The Heavy Standard: The Whitelands

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

Rested up they abandon the Fool's March fort and meet up with their elven allies to continue North following the plateau wall into the lush rolling plains of Whiteland. Their mere presence deters a bandit attack on a merchant wagon mid-battle, making the bandits flee while the wary merchants tell them that the path up here has also closed from the great upheaval. The Emperor's Finger tower (fist with middle finger raised) high atop of the plateau is quite visible though (especially during sunrise), as an eternal insult to the people here.

They are also warned that any non-whites would not be treated kindly here, especially with the war against the dark skinned Nigians going on in the North. Some of the 555s are actually Nigian too as Emperor Hiatus Waiting had allied with them early in his reign. Even all the dogs except one which is pure white will be seen as evil. They journey North regardless, saving some kids from a wolf attack and returning them to their nearby town where they learn that they won't be allowed to pass the battle lines in the North.

This immediately makes them do an about turn back towards the swamp but are caught by a 100 strong force of white knights in white armor, white plumes riding white horses and carrying white lances and white flags. Seeing the filth of the 555 they attack! The battle goes very poorly for the poorly armed 555s until Juris does a big spell to make the white knights appear black. Blinded by their racial hatred they begin killing each other till only three remain, fleeing the field and letting the survivors loot their plate armor and weaponry.

They return past the frozen waterfall, past the empty Fool's March fort and up back up the winding rocky incline to the Southlands where they are surprised to find Bad Horse and his people camped nearby. The big man says they lost their territory, a lot of their people, and all the arrested folk from fools march to "flying serpents". The 555 agree to help him with this problem.

The Heavy Standard: The Fool's March

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

Meanwhile Eagle leads the others including Dr. Qwek Qwek and the elves South to the shore, away from where the wind was blowing. A strange woman floating on the water introduces herself as Lady Longwein (whose power is limited to the ocean she says) offers to help stop the spreading forest fire by using a seed of water she provides them before vanishing into the night. They just have to put it at a specific part near the frozen waterfall close to the fortress. The elves are obviously keen on doing this so they accept and circle around the forest fire inadvertently putting them back into the mirrored grove... the team members who had previously had hair taken by crows suddenly explode in flames and more crows arrive as a voice calls out that they broke their promise!

Dr. Qwek Qwek manages to locate the naked crow controlling witch in the mirror grove and Eagle shoots her dead, but not before she immolates a few more of their number. They then make it to the spot to plant the seed of water and upon doing so are rewarded by a massive earthquake which quickly cracks around the swamp region and in a sudden motion the entire burning swamp sinks under the ocean. A most shocking end to that forest fire!

The remaining elves state they will join the 555 on their quest to the Waiting City as it was told that the Emperor had stolen a seed of their great tree long ago and planted it up there, but for now they will make camp here and recover from the shock of losing their home while the highlanders return to the Fool's March fort and meet up with Agrellon and Juris to rest up... losing a few more people to a disease before Dr. Qwek Qwek can cure it.

Soon enough a column of mounted Skyriver braves led by Bad Horse (built like an ox) approaches. As the 555s are trusted friends as decreed by the Death Speaker they can sort the mess the fort inhabitants caused when they kidnapped, abused and killed the chieftain's wife I-told-you-so. They simply strong arm all of the forts inhabitants to be taken as hostages for the tribesmen to enact their justice on those deserving it.

The Heavy Standard: The Forest Fire

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

Inside the tree is a mind trip of chambered puzzles involving keys: leaving an item to take a key off a pedestal, finding a key reflected in a mirror that's not there, defeating a scarecrow whose powers the players themselves decide (easy as non-flammable wasn't one of them), and saving four strangers who happened to be themselves. The queen herself serves only as a guardian to her daughter's room - she bestowed upon her all the powers of the forest for her to make her own paradise. They convince the queen to let them through and beyond find her daughter: a lich.

It is a swift battle once they realize it is a battle, because I was just going on with flowery narration while they are being life drained before Agrellon woke up (by DL saying "hang on what?"). He then body slammed her to wake the others up who then set her alight... which set the entire tree alight. At this point they've lost around 14 of the 555s, and I give them the remaining 20 reinforcements to control evenly.

Regrouping outside they find the old elves and the outpost elves staring in horror at the magical forest fire about to spread and those of them gifted in magic hold hands and try to "kumbaya" chant it away - only to fail and each explode in a horrible scream of brilliant flame rapidly one after the other. This sends Juris' dogs running off into the woods and he gives chase with Flipper, while Agrellon and his frog man chase after Juris. Miraculously (good rolling, supply spending and inspiring Flipper lol), he gets them all back unharmed but are now cut off from the others due to the fire.

To dodge it they head back to the Fool's March fort encountering a murderous silver haired elf on the way who is executing a human female (the local healer at the fort) for lying about the elves spreading a disease in the fort. The kill him unceremoniously and make it there, only to learn there's more trouble coming in the form of a Skyriver raid!?

The Heavy Standard: The Green Swamp

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

As the cavalry leader, Sparrow-touches-trees, does not seem hostile and only wants the child returned Agrellon passes a diplomacy check on his own people to truss up their own legion leader who is so anti-Southlander he's willing to murder the child (and proceed to murder the entire camp as per the Emperor's standing orders). The boy is returned and the 555s are allowed to make camp near the Skyriver tribe's base where they are given some food and learn that its been 25 years since their initial battle. Since then a great upheaval has closed off the routes up to the Waiting City which the 555 are interested to return to. After learning the hills to the East are dangerous they instead go West, leaving the anti-Southlander with the people he hates (and they kill him, feeding him to their Death Speaker who then names the 555 as friends to the tribe).

En route Juris manages to tame a pack of 12 wild dogs on the prairie before they come to the rocky, winding slope that leads down from the Southlands to the a green swamp. Halfway down is a rickety old fort of Fool's March manned by other old "Highlanders" (people from the Waiting City) who got trapped after the upheaval. While playing some dice poker for supplies they learn that no one can exit the swamp, for other than the creatures within strange elf magic prevents them from leaving it. Juris convinces the wavering 555 NPCs to continue the journey rather than stay here and so they descend into the knee deep muck and soon encounter a frogman village.

The froggies are friendly, and Dr. Qwek Qwek helps the constipated chief of his illness: eating stones to stay heavy as the heaviest is the chief. They are each given a froggy ally for this, despite Juris' rejections as his one, Flipper, is very amorous? Lol. The froggies prove to be good guides and can at least give them a choice between passing a dry island of evil trees or a crocman nesting ground. They choose the latter and end up fighting through, then enter a mirrored grove where ravens snatch the hair of some of their soldiers. A voice warns them to leave and they agree, promising to not return this way - so they proceed unmolested.

Next they find some elves lying about in a glade, tripping on the lizards they're licking while one of them gets dragged away by a panther. They wake up and befriend these old guys who proclaim the end of the elves has long been coming: Emperor Hiatus' tactic of flooding their emerald forest and turning it into a swamp was effective and now their queen defies nature itself. They agree to escort the 555 to said tree, letting them pass a guarded elf outpost unchallenged up to the gigantic tree palace itself (now dying from over watering). Here the vines and vine controlled corpses are fought off with some losses as they push through to the large hollow to gain an audience with the elven queen.

The Heavy Standard: The 555

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

At the center of the isle of Atera is a tall and huge plateau upon which sits the sprawling and grey Waiting City ruled by its Emperor Hiatus Waiting. Having grown tired of other nations occupying his island, the Emperor drafts up large numbers of his citizens into his Waiting Legions among whom are doctor in training QwekQwek (Rose), Agrellon the novice swordsman (DL), Eagle the apprentice archer (mom), and Juris (as himself) the novice mage who happen to all be allocated to the 5th legion, 5th division, 5th cohort (aka "the 555") with other mainly civilian folk and after an inadequately short training period at the Southern Cross tower they are all given a club and a tabard, and Dr. Qwek Qwek gets the dubious honor of bearing the heavy standard of the legion: a red flag with a black figure of a sideways facing soldier stabbing themselves in the chest with elder speak writing along the border that translates to "Sacrifice yourself".

Their legion is then sent South with the young orange toga wearing wizard, Roland Lexington, to wage a winter war against the Southland Horselords who have been harassing the farms in the region. They witness Roland's power from a distance as he throws lightning at the masses of torch bearing, bone armor wearing, horse mounted natives but suddenly his position is consumed by a translucent black dome. After a moment of chaos, the 555s are instructed to enter the dome and retrieve the wizard - but first must fight through the horselord forces that get in their way. Juris has the good sense to transmute Agrellon's club into a sword and Eagle's club into a bow and arrows so they can make use of their abilities.

Worth noting I give each of my players 20 NPC soldiers at this point - each with a name and a one line personality trait, keeping a 20 "reserve" on me. For each point of damage they don't want to take, they can instead cross out names on their list. Indeed, some names are crossed out as they forge their way into the dark dome just as it solidifies into a solid black. In the center they find an old man in an orange toga - Roland Lexington (because magic in this world makes you age), his face frozen in terror as a bone spear stopped in mid flight begins to pierce his chest. Approaching it makes time slow for the individual who gets close, and even Juris' attempt at telekenesis causes him to be frozen in time.

Despite their best efforts (or due to their meddling) the spear is pushed forward into the wizard and suddenly time speeds up! The projectile spins wildly, tearing Roland into bits of bloody gore and with a flash of bright light the black dome shatters! Gone are the snowy night time fields they were warring upon and instead they see fields of spring time grass and a bunch of Southland children nearby looking at them in terror. They capture one who spills the beans about where their current camp is and head there, finding a sizable teepee village near the waterfall but a cavalry unit (no doubt warned by the kids that escaped) awaits them.

Elden Ring: Praise the holy!

[Part of my Elden Ring journal]

With that handy side quest done I'm back to Shadow Keep to exit via the West gate, when I finally figure out that its the little side door to use instead of the usual giant one. This path leads through a Bloodfiend tribe to a powerful hammer knight who I can only defeat using holy club magic missile spam, followed by a bridge that needs crossing in time with the giant fire effigy's flame vortex cool down and into some massive ruins that are home to both giant spider scorpions up stairs, fly men down stairs, more bird assassins and freaking insect people in plagued scarlet rot caves that really suck (I dash past these mounted).

Good thing I had left over Scarlet Rot cures and remembered to use them!

Annoyingly Hornsent invades at the exit of that plague section and I have to put down my ex-ally, right before facing the area boss who is a half lady, half winged centipede creature that also spreads scarlet rot. Luckily I down her on my first attempt with the help of Dryleaf Dane. Setting a tree behind her on fire removes the shadow seal from that tower near the start, and I find myself teleported to it to slay cultists and fly folk within while trying to dodge the stronger ogre mages. That first one blocking the stairs is a doozy and again needs holy club magic missile spam!

The fight up continues past another lion dancer to a chamber where Needle Knight Leda blocks the path with her allies Moore and Dryleaf Dane, but they are no match for me and my allies - Thollier and Sir Ansbach! With Miqella's last line of defense gone all that's left is for the three of us to get up to the highest boss door and... find Miqella has one more guardian on his side: Radahn!?

Elden Ring: Here again...

[Part of my Elden Ring journal]

Just when I thought I was done with Elden Ring, Juris gifts me the DLC: Shadow of the Erdtree. So now I'm back and quickly recruited by Needle Knight Leda to venture to the Realm of Shadow to find their lord, Miquella. This realm of Shadow is quite pleasant at first. Lush fields with ordinary shadow peasant folk and their shadow dog pets whom I murder as well as giant stone birds that come to life when you get too close to whatever grave they are guarding. They're also no match for my great club.

It's a magical place...

It's when I find the tomb of some ghost knight with a huge sword and repeating crossbow that I start getting my ass kicked because I've forgotten how to play. Dodge? Block? Counter? Stam runs out!? What!? "You have died" (a lot). But slowly it comes back to me: with the club, aggression is king and if I ignore any and all semblance of intellect and just rush forward and jump smash, that's how I win. Easily. Because club: smash! Also super effective on the stone birds!

Soon after I meet more of Leda's team: Redmane Freyja, a soldier of Radahn (who I helped kill). Hornsent, a bandaged samurai. Sir Ansbach, former servant of Mogh (who I killed). Dryleaf Dane, a silent monk and Moore, a heavily armored but simpleton knight who likes collecting and selling stuff. Nearby are more denizens of the place, spiritual ogres who I later learn are called "Bloodfiends" and lightning goats who I always run away from! I also always avoid the giant burning men because... what sane person would want to fight that? my club doesn't hurt it enough and it has good AoE. :P

Mordhau and The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings must Die

Featuring medieval violence.

The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings must Die

This historical action drama movie is an excellent end to the Last Kingdom TV series as it follows Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon) one last time during the passing of King Edward to around 937 AD. The story moves really quickly (maybe too quickly) and does a great job of building up the anticipation for the death of those in the title. Recommended to Last Kingdom fans, as basically it's more of the same. If you didn't like the TV show or haven't watched it, then this probably won't do anything for you.

Mordhau

This multiplayer first (or third) person slash fest boasts lots of customization and spends its 15 minute tutorial showing off how the direction of your swings matter, the timing of parries, ripostes, chambers (attack in opposite direction), how to shoot bows and catapults, how to joust, break doors, repair doors and how to hold the blade of your sword and swing the hilt to better damage heavily armored foes.

Aaaaand then you get into the game, which for me was the PvE horde mode where you need to defend an NPC nobleman from hordes of enemies. Out goes all that technique as the most successful items are fire bombs, spike traps and far swinging halberds while most importantly being naked, so you can run fast. This game is all nice ideas that fall flat when given to actual players. Not recommended.

Warframe: Frost and Vauban

Defender type frames.

Before the huge time skip in my playing of this game I clearly finished mastery on a number of warframes and weapons as I'm now currently on MR16. That's a slight pity since I don't remember enough to write about the ones I've been through, other than "I preferred my starter Loki over them".

That said, these two were ready and waiting for me when I started up again, and still see regular usage from DL (Vauban) and Jim (Frost) during defense type missions in which they excel.

Frost

One of slowest running frames you can farm for by killing the grineer bosses on Ceres, his best power is his defensive snow globe which blocks almost any projectiles from coming in but lets all projectiles go out which is excellent against gun-toting grineer and corpus. Basically sit in the shield and fire away!

It doesn't stop things from walking into the globe though, which is means it doesn't work against the heavily melee oriented infested - especially since their "ranged" units spit things that still get through the shield. Also if you find yourself outside the shield, your bullets will also be blocked if you try to shoot in.

Vauban

Available from Nightwave's shop, this engineer has a bunch of tricks up his sleeve. Are those even sleeves? Anyway, DL quite enjoys the little rolling grenades and nail bomb ability this frame packs but his best one is definitely the bastille power which makes an anti gravity ring that perma stuns non-eximus enemies foolish enough to walk in for as long as it lasts, making them easy prey.

This makes it fantastic against the infested who easily trap themselves in the net, but as it doesn't stop bullets or lasers the grineer and corpus can still snipe from outside the ring's range. Of course, if you have a Loki with you who loves using radial disarm which makes said gun-toting units into melee goons - it is just as effective.

Since I no longer have either of these (warframe slots are limited) I either use the Titania for infested as she can cleanse toxic / any other status effect or a Loki to disarm grineer and corpus who are also silly enough to go for his decoy clone. Armed with an ether reaper scythe (slash is strong against infested) or sydon trident (great against armored foes) respectively, this makes it doable but requires more work solo. Obviously I can always just team up to make the job easier, or use an NPC specter to assist.

Warframe: Railjack Assembly

Building on the archwing system that lets you fly in outer space, you also get to build you own spaceship (aka "a Railjack") on which you can take your co-op team of four (or just go alone with hired NPCs) to do some pretty neat missions on a second star map. I might talk about those later but this post is purely focused on how to get one, because it's a little sneaky. Not only is this quest "the Rising Tide" hiding behind the Natah chain, but you also need to buy a Railjack Cephalon blueprint to unlock it - which isn't advertised too well.

Luckily that bit is pretty simple. Just go to the readily available market place and buy one for a measly amount of credits! As you might expect, this quest will demand a fair number of resources to construct each stage of your own railjack but nothing too out there - except for maybe argon crystals which are annoying things you can find in the void. I say annoying because they're used in many things, can only be found occasionally, and expire in 24 hours if you don't use them!

Anyway, each main component will need to be salvaged from a planet which involves "scanning" it by standing close to it for awhile. The scan is interrupted if the endlessly spawning enemies get too close, or if you get too far, or if special baddies just cause interference. You can treat this like a defense mission if you want and just kill things really fast OR do my sneaky method: start the scan, run away from the enemies so that they all chase you far, far away, then run back to the scan. Did you know nothing runs as fast as a warframe? Especially if you bullet jump (sprint + crouch to slide then jump).

Doing laps seems to be the easy mode for this quest line, but I strongly recommend doing the fighting path if you are up against corpus (who continue to have excellent songs), because you can get a decent haul of oxium (another rare and highly required resource) from the endlessly spawning oxium ospreys that come with them.

Barony

A minecraft roguelike.

Tasked with delving deep into the nearby dungeon to free a cursed town from the evil within sounds super familiar, but you probably haven't seen it in blocky Minecraft vision before. That's exactly what this game is: and you can take up to three friends with you!

Surprisingly, there is a fantastic tutorial which shows just how deep this game goes. Melee weps have weaknesses, there are different types of ammo for long ranged weapons, you can throw things, cast a variety of spells, build turrets, mix potions, parry with a shield, sneak past enemies, command NPC allies, appraise gems to sell them for more money and so on.

That is a very bad looking situation...

And then you step into the main dungeon and get insta-killed by a boulder. Yep. The death traps aren't as dangerous as the many enemies lurking inside though and given its a rogue like, and death is final (less final if you are in co-op unless you all die), which means you then get to start again from the top! Strangely, even GTFO is more forgiving than that. :P

It's a game I'd probably get into if I found people willing to play it, but the graphics and style are just not going to cut it with my regular group. I give it 2.5 minotaurs out of 5.

Insight: Long corridors that loop onto themselves are great for lure-killing with throwing weapons. It's hard to miss if the enemy has no room to evade and each loop you can pick up your thrown weapons again (which are the only type to never break).

Next Up Hero

Only the dead can help you now.

This online only game has some rather odd art coupled with rather odd game design. In it you must go on expeditions on randomly player made generated floating islands to beat the random foes there. While it plays a bit like Gauntlet, there is no healing. Instead, you can find "echoes" of other defeated players you can revive (as NPCs) to assist you in combat.

Just me and my ghosts...

You can also "spend" the echoes to activate various special abilities, like increase damage or temporary invulnerability. This is pretty cool, but also a massive flaw in that expeditions that are more popular will always be more popular simply because the number of echoes you can find there will be greater than if you made a fresh one of your own.

The always online factor also can be problematic in that looking for maps on the server can sometimes be really slow. Not one I could get into and not one I can recommend, I give this one rocket launcher out of five. Not worth playing.

Insight: Follow the title and simply find what game is next up for you. Skip this garbage.

Minit

You have 60 seconds.

Using black and white graphics, Minit is a simple adventure game where you go on an epic quest to stop the bad guy. The catch? After the tutorial you have 60 seconds before dying and being thrown back to your spawn point.

It doesn't use the best graphics around...

This makes game play very rushed and somewhat frustrating as you need to explore, solve puzzles and win some combats in that time. An early NPC really rubs it in when he talks sooooo slow.

Thankfully it's a short game, and while it's certainly interesting I can only recommend it to those who have patience (ironic huh?). I give it 1.5 cursed swords out of 5.

Insight: Don't go to the desert maze on your first play through.

MMO Design: Limited Resource Design

[Part of the Design Folder]

DMDavid's Adventurer's League quick start document has many interesting ideas that I would like to see in an MMO setting. A summary of intriguing mechanics that I've altered slightly for MMO consumption:

-Players only gain gold when they level up, with higher amounts awarded for higher levels. Once a player reaches max level they can get no more gold.

-Gold can only be used to buy mundane (non magical) gear and/or services from NPC merchants. A healing potion is an example of magical gear that you cannot buy with gold.

-Players gain level through advancement points, which are gained via quest progression and not necessarily by killing monsters. They cannot be farmed. More advancement points are required to advance to higher levels.

-Monsters will only drop quest/adventure appropriate items. Not loot and not EXP in the traditional sense.

-Players also gain treasure points by leveling up, with more points awarded for higher levels. Once players reach level cap, they can gain no more treasure points.

-Treasure points are spent on NPCs who sell powerful magic equipment - like, a single use healing potion. All this magic gear is of the consumable type, that is having a fixed amount of uses and then is gone. A magic sword might have 10 swings before returning to a normal sword permanently for example. Even the cheapest magic item will require multiple levels worth of treasure points to purchase.

-Gold, treasure points and advancement points cannot be traded / bartered between players but equipment (regular and magic) can. Equipment can never be sold back to NPC merchants for their corresponding currency.

As you might appreciate, this strongly pushes players to have characters "retire" at end game - but it also might encourage multi-toons because to fight "that last boss" I need / want to send my best guy with all the best magic gear... which only happens if he is equipped by other people.

There might even be a "retire" option (so the server can save on character slots) which sets aside the old adventurer permanently but gives your new character a magic item or two from the old one, if the veteran was of high enough level - or perhaps spent enough gold in his will.

If you wanted to "hard core" it, permadeath can also be applied again using the "will" system to pass on some hard earned items. In this particular case I don't think it is required though, and death being just a time penalty (returning the player to a spawn point) is enough since the limited resource design will eventually lead the players to the end/rebirth.

Now, one caveat of such a game is that there must be more quests than levels - and that the easier quest options become "non-rewarding" once you get past a certain level to avoid people that just go after low hanging fruit.

What do you think? Would such a game interest you?

Assassin's Creed: Unity

More RPG, more Pay to Win!

This time around we follow the would-be assassin Arno (and friends, if played co-op) as he awkwardly leaps, clambers and struggles to jump into the windows of Paris during the French Revolution. The city, which is packed to the brim with NPC crowds, is massive and well detailed, especially the building interiors. Arno himself is almost fully customizable in gear (think RPG type games) and attire and his story line is pretty decent.

Can't do away with the hood, no sir.

Alas, all that hard work is mostly undone by a number of issues - the first and foremost being greed. Like any Assassin's Creed game, there are a multitude of things to collect such as chests. This time around, they come in four colors: silver (open), red (locked), blue (for those who bought the DLC), and gold (pay to win). That's right. PAY TO WIN.

Obviously that hard curbed my usual kleptomania as by default, I cannot clear the map if I don't pay to win. Even the locked chests have their own problem in that they are inaccessible until you skill up in lock picking, but by the time you do you've probably got Cafe's already generating enough Francs that you can ignore them.

Also problematic are the controls, where the previously single parkour key was divided into "parkour up", "parkour down", and "jump into window / parkour forward". Due to how the map is created I understand why they needed such a system, but a more elegant solution would have simply been a single key that switches between those states. For me, this made Arno behave like a psychotic monkey which made it harder to evade gunfire.

Oh yes, pretty much every one has guns now - and Arno is a shit swordsman. He's the first assassin who cannot counter kill, instead relying on multiple strikes to end an opponent. Dude, if you can't kill a dude by hitting him once with a sword, you probably should stick to guns. Again, I can tell this was a poor design decision - because RPGs traditionally let you hit things a lot before they die.

As a result - do you remember those awesome times when any of the previous AC heroes could just walk into a literal army of enemies and come out on top? Well Arno can't do that. At some point you need to run or die. By default this makes him the worst fighter ever and just makes him even less fun to play since his attire is more heroic than he is.

All up, AC: Unity is not a -bad- game, but it's nowhere near as fun as its predecessors. I give it 2.5 pisspots out of 5 and only recommend it for die hard Creed fans. For everyone else, pick any of the earlier games for more fun.

Absurd Game Ideas: It was Me!

[Part of the Absurd Game Ideas folder]

Many game bloggers, including myself, usually talk about our ideal games or how to improve the games we currently play. Well I thought it would be fun to flip the script and share our most absurd and silly game or game mod ideas! You are invited to blog your own crazy ideas too! :)

For today I give you...

It was Me!

In each session of this multi-player game, players find themselves trapped in a mansion, train or ship with each other, a dead body, and with Inspector "Let God" Sortemout (an NPC). At the beginning of each game, one player is randomly flagged as the murderer - knowledge only they are privy to.

Inspector Sortemout will then begin making his rounds to look for clues and question each player which will raise or decrease their suspicion score. During this, players have free reign to hide or plant evidence, lie about details in multiple choice questioning, and accuse other players of being the guilty party.

When time is up, Inspector Sortem takes all the players to the main lobby to reveal his findings - and conduct an on the spot, public execution of everyone but the player with the least suspicion. The player that survives is the winner - doubly so, if that player was the actual murderer! Can you be the best murderer ever? Find out in "It was Me!"

Developer Appreciation: Mabinogi Combat System

Today's Dev Appreciation is focused on the cutesy MMO Mabinogi, which still has the best basic combat system of any MMO I've played so far. Unlike everything else which is basically trying to maximize your DPS rotations, fighting here is at a much slower pace using a rock paper scissors type format. A regular attack can be blocked or countered, a smash attack defeats defending stances but can be interrupted by a regular attack, and a counter stance makes you immobile and drains stamina for as long as you take it.

More skills, like this jump smash, came in later.

It's simple and effective, and given most of the NPC enemies have the same skill set also meant a talented player with a newbie character could still beat harder boss-type foes, while an advanced character with a less skilled player could still be losing quickly to lowly wolves. That's the way it should be.

I also quite liked the upgrade options of gear. Usually any piece can only be upgraded 3 times out with around 5 options on each occasion. The options add and subtract various stats, and the measurement of "balance" for weapons played a significant role. For example making a sword heavier gave it a wider damage range but throttled the balance of the weapon meaning an untrained character would always be on the lower numbers, but a character with high enough dexterity to make up for the terrible damage would thrive using such a weapon.

Neverwinter Online: Arcane Reservoir Challenge

For those who want quests that aren't in the game. :P

It's been awhile since I made a challenge post, but I thought I'd do one for the Sharandar Weekly in Neverwinter Online. Most people fly through it these days (myself included), literally just running past everything to murder the boss and leave. Well, if you want to mix things up here's the task for you:

Get all four of the NPC Reservoir Guards to the final room.
 

This is the finish line.

Note that they will vanish when you hit the boss cut scene but that's fine, if all four of them made it there alive you win. As your gear score improves you also might want to add a few extra options like:

Complete the quest solo
Complete the quest in under 3 minutes

Shouldn't be that tough and if at first you don't succeed, don't worry too much since you'll probably be doing this quest every week at some point. :)

Enter the Matrix

Everyone is so cool, they gotta wear shades at all times.

A tie in to the movie series, players can choose to fill the shoes of Niobe or Ghost in their story to help the One. Agents (the ultimate enemy in the Matrix world) are represented very well when they show up and the music track is decent.

The video cut scenes are movie quality, which is not matched at all by the in game graphics. The motions are also hit and miss - all the kung fu stuff is good quality but the regular running motion and climbing actions are ludicrous.

There's no way he can hit me if I'm parkouring, right?

Good thing you also have the "focus" ability which lets you slow time and dodge bullets, because in  "regular" mode, Niobe and Ghost are lousy with firearms and would have trouble hitting a barn door much less keeping other friendly NPCs alive - which you have to do numerous times in the game. This is not helped by the clunky control scheme.

Expect to have a fair few falling deaths too, and questioning where Ghost keeps his MP5 of endless explosive ammo which he uses exclusively during car chase sequences. I also must question their choice of last level which is almost a different game altogether.

Ultimately, unless you are a die hard fan of the movies I recommend staying away. I give it 2 death drops out of 5.

Dark Souls III: The Spears of the Church

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

The boss fight inside the church is one of the most devious in Dark Souls. While there is a respawning painting assassin NPC during the fight, the main boss is... another player. Yes. I hope you've been practicing your PvP skills because one of the many crazies who enjoy ruining the day for others will be summoned as "your boss fight", and given the people who sign up for this covenant would be the ones who PvP at every opportunity - lets just say are not novices.

Said opponent cannot use Estus heals which is great, but everything else in their arsenal seems to be ok. They also get an AoE spear summon and an automated magic spear spell hovering above them (at least I think its automated). The "Spears of the Church" Faltran and Bloodfire did their duty of blocking my progress. Rather than hoping one will just throw the fight (which probably isn't going to happen, given the game) I decided to tilt the battle to my favor as much as possible, summoning sunbro Andraste to assist and coating my axe with the bleed buff.

Pre-combat shot. The fighting is too intense later to take screenies.

Spear of the Church Anayaki still put up a good fight, but with my tricks and a late "suddenly switch opponent" tactic by Andraste and me, Anayaki was caught unprepared for an axe to the back. Being unsure of who to block against next ensured both of us hit which ended the boss fight in our victory. Thank you Andraste! Funny that someone named after a goddess/saint helped me get through this section! ;)