2019 Predictions

Posted on December 10, 2018 by SynCaine

Looking back at my 2018 prediction post, two things jump out. One, pretty accurate. And two, pretty sad. CrowFall, Camelot Unchained, and Star Citizen. Those are the three titles mentioned. None of them launched. None of them had a major release milestone (open beta or something similar), and I feel about the same regarding those titles as I did at the end of 2017; meh.

Looking back at 2018, I did play Life is Feudal for a large chunk of time, and had a great go of it, mostly because of the guild and it’s members, but the game itself wasn’t bad and is a few design changes away from being actually great. I didn’t play FFXIV or any serious EVE though, and nothing else in the genre caught my eye enough to even bother.

So let’s talk 2019 predictions.

The big one for me personally is going to be the release of WoW Classic in the summer. I’ve had a LOT of people ask about running a guild, and I’m 99% certain I will. I expect the guild to do well in terms of numbers, and I also expect we will eventually get sucked into bashing our faces into the end-game. I welcome the pain.

I’ll also predict that WoW Classic will be bigger than current WoW in terms of popularity. Since there won’t be two different prices or accounts, likely the only metric to go off of might be server counts or more ancillary stuff like size/activity of Sub Reddits or something like that. Not an exact science, and I highly doubt Blizzard themselves will come out and state it.

More of a hope than a prediction, but I think/hope Crowfall or Camelot Unchained launches. I know Star Citizen won’t. I’d love to be surprised by either title in terms of quality and engagement, but I have my doubts. That said, it might be a horrible time to actually launch if everyone and their mother is playing WoW Classic anyway.

I predict something major to come from Amazon with Brave New World, like a significant beta. I haven’t followed that game much, but I wouldn’t be shocked if come beta/release, its surprisingly good. Seems everything Amazon touches is better than expected, and if someone is going to run the world, I’d rather it be Bezos then President Bozo.

Wildcard: I’ve had my eye on Gloria Victis for a while now (Steam wishlist), and recently a friend started playing and reports good things. There is a decent chance I jump in at some point to try that out as well.

Posted in beta, Camelot Unchained, Crowfall, EVE Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Inquisition Clan, Life is Feudal, Site update, World of Warcraft | 9 Comments

Obsidian carrying on the tradition of Friday Blog Wars!

Posted on December 7, 2018 by SynCaine

Obsidian, makes of Pillars of Eternity, and long before that, Fallout: New Vegas, have just announced their latest title, The Outer Worlds. It’s… basically Fallout without the name. Which of course is perfect timing, given the dumpster fire that is Fallout76 right now, and the fact that Bethesda won’t ship a ‘real’ Fallout game for a long, long time, with Elder Scrolls 6 being the next big title, and that being years away.

My first impression is that it looks good, and I trust Obsidian to do a quality job in terms of story and world-building. Hopefully the FPS gameplay is at least on-par with Fallout 4 (not the highest bar, but for me good enough, if I want ‘pure’ FPS gameplay, I’ll fire up PUBG), and the number of bugs on release day are lower than the typical Fallout experience (again, low bar). The current release date is 2019, which I hope isn’t late into 2019.

And of course I love the direct jab included in the trailer with the line “Made by the creators of the original Fallout”. Again, in the context of what is happening with Fallout due to F76, that’s a nice little zinger.

Posted in Fallout 3, Mass Media | 2 Comments

Two week return policy for games is insanity

Posted on December 4, 2018 by SynCaine

I’m on record here as being a big fan of Steam. It makes buying, updating, and playing games easy, and has enough social features to support that side of gaming as well. If anything, I wish they did more on the modding side, so a site like Mod Nexus wasn’t needed. Most of all, the best thing about Steam is that 99% of the time, it simply works. Steam is the Apple of PC gaming; might not always have the newest feature or the lowest cost, but paying the premium is worth it because you don’t waste time fighting against it like you would other options.

I bring this up because Epic Games is launching a Steam competitor (although it will only be that if it grows popular-enough to actually impact Steam), with the big selling point being a larger split of revenue for developers, more heavy-handed moderation of which games make it to the platform, and a two week return policy.

That last point, the return policy, will 100% change. Why? Because you can finish A LOT of games in two weeks, and that will be a disaster for the Epic Store. And when I say finish, I don’t necessarily mean fully beat and see the ending. I mean play enough to justify returning the game and not paying a dime for the two week experience. Morality aside, think about all of the games you have played recently, how many would you return after two weeks if given the option? I’d say at least half my Steam library qualifies, and almost all of those titles are non-AAA games from smaller studios.

So we will see how this goes. I personally hope it fails because, much like with Netflix now, the more platforms that pop up, the more annoying it becomes to actually track down what you want. Just keep everything on Steam, it’s fine.

Posted in Mass Media, Rant, Steam Stuff | 13 Comments

Battle Brothers: Beasts and Exploration – Initial thoughts

Posted on December 3, 2018 by SynCaine

I’ve had a few requests to talk about the expansion to Battle Brothers, so while I haven’t seen all of the new content, here goes. In short, if you liked BB before, I can’t imagine you won’t love the expansion. If you tried and didn’t like BB, this expansion likely doesn’t ‘fix’ what you disliked.

The new enemies really mix things up, and push you to alter how you develop your brothers. Prior to the expansion stats like HP and Resolve weren’t optimal, but now become situationally important. For example, Alps put your brothers to sleep, and then cast nightmares on said sleeping brother to kill them. One counter to the sleep spell is high resolve, as it means you resist the sleep more. Now this doesn’t mean you need high resolve on everyone, because the alps prefer to sleep everyone before casting nightmare, so even if just a few brothers resist, they can in turn wake others up, and negate the Alps enough to kill them. If everyone goes to sleep, its likely game over.

Another example of new enemies changing up the meta are Schrats, basically treemen that regrow their shields. In the base game weapons that better destroy a shield, like axes, weren’t as important for that ability. Now? They are very important vs the Schrats, so if you completely ignore them, you’ll have a much harder time vs that particular enemy.

With the new enemies also come new weapons and armor, mostly filling some gaps in progression. Now all weapon styles have the same tiered progression upgrades, and there are significantly more viable options for nimble (low weight) builds at end-game. Before nimble was only ideal late-game if you got lucky enough to find the right legendary weapon/armor. That’s no longer the case, though it still helps!

Right now my favorite part of the expansion is the addition of crafting. Many enemies, old and new, now have a chance to drop crafting components, and these in turn can be taken to a taxidermist (new building in certain settlements) to craft into useful consumables, items, or armor attachments. One fun example; in the base game dire wolves dropped pelts, and if you had a tailor, you could trigger an event to get a special armor made. Now, those wolf pelts can be turned into an armor attachment that has the same bonus effect (negative moral to enemies) as the event armor, and can be added to any piece of armor. It makes fighting such enemies extra worthwhile, and is a new and interesting upgrade path that adds considerable customization.

Finally, the overall flow of the game has been smoothed out, with the early days now feeling less punishingly random (early contracts are more available, wage costs are slightly lower, contracts have been tweaked a bit), the midgame almost overflowing with options, and late game (from what I’ve experienced) having a larger variety of stiff challenges.

This is the perfect kind of expansion IMO, one that adds more ‘stuff’ to a game you already enjoy. It doesn’t drastically change the game mechanics, or twist the setting (low fantasy to suddenly space goats), or anything else that might turn off existing fans. Instead it fills in gaps that might have existed, pushes systems further in meaningful ways, and lets you enjoy another trip through a fun game that feels surprisingly fresh and new.

Very highly recommended!

Posted in Combat Systems, crafting, Random, Review | 1 Comment

How to bury your reputation as a dev, for just $5!

Posted on November 29, 2018 by SynCaine

I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed a well-respected developer fall from grace as fast as Bethesda is falling right now with this entire Fallout76 fiasco. Blizzard’s fall was slower, with welfare epics in WotLK being a minor hint rather than the full-face slap that F76 is ushering in. EA has been terrible for as long as I can remember. Ubisoft has always been hit or miss, same with Sony. But until F76, Bethesda the developer (not to be confused with Bethesda the publisher) had a great track record of games and support.

Yes, Bethesda games traditionally were a buggy mess on release, but not to the point where most couldn’t actually enjoy them. I played recent Fallout and Elder Scroll games on release, and sure, they had bugs, but day-one they were amazing titles that only got better with time. There was enough justified negativity around F76 to make me pass on that being a day-one title, and nothing since release has pushed me closer to buying in. In fact, I’m now more ‘out’ on F76 than ever. I still have faith it will eventually be a buy-worthy title, but “buy eventually at a discount to get some enjoyment out of it” is a steep, steep drop from all previous titles.

But IMO by far the worst thing to happen is the bait-and-switch related to the bag included in the $200 special edition. Polygon has an article up, but basically the advertised duffel bag was show as a canvas bag, but instead a cheaper nylon bag was shipped instead. Bethesda’s justification? The canvas bag was too expensive to make, so they went nylon. I’d not only instantly fire whoever came up with that response, but I’d fire just about anyone who had knowledge of this switch and went along with it.

Here is why this is so egregious. The average gamer isn’t buying your $200 special edition. The average Bethesda fan isn’t either. Not even the average Fallout fan. No, the vast majority of the people spending $200 on a copy of your game are your superfans. The hardcore of the hardcore. The absolute last group of people you want to piss off, and especially over money. They already gave you $200, and we can be fairly confidence that the profit margin on the special edition is higher than the standard edition. But even if we pretend the margin is lower, you’re still making money. You don’t put together the stuff in the special edition, get the cost, and then set the price at basically the cost. Bethesda isn’t paying $200 to make the special edition. I doubt they are paying even $50.

So let’s say the price to produce the canvas bag goes up after Bethesda announced and sold the edition, even if it goes up 100% over the original estimated cost. That doesn’t put Bethesda in the red on selling the special edition. And we are talking about a fairly basic item here. This isn’t some specially produced, ‘only one place in the world can make it’ item. It’s a goddamn bag with some Fallout graphics on it. And yes, the quality of the bag ultimately isn’t a huge deal, and has zero impact on the actual game, but it’s the message this sends. Bethesda would rather save a few bucks than do right by their most dedicated fans. (as shown by wallet-vote, the absolute most important metric of how big a fan you really are)

Want to know how you make the above disaster worse? Double down on the giant ‘F you’ to fans by having your second response be an offer of $5 of in-game cash shop currency. Five bucks, of in-game value, to people who paid you $200. Honestly Bethesda telling everyone to shove it and get over the bag being cheap would have been a MORE acceptable answer than trying to ‘make right’ by offering five bucks of in-game currency. I bet even EA looked at that response and shook their heads (or got an idea for next time…)

Just all around terrible, from a studio I was a huge fan and supporter of prior to F76. Get it together in time for Elder Scrolls 6 please!

Edit: This truly is incredible. The in-game cost for a bag in F76 is 700 atoms, so the 500 Bethesda gave for this isn’t even enough to buy a bag skin in-game.

Posted in Fallout 3, Mass Media, Rant | 10 Comments

Fall of Winterhome, the new Frostpunk scenario

Posted on November 28, 2018 by SynCaine

I reviewed Frostpunk here, and the review still holds up in terms of accuracy. Since that review the game has received a bunch of content updates, with one being a new scenario, the Fall of Winterhome.

It’s a challenging scenario in that you start with almost 400 people, some tech, and a large city. The initial problem is that much of the city is in ruins, ruins that need to be cleared to make space for actually useful buildings. Another challenge is that since you have so many people, but not the tech or infrastructure to really support them, people tend to get sick, go hungry, and eventually die. That’s bad overall, but made worse by the fact that the initial challenge is to raise hope and lower discontent to certain levels. Hope is especially hard to raise because every death lowers it, and deaths tend to come in waves as bad things happen, like a house being outside of heating range and the temp dropping.

The extremely different start in this scenario is a very welcome change for the game, and really puts an emphasis on certain gameplay systems, much more-so than when you play the baseline game. Its great content, and would have been worth $5 or so as DLC. However this scenario, like all current updates to Frostpunk, is free, which is hard to beat for value.

If you enjoy city builders even a bit, and haven’t purchased Frostpunk yet, do yourself a favor and go grab it, it’s fantastic. If you own it, I highly recommend firing it up again for the new scenario.

PS: The most recent update added Endless mode, with two new maps and some new mechanics to support it. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m very eager to do so once I actually beat the Winterhome scenario.

Posted in Random | 2 Comments

State of Decay 2 Review

Posted on November 19, 2018 by SynCaine

I liked State of Decay 1, quiet a bit in fact. I can’t say the same thing about State of Decay 2 (SoD2) however, which has been rather disappointing.

I’ve already talked about the multiplayer issues of SoD2, and I’ll just expand on that post here to say that the focus on multiplayer takes away from the single-player of SoD2. Where the first game had a good single player story, SoD2 does not, and instead relies entirely on the gameplay mechanics, which sadly don’t hold up.

The first issue I have is combat doesn’t feel great. Melee isn’t terrible, but its not good-enough to be a highlight, and its certainly not something you get excited about. Killing zombies, even the special enemies, never feels satisfying, partly because more of them just randomly spawn, you are aren’t so much ‘clearing’ an area as you are temporarily removing a speed bump on your way to something else, and 95% of the time you are better off not fighting anyway.

Shooting is worse, with terrible aiming mechanics (super floaty) in a game that rewards headshots. Guns also never feel right either. Finding a machine gun should feel great, until you realize ammo is so limited that the ability to spray a bunch of zombies is never worth it, especially due to the respawn issue. Find a great sniper rifle? Neat, except shooting zombies at long-range is pointless (respawn), and at short-range a pistol is a better ‘sniper’ than the rifle due to reload times. A silencer mod sounds good in theory, but the reality is you don’t want to waste so much ammo as to clear a whole area firing shots, so the stealthy aspect of a silencer never comes into play.

So there is no real story, and the combat isn’t awesome, what else does the game offer?

Base building is good overall, with moving to a new spot with a different slot layout being a fun highlight. Base building upgrades being tied into character support skills is another nice touch, as occasionally this will motive you to find a new survivor with a specific skillset, or to use a skill book on someone who has an open slot.

That said, too often taking care of the base feels like babysitting. Moral is constantly dropping, you can’t store a lot of food/materials/fuel, so you are always running low, and while zombie attacks can never fully defeat you (that I’ve noticed), they are annoying-enough that you should return and defend, even though the defense is always super easy and more of a cleanup task than a serious siege. I also never got the feeling of a base being ‘alive’, of a place your survivors are actually living in and defending. They feel (and are) just different crafting stations and support modules with some fluff surrounding it all.

Lastly, the whole tone of the game, from the graphics, sound, and quests, are all a little more comical than in SoD1, and that IMO is a negative. The zombies especially are comic book villains rather than a serious horde of the undead, and that results in the whole game feeling like one long ‘joke’ rather than humans fighting for survival.

Unless you really, really love this style of game, it’s hard to recommend SoD2. Double so because it’s not on Steam.

Posted in Random, Review | 4 Comments

TW:W2 – Curse of the Vampire Coast DLC thoughts

Posted on November 13, 2018 by SynCaine

The latest DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2, “Curse of the Vampire Coast” is out, and I’ve been messing around with it for a bit. Overall its more of the same, so if you like TW:W2, you likely will enjoy the DLC, and if you don’t like the base game, this isn’t likely to change your mind.

As the title suggests, the big new addition is the Vampire Pirate faction. Or factions, really, since each legendary lord represents a different location and group, though they do all share similar mechanics and units. Unlike the base vampire faction, this group has a lot of ranged units, all gunpowder-based. They also have access to artillery, which is nice. The difficulty I’m having with the faction right now is traditionally the undead swarm with melee units to win, as their individual units are weak, but with more ranged options, you usually don’t heavily outnumber the enemy in the total number of melee units, and one on one the undead generally lose. That said the ranged units you do have can be devastating, especially the first few volleys that trigger a passive for having full ammo.

As with other full army DLC in TW:W2, the pirates have unique campaign mechanics as well. Instead of being concerned with the vortex, you instead focus on building your reputation as a pirate, and taking out rival pirates to ultimately collect the pieces of a treasure map and slay a giant sea beast. Thematically this works great, and encourages you to sail around, establish pirate havens (when you take over a coastal city, you now have the option of leaving it in the current owner’s hands, and setting up a hidden pirate base), dig up treasure, and overall live the pirate life. To compliment this, pirate lords also function as mini-hordes, meaning they upgrade buildings and can recruit troops without being in a city.

At $18 the DLC can be argued as being pricey, but I’m ok with that. It’s certainly not required to enjoy the base game, and even some of its benefits can be enjoyed without the purchase (the pirates will show up as an NPC faction, you just can’t play them).

 

Posted in Review, Warhammer Online | Comments Off on TW:W2 – Curse of the Vampire Coast DLC thoughts

Fallout 76: Bethesda is going to address the issues

Posted on November 7, 2018 by SynCaine

I found this post very encouraging and informative about the F76 beta and what Bethasda is going to do with the game prior to launch. Its a bit long so let me save you some time and give you a TLDR:

“Go F yourself, we don’t care” – Love, Bethesda

Ultrawide support is ‘coming’, they believe everyone’s dogs and babies should be heard via voice-chat, and all your other issues and problems don’t matter, just shut up and give us money.

Sad thing is they will get a ton of money anyway.

Why Bethesda (highlight that the world is alive with real people) is trying to become EA (sense of pride and accomplishment) or Blizzard (you have a phone), I don’t know, but I don’t like it.

Posted in Fallout 3, Rant | 8 Comments

A decade of herding derps has finally paid off

Posted on November 5, 2018 by SynCaine

I generally avoid posting about overly personal stuff here, mostly because I know you don’t care, and also because for the most part I view SynCaine the blogger as a different entity than the person behind the screen name. That said today will be a little departure from that. Hope you don’t mind.

For most of my real life career I’ve envisioned myself more as someone who works hands-on vs being a manager. In my field (Corporate IT) I like seeing a project progress and seeing the parts I’m personally involved with contribute to a larger goal, whether I’m a small cog or a key player. I didn’t believe I’d enjoying managing because I’d lose that personal connection to things getting done, to having personal ownership of something successful.

At the same time, since high school, I’ve always been a leader in online gaming. I’ve always run a guild in games that allowed it and I was into, and I’ve always been interested in the social along with the gameplay in online games. I did the whole hardcore raiding thing as an officer in an MMO, guild leadership in PvP MMOs, and now for the last 4-5 years I’ve run Supreme Cream! across multiple mobile games. The level of success has varied from title to title, but few if any attempts at the social side have been outright failures (unable to form a guild, have a guild implode shortly after formation), and I’ll take at least some credit in that success to managing those groups correctly.

It was only very recently, when I accepted a new and far more senior position in my career, that I’ve come to realize I do enjoy management in the real world. The sense of ownership and success/failure related to it is still there, only now its just at a higher level. It’s not about solving one issue, but about making sure that we successfully solve all issues that arise in similar fashion, and that we learn and improve as we go. I’m finding it more rewarding, and that has been a pleasant surprise.

Perhaps the most surprising thing however is that my experience in managing online groups in the gaming world is helping me in my career today. The biggest thing is managing expectations I have for others. Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I’m a successful individual, one that is able to figure out solutions fairly quickly and, generally, my gut reactions to things tend to be correct (that said, one of the harder skills I’ve had to learn is to not run straight ahead with said gut reactions, but to still ensure the decision is actually the right one). But not everyone, or even 99% of people, are like that. Which doesn’t automatically mean they are wrong or ‘bad workers’, but that different approaches work for different people. And since I can’t clone myself, being successful in management means understanding how to get the most out of the people you have. That’s been true in gaming, and I now realize it’s just as true in real life.

In gaming I’ve been successful in group management because I’ve been active in managing the roster. If someone is toxic, you remove them before the toxin spreads. Being proactive in that is important, because if you wait or give them too many chances, they cause damage. At the same time, you can’t just kick anyone you feel is underperforming, as you will likely end up with a tiny or non-existent roster. Some of the best members have been slow starters, for any number of reasons. Being able to identify who has potential, having the patience to see it through, and having the skill to get them up to the level they should be at; all of that took a lot of time/learning on my end. Hell, I’m still learning, and likely always will.

Another important aspect of running a successful group is setting the right culture and expectations. If you are a bleeding-edge raid guild, you have different expectations than a more casual mobile game group. But at the same time, you want whatever group you are leading to always improve, to grow, and to keep people engaged/entertained. If you fail any of those, you risk not just losing people, but most likely losing the most important/dedicated people. When a raiding guild isn’t making progress because of leadership, the first people to go won’t be the bottom rung who are just happy to be there, it will be the most dedicated members putting in the most effort to succeed. Soon as you start losing those people, you death spiral fast.

Managing in the real world is somewhat different, but not really. Sure, you can’t just /kick someone as easily as you can online, but the same general rules about toxic individuals vs slow starters applies. It sounds like a joke, but I swear that years of dealing with derps online in mobile gaming has sharpened me in dealing with individuals in the real world, both in a higher level of patience, and in my ability to identify and deal with them.

Maybe more importantly, being able to tap into an individual in a way that makes them successful is critical, and their success is its own gratifying reward. I’ve been doing that online for more than a decade, and all of that experience is now paying off. It sounds almost insane, but it’s true.

Now I’m not saying to list your guild leadership experience on your resume, or to suggest that all good leaders online are also good leaders in the real world. What I am saying is that for me personally, the experience of managing online gaming groups has translated to a real world skillset, one that is very useful and highly desired. That was never the goal, or an expected result, but it does put a very nice cherry on top of all the enjoyment I’ve had over the years leading those groups.

 

Posted in Inquisition Clan, Site update | 11 Comments