CoC, CR, BB open spots

Posted on July 6, 2016 by SynCaine

Public Service Announcement time: The three mobiles games we here play (Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Boom Beach) all have a couple of open spots. The group name is “Supreme Cream!” in all three games, and any accounts are welcome to join, just be sure to mention the blog so I know you aren’t some random. Don’t worry about being new to any of the games, we have an active community in each that will help you get rolling and contributing.

Posted in Boom Beach, Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Inquisition Clan | Comments Off on CoC, CR, BB open spots

CR: Tourneys are here, and need some fixing

Posted on July 5, 2016 by SynCaine

Tourneys have finally come to Clash Royale, and they are… interesting. Like a lot of stuff about CR, the core is good and they are fun, but the surrounding details are both frustrating and perhaps ultimately flawed. Lets dig in.

The first issue is the price of hosting a tourney. The cheapest option is 500 gems ($5), which creates a 50 man tourney, and a top prize that is worth significantly less than if you spend that 500 gems on a chest (and that is of course assuming you come in first, if you don’t the prize is basically the smallest reward chest in the game). They scale up to 1000 players, which costs 250,000 gems, which if my math is correct, costs $1,700+ to host. That’s… a little much.

Joining any tourney is free, which brings us to problem #2; joining a tourney right now is refresh murder. Tourneys of all sizes (most are the 50 man) fill up in less than a second, and this is in the current state of the game where a new achievement for hosting a tourney gives you 500 gems, so in essence the first 50 man is ‘free’ to host. Once that one-time achievement dries up, the number of people looking to play a tourney vs the number of open spots is going to be even more comically disproportionate than it is right now.

The most frustrating thing about the whole situation is tourneys are a lot of fun to play in. The tourney cap on cards shifts the meta, you get to see all of the arenas again (its random what field you fight on), and seeing yourself climb or drop on the leaderboard is pretty cool. It’s actually almost TOO much fun, because of how the structure works.

Rather than a knockout system, tourneys currently operate on trophies, and you can play as many games as you can for the duration of the tourney. Even the shortest, 1hr, means a lot of CR games in a row, and taking a break during that hour pretty much makes getting first or even top 5 extremely unlikely. CR is a lot of fun, but dedicating a full hour to chain-playing matches is like putting a kid in a candy store and letting him to wild. It sounds awesome until you realize stuffing your face with candy has drawbacks.

The lack of a free tourney option also means when we run out in-house tourneys, they will cost someone money (until we run out of the ‘free’ ones anyway). That’s a drag, even if paying $5 for a monthly tourney isn’t a huge expense. What is more of a problem is when we do an in-house tourney, people in different time zones likely won’t be able to play, or will have to really more schedules around to make it. If the setup was a knockout style tourney, that would be far more doable over a day or two.

All of that said, I fully expect SuperCell to tweak the system, because as it stands today its a bit too flawed to be a ‘main’ feature like clan wars are in CoC.

Posted in Clash Royale | Comments Off on CR: Tourneys are here, and need some fixing

Kickstarter funding down in 2016 for videogames

Posted on July 2, 2016 by SynCaine

This article about the overall money coming into Kickstarter videogames being down in 2016 makes me happy. Not because I dislike Kickstarter, the exact opposite actually, but because its an indicator that the average contributor is getting smarter, and that the vetting process for what gets money is becoming more difficult.

Without Kickstarter some of the best games in recent years don’t get released, or don’t come out in the form originally intended. At the same time, there have been WAY too many crap projects that hit their goal, and then either outright failed to deliver, or released and were terrible. Picking winners in videogames is hard, so I don’t expect Kickstarter to ever only produce awesome titles, but the better that ratio becomes, the more solid the platform is overall.

Posted in Kickstarter | Comments Off on Kickstarter funding down in 2016 for videogames

EVE: My first major “I was there” moment

Posted on July 1, 2016 by SynCaine

Let the record show: I now have not one, but four titan kills on my record. Killboard green for life!

The story behind this brawl is a good one too. Ever since Lenny’s money has stopped blowing, the MBC has been declining in activity around Saranen, with different groups giving different reasons for leaving or being less active. In turn, Goons have been doing what Goons have always historically done; fighting back once the enemy has grown tired/bored. We own Sov again, we are taking down enemy citadels and towers, and more fights than before are going our way, sometimes heavily.

The one big tool our enemies still had over us was Supercapitals (because all of ours are trapped…), which meant that when a fight got big-enough, usually the big toys came out to clear the field. Over the last week or so, we have been forming 200+ man fleets of battleships, which became very enticing for said supers. As this was happening, I (and others) got the feeling that it was only a matter of time before the almost predictable response of dropping supers would be countered.

Last night they got countered, and hard. (The battle report is a bit off, as Snuffed should be on the left, and PL, MC, and PH should be on the right)

The setup was well done on our end. Asher took us out in a fleet of battleships to hit another tower, and then called in a few dreadnoughts to assist. We had the dreads sit in siege mode, which meant they couldn’t warp off if trouble came. And trouble did come, resulting in all of us but the dreads warping away. We did this because a second force had caught the other incoming enemy fleet at the Okagaiken gate, which is where the big brawl happened.

Our fleet, done with baiting out the enemy, quickly took a titan bridge over to Okagaiken and began hitting the enemy. We had our smaller ships killing enemy fighters (drones from capital ships) while our BS and dreads focused down the four titans and some fax machines.

Wilhelm from TAGN was also in the fleet, and we were chatting as this was all unfolding. As we were warping into the battle, still unsure what we were heading into, I remarked that this felt like something special, and man was it. The rush when that first titan went down was very similar to a guild-first raid boss kill, and then as more titans died the feeling only grew.

I think the best part was the final titan, as our dread fleet had already warped off and that titan was catching reps, to the point that it went from being in structure to being all the way back to 100% armor. However Asher made a great call and we bumped the titan away from his friends and out of rep range, allowing us to get him down.

As Wilhelm said in chat, you play EVE for months, putting in your time in less glamour activities, for moments like the above. Epic events that stick with you, and remind you that the peaks in a game like EVE are absolutely the best in gaming.

Here is Wilhelm’s post about the fight, with lots of pictures and some links to videos.

Posted in EVE Online | Comments Off on EVE: My first major “I was there” moment

EVE: Goons are dead, but we have a savior!

Posted on June 30, 2016 by SynCaine

The EVE-based entertainment continues!

First, a reminder that not only are Goons ‘dead’ and we don’t undock because of that horrid hellcamp of Saranen, but we are also very bad at EVE.

We are so bad in fact that we need help, and the only one who can truly save the most successful organization not just in EVE, but likely in all of MMO history, is the certified autistic lunatic, Gevlon. I’m sure as I write this Mittens is working to create a high level spot within the organization for him, and I can’t wait to have Gevlon ‘above me’ in the alliance. (Because yes, that’s EXACTLY how leadership works in the alliance, leaders are clearly ‘above’ the line members and remind them of that fact daily…)

Now you might be asking “SynCaine, didn’t Gevlon try to start Corps multiple times and fail horribly each time?” Yes, that did happen, but its hard to run a Corp (sorta, I mean I did it successfully, but shhh), even when you are literally offering to pay people ISK to play with you. You might also ask “SynCaine, didn’t Gevlon devote two years of his life, using a ton of accounts, and playing crazy amounts every day to destroy Goons?” He did! But like all things Gevlon, he utterly failed at that, because you can’t sit at the ISK big boys table with the bit of pocket change Gevlon accumulated over four years of hardcore playing focused only on making ISK (Gevlon spent 700b total on his little project, Lenny spend 1t+ weekly, just to give you an idea of how insignificant Gevlon really is when it came to ISK accumulation).

Ok, so maybe Gevlon isn’t exactly qualified to ‘save’ Goons, in some part because Goons are just fine, but also because out of everyone in EVE, I think he might literally be the least qualified. But that doesn’t mean Gevlon is useless to us. Oh far from it. TMC needs traffic, so you might as well farm Gevlon for some via a free post right? Especially one as unintentionally hilarious as the one he wrote. That’s a special talent that should be coddled and abused used whenever possible to entertain the masses.

As we Goons say, never stop posting Gevlon, never stop posting!

Posted in EVE Online | 1 Comment

EVE: We have a capital again

Posted on June 25, 2016 by SynCaine

Lenny’s money runs out, PL ‘has to go train for the tourney’ that’s not for a few months, and suddenly Goons are back on the map. Imagine that. Hopefully that super-effective PvP group MoA doesn’t push us to the brink again, especially this guy.

Posted in EVE Online | 1 Comment

EVE: The first step towards victory?

Posted on June 24, 2016 by SynCaine

Last night on Jabber an interesting ping went out, in which it was announced that we (Goons) had just taken Pandemic Legion’s capital system without a fight, as PL and friends were off shooting at a citadel or something. The funny part was that I was in a Harpy fleet just an hour before in and around that system guarding gates and doing other ‘we don’t know what we are doing but the FC says to keep flying so we keep flying and shooting’. I enjoy those fleets because while we still see action, it’s a more relaxed way to shoot the shit with Goons on comms than when we form up for large “serious business” brawls.

We will see if this is the true start of Goons reclaiming parts of null, or yet another example of a skirmish that fizzles when the MBC horde comes rolling back. Lenny from IWI has turned his massive, game-changing ISK faucet off, so the funding that was driving MBC against us has stopped. Will enough of MBC show up to stop us now that they aren’t being paid? Or will we see a failcascade hit like so many prior entities in EVE’s long history?

Either way, Goon spirits are very high, and we flash-formed 200+ people in minutes last night. It’s funny that some still cling to the narrative of Goon’s being ‘dead’, because unless your definition of winning the war was taking all of Goon space for a short period of time (a valid if limited win condition), the war hasn’t been won. Far from it really. And as history has shown and will very likely continue to show, you can’t beat Goons, because Goons simply refuse to be beaten. And whether it takes a long time or not, eventually the Goon grinder beats down the other side, and we ‘win’.

Was last night the first step towards that win? Maybe. Will the win eventually come? History says yes.

 

Posted in EVE Online, Goons | 9 Comments

CoC: Season 6 stats

Posted on June 23, 2016 by SynCaine

(Work and words by Mikrakov. Also we have a few spots open in our clan, so if you are interested in joining apply and just mention the blog)

Hi Guys, I’ve finally gotten around to getting season 6 int a google spreadsheet, seen here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1…sp=sharing

Here’s a quick write-up, can’t say much about TH10, or 7 because we don’t have enough people at these levels.  Note these are the 10 wars from Khawanika to KittenThrash (over which we had a 7-3 record)

TH9

People averaging >=2 stars per attack at level

Kobeathris 2.4
Josch2k     2.2
SynCaine   2.1

Jenks         2.1

Mikrakov   2.0

Big congrats to Kobe and Josch, it should be noted that I’m fairly sure their great improvements (they were both 1.7 last season) have coincided with them changing to Valks as their primary attacks.  In fact, Jenks is the only one on this list not doing mostly Valks, as he has found lvl4 Dragons is working for him on the correct bases.

Claud has massive closer stars, but this is primarily die to him being our lowest TH9 and bashing up TH8s each war.

Defensively nothing of particular note, Claud and Ellroy have good bleed stats partly due to them being the lowest TH9s, which means that pepole throw themselves at the base until it is cleaned up, as they almost never get a hold.  Malcolm, Kobe and Sparco on average soaked up 2 attacks per war but usually got cleaned up.  Saate almost always holds on to a star, followed by me and Josch.

TH8

People averaging >=2 stars per attack at level

Marvin       2.3
ElviaViux    2.2
Jeury         2.1
MattyC       2.1

Marvin has left us and my alt (ElviaViux) missed out on perfect stats by scouting for my main once, Jeury and MAttyC well done.  Overall our TH8 stats could stand to be a bit better.  People need to revisit the “how to dragon” videos on OneHive again until they unlock a gowipe, hog or valk attack.

Defensively obviously almost no holds, but Jeury and Cathy have quite good bleed stats (1.8).

Posted in Clash of Clans, Inquisition Clan | Comments Off on CoC: Season 6 stats

EVE: Lets check in on the insane asylum

Posted on June 21, 2016 by SynCaine

This is some solid reading about World War Bee. So good in fact, that village idiot and master of the tinfoil hat, Gevlon, is back raging about EVE. Guess his self-imposed ban on posting about that terrible, terrible game EVE that made him rage-quit isn’t going so well.

A lot of people, especially A LOT of goons, and even CCP, are entertained by Gevlon in the same way that people are entertained by reality TV; you get an incredibly detailed view into the mind of a loon, all from a safe distance away from the actual madness. It’s not my cup of tea, especially because between the insanity Gevlon also has a real bad habit of editing his posts and comments after the fact to make himself look better (which is pretty impressive considering the madness that he leaves up), but entertainment-via-insanity clearly works for a solid amount of people. It would work even better if his blog wasn’t a dumpster fire in terms of format to better find the ‘entertainment’, but my guess is that’s by design.

For those who missed it, Gevlon’s history in EVE was predictably sad. How sad? Here is a post from 2012 that is, to this day, accurate in everything but recapping his latest failure. (Want more? Search “Gevlon” in my search bar. I just spent almost an hour entertaining myself. Rohk mining fleet! Link Titans!)

That failure, spending 700b ISK over a long period of time to be more than a gnat in his ‘war’ (read: provide in-game entertainment for Goons along with his out-of-game contributions), lead to nothing. MoA, the one group shameless enough to accept Gevlon ISK, was never even a big enough threat to The Imperium to be taken into consideration, let alone worth a coordinated reaction. Sure, they killed Imperium ships, enough so that Gevlon was convinced to keep spending ISK, but in all that time literally nothing changed for The Imperium. Laughs were had, and that’s about it.

The event that got Gevlon to really rage quit, other than CCP joining in on laughing at his madness (credit where credit is due, getting a major dev like Falcon from CCP to acknowledge your tinfoil asshattery is impressive, even if it did take 4 years of rambling), was that someone who actually had enough ISK to matter, Lenny, did what Gevlon had been trying and failing at; hire enough people to hurt The Imperium.

And as you can see from the linked posts, Gevlon isn’t taking this well. This exchange is classic Gevlon (edited down, but the entire thing is worth a read if Gevlon hasn’t deleted it yet):

Gevlon: you have no evidence that you financed a “pack of wolves”. Can you link alliance leaders saying “we joined the MBC because Lenny paid us?”

Lenny: If you want I can pull the transaction history off of Nigerian Banker Prince (my IWI banker alt). You will see that I did indeed pay all of them, every week for 5-6 months (give or take a few alliances as some came on earlier than other and some left earlier than others).

It’s classic Gevlon because he is talking about something way over his head (actions that actually impact null, and the workings of major factors), and after Lenny tried to be nice and explain things (below quote), Gevlon doubled down on his madness and got his ass handed to him:

Lenny: “I can understand where you are coming from but in all honesty, I had only read your blog a few times. I knew who you were and you were financing the fight on Goons for years.

The biggest thing is that when I looked at this problem, I probably came to the same conclusion you did but in a different manner. I would give you credit for seeing things first but sadly, you were not spark that got this rolling.

Also, I will give MOA and you a lot of credit for keeping up with hitting Goons. The biggest problem though is that the damage was not enough for Goons to really care. If you get bit by a mosquito, even a few times every day, it will still be an annoyance. However, when you get hit by a pack of wolves from all directions, each taking a chunk out of you….you probably wont make it.”

Most people would walk away at this point, but Gevlon isn’t most people, and his tinfoil hat is far too thick for that anyway. Here is conspiracy victim Gevlon at his finest. You see dear reader, Lenny is just rewriting history to replace Gevlon with himself. Sure, Lenny had real ISK and Gevlon was a badger-hauler, but whatever. Sure Lenny was respected enough to be able to contact groups in Null that matter like MC while MoA was the best that Gevlon could afford, but whatever. Gevlon knows ‘the truth’, and the truth is that World War Bee is all his fine work, even if he wasn’t in his tackle titan during the key battles.

As I said before, I generally don’t find his inane ramblings entertaining, but the above? That’s grade-A entertainment, even I must admit, so thanks again for your contributions to EVE Gevlon, hopefully you do come back and give us more!

Posted in Blogroll, EVE Online, Rant | 6 Comments

Project Zomboid – A box with no sand

Posted on June 20, 2016 by SynCaine

Note: The below might be more of a reflection of my general burnout on zombie survival than Project Zomboid (PZ) itself, but I don’t think so. Also, yea, I’m not sure why I started playing yet another zombie game, but I did… Anyway, on to the post.

As the title states, to me Project Zomboid feels like a box without sand, in that you are in a large ‘world’ (map), there are buildings and items and zombies and skills to improve, but there isn’t any sand to actually build something you might care about. The world just feels empty, and not in the good ‘zombie apocalypse’ empty, but in a truly lonely and pointlessly way.

I won’t break down the gameplay, but just say it plays mostly like you would expect. You loot houses, gain items, food, and weapons, and try to avoid, kill, or run away from zombies. Skills you have and can improve make you do more damage, sneak better, or make more stuff. You can even build a base, so you have that option along with using one of the many pre-existing houses and fortifying it.

There are a ton of sub-systems as well, which add depth or complexity. Stuff like hearing/sound, vision range and obscuring it (curtains on windows for instance), hunger, thirst, injuries, infections, etc. The bullet list of features here is long.

The major problem however is that PZ feels empty. There are no NPCs, so the world is only populated by your character and zombies. And as the only goal is to survive as long as you can, you know that ultimately you are going to die (either in-game or from boredom as you established a sustainable base and the game turns into Farming Simulator).

Dead State, a somewhat similar game, had other NPCs and their goals you assisted with, along with enemies beyond just zombies. State of Decay also had other NPCs, along with a general path to victory. And it’s bases felt very much alive, while your base in PZ is always just you and your stuff.

PZ is also an example of what happens when devs aren’t given an end-date, and instead release in Early Access or a similar method and just keep adding and adding. Development started in 2011, and 5 years later, PZ still isn’t complete. Even more importantly, the one system that basically everyone wants and expects, NPCs, isn’t coming anytime soon. One of the devs even wrote a pretty rage-filled post about it back in 2015, which to me came off sounding like a massive case of burnout. Which is too bad, because with more focus and some additions, PZ could have been a solid offering in what is a very crowded genre.

Posted in Random, Review | Comments Off on Project Zomboid – A box with no sand