Hellgate Global: From London to Tokyo

I recently started reading Helgate: London Exodus and reading that book reminded me how much i enjoyed the game and even more the whole back story and lore behind this game.

Maybe the game itself didn't do justice to the lore, but it is still a lot of fun to play.
Reading the books made me realise how much more awesome this game could have been..

Even after Hellgate: London was taken down you could still play the game in singleplayer mode.
The game has now relaunched as Hellgate Global and is free to play up to a certain point, there are definitely some cash shop purchases required to enjoy the full game.

I ended up in the beta for Hellgate Global but for some reason i could not log in to my account, as no matter what i tried my password was not accepted, a couple of days ago i finally managed to get my password reset and am now playing :)

The game is not without it's problems, i am very surprised to still see some bugs there that were allready in the Hellgate: London beta way back, but so far it is not all game breaking.
The only major problem is lag spikes, there are moments in combat where everything freezes up for several seconds or you get a framerate of 1 fps.
There also seems to be very little (gm) support, gold spammers are sometimes spamming chat for hours.

Despite everything i still love this game and can't wait to see what the future brings for this game.
I allready had a little taste of Tokyo, which looks pretty good, can't wait to see where the story brings me, most of the story i allready played through with Hellgate: London although some things seem to have changed.

A Buggy Game of Thrones

I never heard much about this RPG until i actually saw it on Steam and since i really enjoy Game of Thrones i figured an RPG set in this world might be cool.

It felt kind of wierd i hadn't heard about this game before, i mean a big IP like GoT you would think big marketing..

Today the game unlocked for me on Steam and i was able to start the game, and that was about it.
I wanted to check my settings and change screen resolution, but for some reason all i got was blank (black) menus, nothing to read/select/check, the same with all other menus.
So i figured to just leave the settings as they were and just start playing.

Well everything went fine during the intro, it looked ok, nothing really amazing but just like any other decent RPG.
Then came the character menu

More bugs, a two headed character, nothing more to see here so on to the next menu

And more bugs, no text, nothing to click, just a buggy four headed character..
I was able to somehow get past this by just randomly clicking and or smashing buttons and got through to the character attributes screens, but that gave me more black screens with nothing to read or see what i was doing.

So when it comes to the game itself, i have no idea, i can't judge it (yet), but just from this experience i am fearing the worst: a buggy game.
Still hoping this game is worth the purchase, but only time will tell. I guess i'll just have to wait and see if there are going to be any game updates/bugfixes coming through Steam that will allow me to play this game.

Right now i can't recommend getting this game, even if you are a big Game of Thrones fan, i also can't say not to get it as maybe not everyone is having problems with this game but it won't work for me, plain and simple.

I was really looking forward to playing this game, but i guess there is a reason this game did not get a lot of publicity, despite having a big IP/name to it.
Really hope Cyanide Studios is working on some fixes here as i can't imagine being the only one having these problems.

SWTOR: A quiet universe.

I have been slowly progressing on my smuggler Morenn, who has just reached level 36.
Right now she is questing on Balmorra, progress has been somewhat slow as i am staying away from all heroic quests, no sense in trying them when there are only a few people on the planet most of the time.

It's definitely something i have noticed, everywhere i go there seem to be only a few people on the planet, obviously most people who do play have leveled up and moved on and there are very few new players.
It has been kind of the same with my guild, usually it's just me online and maybe every now and then i see another person logging in, although in this screenshot there are actually 3 people logged in (including me).

So right now i am skipping (dropping) any heroic quests i get and just concentrate on doing the normal quests, obviously i am missing out on quite a bit of content here, but yeah, there's not much i can do about it.

Don't get me wrong though, i am still having fun, the smuggler main story has been quite good and i really enjoy the interaction with my companions, actually in the above screenshot you see me leveling up after a nice chat with Risha in a cantina, who is by far my favorite companion.

I guess i'll be saving that heroic content for later, along with codex entries and holocrons that i missed.

38 Studios a final goodbye.

Not even a day after the bad news of the BioWare/SWTOR layoffs came even worse news this time it's a sudden (unexpected) shutdown of an entire company.

A few very good posts have allready been made about this and i think Keen and Graev worded it perfect:

Quote: "Following games closely and being so excited for something, just to have it shut down at a moment’s notice, is the hardest part of being such eager gaming enthusiasts.  Such potential for something fresh or new is destroyed, but we’ll continue to see a new Call of Duty game released every year and a horrible MMO will see the light of day simply because it has a huge publisher.  So frustrating."

 One can't help but wonder what the hell went on on the business side of 38 studios to "run out of money" so suddenly to be closed down like that and i can't help but feel bad for those working so hard on the game, it must be very frustrating to know that now all your hard work will probably not see the light of day now.

I absolutely had my eyes on 38 studios or rather on Project Copernicus.
I did like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning quite a bit and am definitely not done playing and was quite curious to see what this franchise would turn into, well i guess we now know...

Nicolaus Copernicus - Died 24 May 1543
Project Copernicus - Died 24 May 2012
Irony ?

It's never easy.

Most of you have probably by now heard of the layoffs at BioWare/SWTOR.
Eventhough it was expected that after a succesfull launch (some) people would  lose their jobs, lots of people get hired on contract base, it is never an easy thing. Especially when it happens to a game or company you like.

However some of the layoffs for SWTOR are somewhat unexpected, especially when you hear that, basicly the guy that put SWTOR out there, the lead community guy, Stephen Reid is one of them.
Stephen Reid was/is for me the face behind SWTOR and to see him go feels really wierd.
It really makes me wonder what is going on here.

I have never been a big EA fan so when EA got their money grabbing hands on BioWare it definitely got me worried. Maybe i am seeing things that aren't there or maybe there where other reasons, but i can't shake the feeling that now EA basicly owns BioWare and most importantly their (very) succesfull IP's (Mass Effect, Dragon Age and a Star Wars license), they don't care that much for BioWare as a company and i wouldn't be surprised to see BioWare dissapear under the EA banner.

I really hope i am wrong, i am a huge BioWare fan and i really hope BioWare manages to stay independent under the EA banner, but i guess only time will tell..

I do wish all those affected by the layoffs the best in their future jobs and thanks for putting out such a great game.

And to however is going to replace Stephen Reid: goodluck, you've got some big boots to fill.

Another thing i noticed was quite a few people posting on twitter that they were going to quit playing SWTOR now because of the layoffs, well i don't know, you want to quit playing SWTOR because you don't like the layoffs... Well guess what, if everyone stops playing there will be even more layoffs.

Back in the old days of gaming.

I often hear (read) people say they want the good old days of gaming back, that they really want some "old school" gaming.
Well maybe i am getting too old but when i think old school gaming i am thinking about dying and losing everything having to start over.
A game having 100 levels, you manage to get to level 99, you died and had to start all over again from level 1 with nothing than what you started with at the first place.

Nah, i definitely don't want those days back, i think i am pretty happy with what gaming evolved into, i think i like the WoW generation of games.
Don't get me wrong i enjoyed those days of trial and error trying to beat a game by playing the same levels over and over until i finally managed to beat that last level, but i am also glad those days are over, i rather enjoy the casual gaming we have nowadays, of being able to just start at the beginning of the level i just died in instead of having to start the entire game from the start.

Maybe i am just older than the people making these comments and they are talking about later games, cause i can't imagine (or don't want to) what it would be like to play WoW (or any MMO) with having to start all over with nothing when you die at level 1.
It might be fun for a while but i am pretty sure many will get frustrated and quit very soon.

I do still occasionally play old school games but usually after a few hours i get tired of having to start all over again and i'll just start up something a little more casual/fun.

LOTRO: Trying to get back.

Coming back into LOTRO and trying to get my bearings again i can't shake the feeling of everything evolving around the cash shop and Turbine forcing you to pay real money in order for the game being more enjoyable.

I mean, just as an example, the killing deeds where you have to kill a certain number of mobs for a deed to complete. Now correct me if i am wrong but i do not remember that number of required mobs to be that high, i mean 100 to 150 mobs to finish a deed seems quite normal now.
Now of course you can speed that up by buying stuff in the cash shop (for real money) that will actually give you 2 kills for the price of one, so instead of 100 mobs now you only have to kill 50, which in turn makes the game less grindy and as a result more enjoyable.

Heck wanna do more damage, there's a potion in the shop for that too.
It feels a lot like pay to win to me..

I might get the wrong impression but that's how the game feels to me coming back into it after being away for some time and i have a lifetime sub (VIP account) so i can't imagine what the game must feel like for F2P players.

But yeah, i did buy some of that stuff to speed up my game, heck i logged into the game finding well over 13000 points in my account so i guess i am good for a while :)
Having said that, i would not buy a lifetime sub for the game as it is now, this is not the game i bought a lifetime sub for and i feel screwed  over by the cash shop shit.
I do not mind a cash shop for vanity items, but a cash shop that basicly sells you things to "fix" things that should be ingame is just plain wrong.

I think that if i would not have bought a lifetime sub i would not be playing this game today, i think the only reason i am playing it is because i feel i need to to justify buying that lifetime..