You might already have read about those tragic events on Naboo, but there is no man alive who can pretend to be surprised by the predations of SOE’s nefarious customer service at this point. Their behavior has been legendary since 1999, when they killed every tenth Everquest subscriber. They are the most diabolical force currently active on the world stage - teleporting player characters into orbit? Man, that’s not even the main course.
There is so much to be fascinated by in the gaming context at the moment. I never quite know if I’m telling you things you’ve already heard, and I know that I would be annoyed with a person who continually regaled me with ancient trivia. Well, whatever. Rest assured that I’m about to mention something that was fascinating at some point.
In what observers called a “shocking reversal,” I deferred to our defeated foe TribalWar regarding the showing Tribes: Vengeance had at E3. I did so because what I saw there should not have been shown to anybody, anywhere, let alone people whose job it is to trasmit information about the videogame industry. I checked out the new equipment, loadout interfaces, no real issues with it on that score, but the network performance was so poor that I really had no idea what they were thinking. And, since I never saw this plain, direct observation appear anywhere else, I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. Here is the mind-bending theory I generated: The game wasn’t finished yet. Presumably, we’re supposed to go to an event like E3 and come to genuine conclusions about things. The trouble is that sometimes we’re only given a few handfulls of chicken guts, and we’re supposed to somehow derive the value of x. More than any other expo, this year’s event was thick with proto-games - green around the edge and nowhere near ready for consumption.
Well, we’ll soon have a good deal more than fresh organs and dark magic with which to divine the quality of this particular title - it’s apparently very near complete. Previews can be usually be counted on to laud the “return” to Tribes One era game speeds, which is at best simply good copy. Everything I have played and read leads me to believe the game as we receive it will be faster still than Tribes. Air control has been elaborated on. Skiing, intially an exploit, now has royal imprimatur as opposed to the wink and nod of Tribes 2. Beyond player control, the maps are wide open and the flag sits on an open pedestal like an hors d’oeuvre, vulnerable and toothsome. That all says speed to me. Speed, and lots of it.
(CW)TB out.
the fishes of the desperate sea
I got this update from RedMachine regading the West Coast Super Trip. I’ll just go ahead and post it here:
“The time to joint he PAX West Coast Supertrip is counting down. The
WCST begins in Phoenix Arizona at 8am local time THIS THURSDAY. That
gives you just about 24 hours to get your info to PAdiamondback@gmail
com and count yourself in for the Supertrip.
The official WCST website is at http://www.doidic.com/supertrip/ and
should be gone over a few times to get all the info necessary to make
the most of your Supertrip experience.
Good luck, Godspeed, and let’s light this candle.”
I can’t wait to see the pictures from this thing.
-Gabe out
I like to play World of Warcraft. When I play this sort of game I tend to get attached to my character and I don’t really feel comfortable making new ones. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but once I’ve got my guy I stick with him no matter what. As each new patch comes out Blizzard opens up new classes for play. Once I started my Warlock though I never really saw any reason to switch. I guess that makes me a shitty beta tester, but I don’t really care. Besides, there are so many fucking hunters in the game right now it’s ridiculous. I was in Westfall yesterday and it was like Noah’s fucking ark.
Since I’ve really only ever played a Warlock I tend to think about them a lot. As of right now Blizzard does not seem to have a real clear idea of what the Warlock should be. They’re really just shitty mages with pets. There is really no reason to invite a Warlock into your party and so I tend to have a hard time finding groups. People are always asking for a healer or a tank or maybe a rogue. If someone is asking for a warock it’s usually just for health stones or a free teleport. I still love my Warlock though and I’ve spent a good deal of time imagining the sorts of things I’d like for him to be able to do. I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything if I just went ahead and posted my Warlock ideas here. Maybe Blizzard will read them, maybe they won’t. At least I’ll have shared them with someone other than Tycho who I don’t think really gives a shit, but is very polite when I start talking about soul shards.
Gabe’s Crazy Warlock Ideas!
I don’t know how to write this out in a way that makes sense, so I’m just going to spit out all my ideas in no particular order.
The way I see it, the entire warlock class should be based on the concept of trades. The idea here is that these are magic users who have decided to consort with demons in order to become more powerful. That’s awesome and all, but as of right now the demons aren’t getting anything out of this deal. Everything I know about beings from hell tells me they don’t give up anything unless they get something in return. Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s some other kind of sacrifice.
I think the warlock should have a few incredibly powerful spells that have equally high risks involved. Maybe he could deal a ton of damage to a wide area but then he’d be useless for five or six seconds. In a party situation this might be cool. Once he’s done doing his thing the rest of the party could keep an eye on him until he’s conscious again. He might even become possessed for a short period of time. While possessed, his mana would be draining away but he might have access to a new set of attacks or spells. A warlock who is possessed might be capable of dealing insane amounts of melee damage but he might have a hard time staying on target. This goes back to the trade off concept. Maybe you have a warlock in your party beating the fuck out of some monster, then all of a sudden he comes at you.
The talent system for warlocks has not been implemented yet. I’d like to see an ability tree for them that actually had multiple demons on it, and advancing through the tree equaled gaining more and more favor with these individual demons. Some kind of fire demon for instance might allow you immolation at the beginning but as you prove yourself through class specific quests he might open up new more powerful fire spells for you. Demons always want humans to go and do shit for them. I’d like to see more of this sort of thing for warlocks.
What if while in a group you could trade one of the players in your party for a demon? Say you were about to go into a crazy fight, maybe the warlock could make a deal and trade one of his companions for a powerful demon. The player getting traded might slip into the spirit world as long as the demon was there. That’s the kind of evil shit I want my warlock to do. They are essentially the middlemen between hell and earth. The sorts of deals they are able broker between those two parties seems really interesting to me.
Warlocks should be able to bring someone back from the dead, but it should work a bit differently. When dead, if a warlock is near and he offers to revive you a contract should appear on your screen. He might require money or a soul shard in exchange for bringing you back. If you click okay you essentially sign the contract and your back in business.
Soul shards are cool but I should be able to do more with them. It would be awesome if warlocks could use soul shards in their crafting of items and clothing. Armor made from soul shards for example might protect you against certain spells or even other warlocks.
The role of the warlock in a party isn’t really clear yet. Like I said there is no reason as of right now to invite one to join you. He ends up just taking away XP and not offering anything back to the group. I’d like to see the concept of “trade offs” apply to a warlock’s role in a group as well. They should be able to do some wild shit for a party but you never know if something they try might backfire. It should be a sort of risk vs. reward type of deal. A warlock might be able to deal a thousand points of damage in one explosion of power but to gain that ability he might need an offering for his demon master from everyone in the party. Does he want health, mana, money, or maybe even someone’s life?
I’d say that right now warlocks are the kings of soloing in the game. With my pets I can go out and fuck up just about anything I want without to much trouble. I really don’t need to group if I don’t want to. To me that fits with the class, they are loners. When playing a warlock you often find your trainers tucked away in dark basements. These are evil fucking people who hang out with demons all day. Taking one into your party should be a gamble. There needs to be a high enough possible payoff that people will want to do it, but they should never quite know what they are going to get.
-Gabe out
