Additional thoughts on Enderal

Posted on May 6, 2019 by SynCaine

I’ve been chipping away at Enderal for a bit now, and have seen enough of it to give some initial thoughts. Overall its fantastic and well worth the price (free), but it’s not flawless.

Graphically it looks as good as Skyrim is likely to look in 2019. The world is beautifully built, the lighting is really excellent, and even the character models look much improved from what we normally see in Skyrim. All of this graphical excellence does come at a cost, and even on my top-end rig, the frame rate does dip below 60 at times (Enderal runs on the original version of Skyrim, which is capped at 60 FPS). I imagine the game would be 100% unplayable if released back when Skyrim originally came out.

The voice work is pretty hit or miss for me. A lot of it is good to great, but you do notice the occasional inconsistency, and some of the actors are REALLY bad. The writing itself is very good however, so even bad voice acting still mostly delivers interesting dialog. The random chatter of people in cities or enemies as you fight them is also a step up from Skyrim.

Gameplay mechanics are good, if perhaps a bit too complex. I get wanting to evolve Skyrim, and to add more depth, but sometimes it feels like there is complexity for the sake of complexity, or skills/abilities that only work when specifically combined with something else. Getting the combo to work does feel rewarding, but only the first few times, and in a game like this, you end up fighting A LOT, so repetition has to feel enjoyable rather than a chore.

The game is also a bit too into itself with some of the systems, where if you know all of the information, things click, but if you just try to approach things casually, you are going to struggle. Many of the quests aren’t directed, and while some of them you can figure out, a few I’ve had to look up, and once I had the answer, still couldn’t figure out WHY that was the answer.

The game doesn’t auto-scale like Skyrim, which overall is good, but the swings in difficulty can be pretty extreme. More than once now I’ve had the first few steps of a quest be very doable, and suddenly the next step appears to require you to be significantly stronger. The good here is that this encourages you to find stronger equipment and really take advantage of food, potions, and enchanting, but it can also be frustrating to run into a brick wall of an enemy and return later to finish that quest.

I’ll likely write more as I get deeper into the game, at least until this Thursday when the next Battle Brothers expansion is released, but again if you own Skyrim and enjoy that style of game, you should enjoy Enderal.

Posted in Random | 4 Comments

Epic Game Store exclusives walkback

Posted on April 26, 2019 by SynCaine

Back in December I predicted that one of the differentiator points Epic was trying to have with its store, the 2 week long return policy, would end up being changed. It then got changed in Jan, to be exactly the same return policy Valve has with Steam.

Another competitive advantage is exclusive, and now Epic is attempting to walk back the negativity related to that practice. Tim from Epic tries to rope Steam into the picture, by saying they will drop exclusives if Steam lowers the cut they take from devs, but that entire line of logic is comical. First, the two items (exclusives and dev % cut) aren’t at all related, so why group then? Second, does the gaming industry, which is currently thriving, really need Tim to come and ‘save it’ from big bad Steam? Third, this still doesn’t solve the core problem with the Epic store; it stinks from a feature perspective compared to Steam, and that’s mostly why players have been so against Epic exclusives.

I predict Valve won’t comply to this demand (because they don’t need to), while I also predict that Epic exclusives will slowly dry up. And once the exclusives dry up, Epic’s store will become that thing you need to have to play Fortnite, much like Origin and whatever Blizzard calls their launcher are just things you have to deal with to play those companies’ titles (or ignore them because they aren’t on Steam, as I suspect a decent chunk of people do).

Give me one version of a PC game store (Steam), just like I really wish there was a singular entertainment platform like old Netflix.

Posted in Random, Rant, Steam Stuff | 2 Comments

Battle Brothers next expansion out May 9th!

Posted on April 19, 2019 by SynCaine

Obviously buying this the first day I can, as Battle Brothers has quickly become one of my favorite games in recent years.

This expansion adds a lot of great stuff, including different options and rule-sets to start a game, a new enemy faction, a rework on how to acquire legendary items, and lots more.

May 9th can’t come soon enough!

Posted in Random | 2 Comments

CR: Trophy Road is a good addition to the game

Posted on April 15, 2019 by SynCaine

A big update has hit Clash Royale, bringing a new card (earthquake), balance changes, and some upcoming game modes. The biggest addition IMO is the introduction of “Trophy Road”, which adds rewards as you move up in trophy ranks.

The system is more enjoyable than the season-end chest as its more immediate, and the rewards come in smaller chunks, which means more rewards for smaller increments of trophy gain. The smaller gaps means pushing towards your next reward doesn’t feel as daunting, or leads to people basically not caring about trophy amounts towards the end of a season if they aren’t close to moving up.

This change also speeds up progression in the game overall, which is something that SuperCell has been doing in both Clash Royale and Clash of Clans. Until recently, progress was the main driver of revenue, as the game allowed you to spend to progress. Now however progression is being slowly phased out by fluff, be it skins or emotes, as a source of revenue. This is a good direction for the players, and hopefully for the company as well with more sustained revenue.

With progression being faster in both games, as well as the quality of updates being really high of late, now is an excellent time to start up or return. Come join us in Supreme Cream!

Posted in Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Inquisition Clan, RMT | Comments Off on CR: Trophy Road is a good addition to the game

CoC:Pay to get it now

Posted on April 11, 2019 by SynCaine

Small item for today, but I thought it was kind of brilliant.

In Clash of Clans, the last updated added seasons, where for $5 you get additional rewards for completing tasks (if you don’t pay you still get some rewards from the free tier). The final paid reward for the season is a skin for the barbarian king. There are very easy daily tasks, and then longer weekly tasks that unlock. Since not all tasks are open right away, you can’t earn the skin until later.

Well, except if you just spend gems (paid currency) to earn points towards rewards directly. The primary (at least IMO) reason for including this option is for those who are close to the final reward towards the end of the season, but for whatever reason can’t actually get there. Rather than frustrating them, the game allows you to pay a bit more and still get it. It’s a good option for allowing people to get the fluff they might want. It’s not like there is any real prestige or bragging rights for earning the skin; its overall super-easy if you just play the game daily.

What I didn’t expect, though perhaps should have, is that people are spending gems to earn the skin NOW because they don’t want to wait. Anyone currently using the skin has paid extra, because its impossible to have earned it by just playing. And again, this is kind of brilliant of SuperCell, because why not collect more money from people if they REALLY want the fluff now, and are willing to pay you more for it?

Posted in Clash of Clans, RMT | Comments Off on CoC:Pay to get it now

Enderal: Forgotten Stories is where I want Steam to go

Posted on April 8, 2019 by SynCaine

I downloaded the standalone Skyrim mod Enderal: Forgotten Stories this weekend. I’m not too far into it yet, but so far I like what I’ve seen, and reminds me what an enjoyable experience playing Skyrim is.

What I’m most impressed with right now is that Enderal is a separate, free download/installation on Steam, and the only requirement you need is to own Skyrim (Skyrim itself does not need to be installed). That makes getting the game so easy, and doubly so because once installed, you have a very easy-to-use setup window to config settings prior to the game itself launching. It’s just a fantastic user experience compared to installing and configuring mods yourself for Skyrim (Steam workshop makes that easier than using Nexus, but its still not nearly as easy as Enderal).

It got me wondering if this is a direction Valve can go more in, and provide better support for initiatives like this, to give it another advantage over the Epic Games Store and others. It would be a nice contrast too; while EGS is limiting choices for gamers and trying to force people’s hand, Steam is here providing easier access to free total conversion mods to everyone. I’d love for, say, a separate installation for some of the larger Mount and Blade mods. Plus those mod teams deserve the recognition of having a standalone ‘game’ on Steam.

More on Enderal itself later as I dig into it.

 

Posted in Random, Steam Stuff, The Elder Scrolls Online | 5 Comments

Finally got that tenth rat

Posted on April 3, 2019 by SynCaine

Zubon from KTR is retiring from blogging, and our little corner of the internet gets a bit smaller.

As I wrote in the comments on that blog, much of what he wrote is exactly how I feel about things now. For me growing older has resulted in me being overall less combative, which is good in life, but less entertaining in blog world. Some of the most successful posts here (in terms of generating traffic, comments, and reply posts) were pretty aggressive attacks on a game, another blogger, or a gaming group (damn tourists). While I always separate ‘blog person’ from ‘real person’, both for myself and whoever I was talking about, it often did get under people’s skin, and the replies were often equally if not more venomous. Which again, is good blog content. It gets the people talking and thinking. And while I still have my moments, and no doubt will in the future, they are now far fewer than in years past, when “Friday Blog War” was an actual thing that (mostly) naturally happened regularly.

The other aspect of growing older, both personally and this blog, is that so many things have already been said. I’ll repeat or bring back concepts sometimes, but do I really need to write yet another post on why WotLK ruined WoW? Do you want to read another one of those? Combined with the fact that so little is really changing in the MMO space, and the amount of stuff you can write about is just more limited now, and with fewer bloggers writing, that also means fewer opportunities to write a response post to something. I talk about momentum all the time in gaming, but its true for blogging as well. When our group of bloggers were all humming, cranking out posts daily, it was much easier to spot something and continue the conversation. That’s just not really the case anymore.

There is also the fact that with the MMO space slowing down, people move on to different genres, and non-MMO games just aren’t as interesting to write about. Single player, linear games are the worst, because everyone has the same experience, but even more open-ended games like Civilization make better video ‘Lets Play’ content than blogs. Maybe you can get a post out about some interesting design concept, but that won’t lead to dozens and dozens of posts like a good MMO can (Life is Feudal was a great example of that here most recently).

This isn’t my own retirement post, in large part because I still want to drop a post when I need to about whatever it might be. I also still value the community built here, however diminished it is today compared to its peak. I’m also very curious to see how WoW Classic will play out in terms of blog content. Will it bring back some of the buzz, or will we all make a few “oh this brings back memories” posts and that will be that?

For now, I’ll just end with saying that I’ll miss Zubon posting, and the whole KTR blog not being active (RIP Ravious, can’t believe it’s only been two years). I’ve been reading that site since I first become aware of blogs more than a decade ago, and it was one of the very few blogs I checked daily.

Posted in Blogroll, Site update | Comments Off on Finally got that tenth rat

Season Passes are the new hotness, and I’m OK with that

Posted on March 25, 2019 by SynCaine

I’ve always been a fan of the subscription model vs cash shops in games. Back in the day this conversation was limited to MMOs, but today basically everything uses some hybrid model, either starting with F2P or a box+shop/dlc. It’s not all bad, or good, but either way its just the way things are now. Rare is the game where you pay once, get everything, and that’s it, as was the case not that long ago.

Payment models have been evolving in recent years too. We started with just subs for games like UO and EQ1. Then F2P came along with cash shops. Now we having mega-titles like PUBG, which has a box cost and a cash shop, and recently a season pass. Most recently, Clash of Clans has announced season passes are coming in April.

A season pass is somewhat like a return to subscriptions, only that if you don’t pay, you don’t loss total access to the game, you just don’t get the additional content on offer. It’s a better solution for players, so long as enough people buy the pass, and the pass doesn’t have to include Pay4Power items in order to sell. So far I’m not away of a game selling a pass that is P4P, but maybe I missed something, and I’m sure at some point someone will do exactly that with a game that is struggling.

Overall I like season passes. You know what you are signing up for, the cost is usually reasonable, and I’d rather support the developers that way than through a more in-your-face cash shop. The pass also removes the feeling of being nickel and dimed like a cash shop does, which may be a purely psychological thing, but FEELING good about a game is an important factor in your overall enjoyment.

I bought the first PUBG season pass when I was playing that game more actively. I’ll be buying the first CoC season pass because I am actively playing that game. Going forward, if a game I’m heavily playing offers a pass, I’m likely to give it a shot. I’d do that today for League of Legends, for example.

For those who might argue against season passes becoming popular, its important to answer the question “how else do you want the devs to get money?” Because they need to be paid, one way or the other. Hunting whales is bad business all around IMO, and there is simply too much money being left on the table with just selling a box. As already mentioned, I find almost all cash shops obnoxious and something that detracts from the game, so I’m not in favor of those. Even the more traditional MMO sub model wouldn’t work for most games. So out of all current options, I like season passes most.

Posted in Clash of Clans, League of Legends, PUBG, Rant, RMT | 9 Comments

Epic Game Store exclusives I actually care about

Posted on March 22, 2019 by SynCaine

In addition to more favorable rates for developers, a big differentiator from Steam for the Epic Games Store is exclusives. Exclusives overall annoy me because I don’t want more Steam-clones to browse, just like I don’t want more Netflix clones popping up forcing me to search multiple services for the movie/show I want to watch (in addition to the cost increase).

I get why Epic would go that route to try and build up their store, at least on a surface level. Someone who really wants a game, and its exclusive to your platform, will come to you. Where I think this backfires is in all the people you turn away, or at least anger, because you are ‘forcing’ them to miss out on a game or come to your store. Whether the strategy is the right one will ultimately come down to whether an exclusive gets you more customers, or more anger.

So far, I’d say the scales are tipping towards anger, and that anger is rising as more games are announces as exclusives. Up until now the exclusives weren’t of interest to me, but I did have my eye on Phoenix Point, and I’m very, very interested in Obsidian’s Outer Worlds. Both those titles will now debut in the Epic store, and come to Steam a year later.

Today, I’m leaning towards just waiting that year. There are so many gaming choices that I don’t NEED another title, and a game a year after release is going to be more polished, with some likely DLC included. Plus odds are good it will be cheaper. And specifically for a game like Outer Worlds, much like previous Fallout titles, the release version is likely a buggy mess with a lot of broken or incomplete functionality. Fallout 4 I enjoyed at release, but a year after release the game was a significantly better experience.

Posted in Mass Media, Random, Rant, Steam Stuff | 9 Comments

A game about watching paint dry would sell more copies

Posted on March 13, 2019 by SynCaine

I’m going to add another log to the fire that is “Polygon has an article about an indie dev talking about how hard it is to be an indie dev”. I wrote a post about this back in Oct of 2018, with the ‘problem’ back then being too many games on Steam. Today, the problem is… that and a bunch of other stuff. (Spoiler: making a good game for an audience large enough to support you isn’t on the list of problems, shocker I know).

Immediately what jumps out at me with this article is the game it’s focused around, HypnoSpace Outlaw. Who in the actual fuck wants to play a game that simulates the shitshow that was the Internet during the Geocities days? If that group is larger than five people I’ll… continue going about my day, but a bit more surprised. Plus the game can’t even trick you into thinking its something else, because it also LOOKS like Geocities back in the 90s, and that’s absolutely not a compliment to their art style. I could sue Polygon for giving me eye cancer just from the opening header of that article.

And look, if you just want to spend time working on a pet project for yourself, that’s one thing. Go nuts. But to make said pet project, for what is likely an audience of one, and then go on and on about how difficult it is to make money being a game dev? GTFO.

I’m not going to rehash my post about this that is linked above, and I don’t think much has changed since that time either. Did Valve maybe change the algorithm in the discovery queue? Sure. But just like Google changing their algorithm and that impacting blog traffic, at the end of the day if I write interesting posts at a frequent pace (been failing hard at that for a long time now), I’ll get traffic. And more importantly, the traffic I get (or eyeballs on Steam for games) will be people actually interested in what I do/write and likely to come back (buy your game) if the quality of the product is high. Visibility isn’t going to help much if quality is low, either for this blog or your indie game.

The thing that always rings most hollow to me here is that right now, in 2019, we are in the best age for gaming. The best quality games, the best distribution model, and the most variety in not only gaming options, but business models as well. And that’s for both consumers and devs.

Posted in Mass Media, Random, Rant, Steam Stuff | 10 Comments