new kind of mobs! So thanks to Skyrim Nexus and Steam Workshop for making the Elder Scrolls World even more awesome! (I didn't think it was possible either!)


Sleeping Dogs

Pretty same as above, but there is a small "connection" between the other friends that has it, you got the leaderboard for the longest wheelie, most Roundhouse kicks 
(not sure if that's the name on it) etc.
The awesome part of this game is the combat system, it's not just the boring "punch, punch, punch"  type when you're fighting, there is combo's. certain people even have blocking, so you have to do a certain combo to break it. Or... if you're more of the gun type, just shoot!
Speaking of shooting, The combat system with firearms is also good, there are some flaws here and there, but overall I loved it to the bits.
What kind of a game is it? Well you could say it's GTA in Hong Kong.

Half-Life I and II (with Expansions and the episodes)

Yes, I know what you're thinking: "how the hell can you say that is boring to play Singleplayer? it's one of the best FPS games in the history!" , just calm down and let me explain myself before you try to torch me. 
I love The half-life series as the next guy, hell I might even love it more! But the clue here is: it's singleplayer. I love the story, I was entangled in it when i first played Half-Life in the 90's and Half-Life II in 2004. 
well.. mostly because it was a new engine and it was a continual on the great story of Dr.Gordon Freeman.



But wait! Here's the kicker!: I Can't stop playing it if I have one or more friends watching me play it, by that I mean sitting next to me or I am somehow streaming it just for those folks. This applies to all games that just have singleplayer. I just love the company when I play games, so that's why I always ask the question: "Does it have Co-op?"

Friday Indiegame: Minecraft

From this day forth! I shall attemt to make a theme for fridays, which should be about indiegames, maybe i'll even make wednesday FPS day or something. You can find more about indie games on wikipedia.


Indie games! it's everywhere and it's one of the most popular subjects gamers talk about. Sure you got the regular talk about how greedy EA is and how horrible the program Origin is or how great job Valve is doing with the program Steam is for that matter! But one of the 'indies' people talk about is Mojang and the game they've greated: Minecraft.

In the world of minecraft some people are lucky to find epic places like this.

Minecraft:
There is over 9 million copies sold, and I bet there is thousands of copies... pirated.
Still this is a game that was 10 euro in the early days when it was in alpha and beta, but 20 euro after the game came out as the "final product". Impressingly enough the game itself is modfriendly and there is thousand of mods available and here is to name a few:

FTB (Feed the beast, not really a mod, but a collective of mods)
Better Than Wolves (same as above)
Rei's Minimap
Millenaire

Alot of people enjoy the vanilla PvP and you got those creative minds that got the minecraft world at their disposal. You can find popular Minecraft videos like The Yogscast which does a great job in actually making an adventure in a player created world and scenery. yes, there is more people who make youtube videos, you got the griefers.

"Griefers, a sad bunch of people who got bullied at school or home, and just want to take on to other innocent people", as one would say by one that have seen the "assault" or even videos about it. Sure, there is the pro and con's about it all. yes I don't see the point in ruining others creations, other than they are just enjoying the misery of others, or they are just jealous of their victims creative minds.

But what's really interesting is how people enjoy watching those teams go into a server and literally just crash the server. But I do bet they all go an agenda to it, For an example:

1. The "griefers" get a mail or an insult from a guy or more people from the same server, where they tell them they are a piece of shit and have no life and should just die of cancer. 
2. Some power-hungry kids/teens/adults (whatever the age really) Abuses their powers being an admin, but then again I bet it would have been a scenario where they've hanged around on the server being "nice".
3. Ridiculous pricing on being a "VIP" on the server, or even an admin. Yes I know... server costs money, but there is a line between overpriced and normal fee. I've seen some stupid pricing myself, especially for being an admin and mainting the server.

 Then again.... there is always a bunch of people who just do it to ruin other's fun.


I could have written so much more about indiegames, but I feel that would be an essay rather than a small blog.

"When gaming becomes a lifestyle"

The title is really revealing the story itself , most of the people in the gaming world might even feel a sudden urge to really just yell out: "Gaming FTW! CoD beats Battlefield!" etc. You got so much examples even those two i've just said made a snowball into an avalanche in your head; "what console is better" and useless discussions like that, just admit it!

What they dont really think about is how actually gaming "ruins" some people as well as giving them a "job", earning them some money. Sure, you got a bunch of people who is having a healthy relationship with their hobbies, but you do have those who just wish to live in the gaming world, which is strangely addictive I must say.

Let's give you some examples on games you can "earn money" from Tournaments:

Counter Strike. (FPS) How this game got so popular, even 14 years later people still play it. Tournaments still going where the grand prize is money, yes, real money.

Starcraft (I and II) (Strategy)
Oh this one is a treat for the ones who loves to zerg the enemies! This one is one of the "hot topic" in the ESL (Electronic sports league) of strategy.

League of Legends (MOBA)
Aah, the good old Map on Warcraft III, the "father" of this game is called DoTa and was really a breathtaking consept when it first came out. Now there is plenty of "children" (if you want to call them that.) of this genre, but the one really popular is LoL with all the Tournaments going on.

Bear in mind there is alot of other games aswell that you can make a "lifetime job" out of, but I can't really hunt all of them down.

Another way to earn money is Let's play's and First impressions:

Total Biscuit: This genious, horrible at puzzles, straight forward and gives a good reason why certain games is good and bad (bear in mind, this does NOT make him a GOD to decide what you need to buy), everyone has an opinion about him and it's not always as good as the next one thinks. Thanks to him most of the gamers in the world get's a first impressions of games so they can decide themselves over a gameplay, rather than buying the whole game and gamble.

Jesse Cox: Truth be told he's one of the funny guys in the 
gaming world, he's a good voice actor in my opinion and really good at living into the games he plays, and even the roles of the voices. Let's not forget the Loremaster he is at times!

But never forget, there is always a plus and a negative side in everything. There is some who just play... just to play, they just wishes to escape from the reality into a more magnificent fantastic magic world where you can be your own master of your own story.

Me for an example, I'm a "hardcore gamer", what does it mean? I play games, alot of games, All the time, I even played some games while I wrote this post. I play games while I eat, I play games while I walk and so on, let's not be too detailed on it. 

But when I play, I play to win, I play to have a good time. I play To be the best. I spend my own time on it and damn it I will spend it wisely!

P.S. Since this is my first "blog attemt" be gentle! I will try to relate more to certain games, even make a small "review". But all in good time.