Best Games of 2013: #3- Guild Wars 2

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games, guild wars 2

Guild Wars 2 (published by ArenaNet)
Fantasy-themed MMORPG
(free-to-play once purchased, around $50)

Few MMORPGs possess as much fun, whimsy, challenge, and sheer breadth of opportunities that Guild Wars 2 does.  I had never been much of a fan of the first Guild Wars, but I’ve taken GW2 to my heart.  Most gamers know about this game (it has been out since 2012) but it was this year that I finally adopted it.  With continually updated content, a huge world, and a wide range of things to do inside the game, GW2 easily became one of my favorite games of 2013.

Players in GW2 choose one of five races that thankfully think outside of the standard fantasy game tropes.  Each one also comes with their own look and fully realized culture:

• Asura (rat/mouse like people obsessed with magical technology)
• Charr (warlike cat-like race)
• Norn (large spiritual shape-changing Nordic Vikings)
• Sylvari (nature-loving living plant people)
• and of course humans.

The classes are more traditional, although each has its own general play-style and learning curve:

• Guardian (defensive melee)
• Warrior (flexible melee)
• Engineer (guns and turrets)
• Ranger (bow and pet class)
• Thief (complex flexible chain builder)
• Elementalist (utilizing four different types of magic)
• Mesmer (offensive and defensive magic)
• Necromancer (magic pet class)

Although, all classes have aspects of what is normally thought to be a hybrid class, and all players have a range of heal self and/or others abilities for maximum flexibility in play style

Each playable race is given a linear main quest line that takes them all around the sizable world.  Quest oriented cut scenes are done cleverly with attractive visuals and full voice acting.  Mostly these are engaging.  A few times along the main quest story arc the different races’ stories merge which means some repetitive play if you play several different characters.  This is a minor complaint (although if I never drive the undead away from Claw Island again in my GW2 career I’d be very happy).  A more serious annoying feature of the game is the fact that all of the main quest episodes can be soloed (when of the appropriate level) but the finale goes out of its way to require you to find a partner or party to finish.  As a player who enjoys the solo experience, and can not easily find someone else to adventure with, this has stopped cold my quest progression on all characters.  They are stuck at the penultimate stage with no chance to complete the last quest on their own (despite soloing everything up to that point).  It is a great annoyance.

Speaking of grouping, as to be expected with a game called Guild Wars, a lot of careful attention has been paid to give players who want them the tools to create public and private guilds for group play.  This system is seamlessly incorporated into the game itself.

Adventuring through the GW2 map is often a dynamic experience.  Along with static quest-givers, every map has many ‘automated events’ that run independent of any player interaction.  Players can join in and help with the event, allowing for a degree of spontaneous cooperation without having to formally group.  Another aspect of the game that helps cultivate a collaborative environment is that anyone who assists in any combat receives experience and treasure, preventing any kill-stealing.  Similarly, crafting recourses on the landscape persist until each player receives their share.

The art direction of GW2 is often stunning, although sometimes it veers close to World of Warcraft type cartoony-ness with huge unrealistic melee weapons and absurd armor (and the female armors tend to skew toward the busty and revealing).  The maps are varied and a range of climates and terrain types hold some amazing vistas.  One of the most detailed and impressive is one that the players get to learn well– Lion’s Arch, a city lovingly constructed out of decommissioned ships and other naval vessels.  The first time you encounter Lion’s Arch with its buildings made of ships piled atop each other, sails still fluttering, it is truly a jaw-dropping sight.

Guild Wars 2 always gives you a range of activities you can tackle.  There are standard quests and combat, but also many jumping puzzles, games of skill, and opportunities to make items.  Almost everything you do in the game gives you experience.  You could level up (albeit slowly) just by gathering materials and crafting.  Every day the game also gives you a random list of about 10 activities you can complete (kill so many veteran monsters, revive so many fallen allies, collect so many craft items, etc.) for bonuses and special treasure items, encouraging the player to tackle this ever-changing list, and see it through to the end every time they are in the world.  A built-in achievement system possesses a wide range of rewards for succeeding at a variety of tasks.

Combat is both intuitive and simplified without seeming dumbed-down.  Every weapon type has usually up to 5 special “attacks” that can be unlocked depending on how it is used (main hand, two-handed, off-hand, ranged, or underwater), and the class of the person using it (i.e. an elementalist can do something different with a dagger than a thief can).  This allows a good deal of changeup based on class, play style, and monster encountered, and some weapons complement each other when used together.  Additionally, and this is something that tends to blow your mind when first encountered, GW2 has underwater combat, with a range of underwater weapons and equipment.  When fighting underwater, combat exists in 360 degrees, with the ability to move in any direction, and requiring brand new strategies.  It also helps that the underwater vistas are beautiful, and the transition between the dry and aquatic worlds handled very well.

The world is constantly updated and expanded.  Sometimes this involves completely altering a landscape, as was recently done when some signature monsters cooperated to take over, and transform, previously lush rolling grassland in their own twisted way.  Regular content updates also sometimes change or improve areas of the world you may have not visited since you were low level, necessitating a new visit and providing new experiences.

As with many MMORPGs, holidays receive attention, usually with numerous special events, treasure, and activities.  For example, GW2 created a very fun game for Halloween open to anyone of any level.  A group of about 12-15 players were placed in a maze-like build without weapons or armor.  One player started as a ghost, possessing powers that could kill other players.  Scattered through the maze were several items that the non-ghost players (called “villagers”) could pick up and use against the ghost (balls of gunk that could be thrown to block visibility, sticky webs to slow pursuit, big hammers to fight back, etc.).  When the ghost killed a “villager”, that player became a ghost as well and joined in the fight to chase and convert the remaining “villagers”.  After a time limit, special prizes were given to “villagers” who survived and ghosts who converted the most.  It was a well-thought-out, fun game and was only one of several themed events for that month.

Finally, Guild Wars 2 has been the only game I’ve played where I found any enjoyment fighting other players.  GW2 has two kinds of this content- world vs. world (WvW) and player vs. player (PvP).  WvW consists of four maps filled with keeps, castles, supply camps, and other strategic points where players from three different servers can contest against each other, and ultimately provide server-wide bonuses for everyone.  This is often fast moving with a healthy dose of teamwork.  Although it does not offer as much reward as direct combat, I found great fun using siege weapons to attack rival castle while the rest of my team battled to break down the front door.  Players from different servers are blocked from communicating with each other, or even seeing each others’ names (although Guild names are visible).  This keeps the experience team-focused, which is probably why I enjoyed it.  I dabbled in the regular PvP but found it, as always, full of petulant “hard-core” players who either screamed and yelled at team members for not doing this or that correctly, or who were just interested in killing you and being a dick about it.  PvP is where the 13 year-olds (real and metaphorical) hang out so I tend to give it a wide berth.  I did find WvW enjoyable, however.

Crystal Desert is the unofficial LGBT-friendly server in GW2 and where I play my range of characters (illustrated in this post).  Several LGBT guilds call it home as well.  Come find me there in Guild Wars 2!

Best Games of 2013: #2- State of Decay

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games, state of decay

State of Decay (published by Undead Labs)
Zombie post-apocalypse sandbox-style game
(currently $20 on Xbox and Steam for PC, DLC “Breakdown” is $6.99)

State of Decay is both an amazing game experience and sometimes an amazingly frustrating game. I am usually not a big fan of zombie games (and I am often wary of their bloodthirsty fan base), but I really like State of Decay, and it was definitely the second best game I played this year after The Secret World.

Also like The Secret World, I only stumbled upon this game by accident and got hooked early. Unfortunately, being an early adopter meant that I was also a victim of State of Decay’s many early bugs and errors which should have been fixed before launch (some of which still persist), as well as some annoying imposed restrictions and hoops the developers inserted into the gameplay. But what fun gameplay State of Decay has when all things work well!

State of Decay is meant to be a zombie post-apocalypse sandbox-style game. You manage a group of survivors who band together in a fortified building and scavenger for supplies- everything including food, building materials, medicine, weapons, and of course ammunition. You gather supplies by heading out into the zombie infested towns and countryside that make up the game’s 16 square mile map. There is also the chance to find special weapons and tools that can increase your community’s chances of survival.

Most of the time, if you’re paying attention, taking out one or two zombies on your own with just a pipe wrench is no problem. But of course, zombies like to congregate in groups, often forcing you to become creative. The player that just storms into a ‘deserted’ house looking for supplies will probably not last long, as all that noise will attract wave after wave of shambling undead. Special mutant zombies also add to the difficulty, not to mention the need to manage the personalities and tempers of your group of survivors.

You don’t control a single character in State of Decay, which is understandable because all that scavenging and fighting is tiring. You can switch between characters that you have ‘befriended’ through helping them out, and renew the search for goodies while a tired character catches some much-needed sleep back at the homestead. During the day, searching for supplies is always harrowing. At night, the number and strength of the zombies ramp up as the darkness encroaches. You can never let your guard down while playing, even if you’re just taking an abandoned car across the map to check out an old factory. The game gets the balance between survival horror and progressive gameplay right.

And if your character dies at the hands of a roving zombie horde, they’re gone forever. All the time you spent to level up their abilities is moot. You can only now switch to one of your other community members, and hope your people don’t now begin to panic at the loss. Similarly, once a house or factory or store is searched and cleaned out of supplies, that’s it. The building remains empty for the rest of the game (although some zombies may move in– zombies, unlike supplies, are infinite). All supplies, including cars, are a limited resource. In the main game, a central quest line urges you to find a way to escape the valley (and certain death) before all the supplies you can get run out. In the DLC that has just been released, called “Breakdown”, you can play the game without the main quest and ‘renew’ the map with increased difficulty (number of zombies, frequency of harder mutant zombies, fewer overall resources) at each incarnation.

The art direction of the game is really great (although the character models could use a bit more diversity in style- although a healthy dose of diversity in race and gender is thankfully included). The landscape, and the attention to detail in the builds, is phenomenal. There are some issues around lag and texture popping (memory limits were pushed for the original Xbox release, and not much optimization was made for the PC version), but you can play around these limitations for the most part if you’re cautious.

Special praise must be singled out for the game’s sound direction and music. You must play with the sound on because often the noise of a zombie approaching is the only warning you have before you’re attacked. Also the way in which the game uses audio is amazing. The music is by legendary game composer Jesper Kyd and both perfectly enhances State of Decay’s visuals and evokes a range of moods including terror, pathos, humor, and of course, hope. The soundtrack can be entirely previewed on Jesper Kyd’s site  and purchased on iTunes and other places.

One negative aspect of the game is that when you stop playing and shut off the game, the action still continues. The survivors in your community still venture out into danger to look for supplies, still consume resources, and sometimes still act in bizarre unhelpful ways (like running away and hiding somewhere on the map when they get scared). This goes on for as long as you are away from the game (although not exactly a 1:1 ratio of hours). The developers have never really given a helpful explanation as to why they implemented this feature beyond just purposefully imposing events that are out of the player’s control. They say this would just be like managing a real life group where you couldn’t control everything, but in the end it just frustrates the careful player who can log on and find (especially in the early days of post-launch) all the work done to stabilize the community completely undone with dead characters and destroyed group morale. This feature also hampers both the player that can play a lot (diminishing the results of many straight hours of effort) and the casual gamer (who gets penalized for the time they are not in game, and punished by the offline consumption of resources). Thankfully, much of this feature has been neutered in subsequent updates, so large was the initial outcry from players, and now is just a minor impact, which usually can be tempered with smart gameplay. But from the beginning it was a bonehead feature that provided no real benefits only penalties.

The team that put out State of Decay, Undead Labs, is small, which probably contributed to the fact that the launch game had lots of game-breaking bugs (I once logged in to find one of my survivors had shot and killed the radio operator who gave me quests. She was dead on the floor of the safehouse, but was still talking to me on the radio. That game had become borked while I was offline, and all previous work wasted). Over the past months, many of those bugs have been solved, although there are some (the dreaded “Seek and Rescue” bug that will permanently wreck a character’s mood if you actually go and find them when they run away) that inexcusably still persist. Launching on Steam also seems to have introduced some others, usually with work arounds if you search their forums.

But with all of its unpolished nature, and all of its persistent bugs, nothing comes close to the joy of sneaking around a small deserted town, trying to find a decent weapon and some food for you ragtag group of survivors holed up in the abandoned trucking warehouse, while roving hordes of zombies attempt to find you and make you lunch. All players have stories of that time that they barely escaped the grocery store after being surprised by a horde, only to run into a feral zombie down the street. Piecing together the clues of what caused the apocalypse (the game does not tell you directly) is fun and most of the characters are interesting. With enough raw materials, resources such as gardens, machine shops, and even libraries can be built into your base. You can see your enclave evolve in real time, and your stable of ‘heroes’ become lean, mean, zombie killing machines.

And as an added bonus, there’s even a (very brief but memorable) same-sex relationship portrayed positively as just another aspect of life after the apocalypse (Jacob and Eli above).

While State of Decay has its issues, it also has fun by the barrel-ful for those interested in a hybrid of a sandbox resource gathering game with relentless zombie smashing combat. And it’s only $20 on both Xbox and Steam (for PC).

Best Games of 2013: #1- The Secret World

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games, the secret world

The Secret World (published by Funcom)
Free-to-play MMORPG after purchase of the game (currently $30 on Steam)

This is the best game you’re probably not playing/never heard of.  I only found it myself by doing a random search on Steam.

The premise of The Secret World (TSW) is that worldwide secret societies, conspiracy theories, mythological tales, are all true.  The player joins one of three secret organizations (the Templars, the Illuniati, or the Dragon) and plays through a clever and well-written main story line.  Players battle H.P. Lovecraft inspired monsters that have taken over a New England town, an ancient evil in the deserts of Egypt, and resurgent vampires and werewolves in Transylvania.  Artfully done cut scenes with impressive voice acting set up each quest, which is usually its own mini story.  Players can only focus on a single quest (and up to three side quests) at a time, which helps with the immersion.  The art direction is top notch, with vistas and builds that you spend your time admiring, not just running past on the way to the next objective.

Perhaps The Secret World’s most impressive feature (amid a whole host of impressive features) is it skill system.  There are no classes, no levels, and no armor.  You can wield up to two weapons at a time:  blades, hammers (including axes), hand weapons, elemental magic, blood magic, chaos magic, pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles.  Each type (melee, magic, or gun) has a whole host of unlockable abilities, and it is possible (like in an Elder Scrolls game) to use any combination of types, and even eventually unlock them all.  In addition to active attack or support abilities, there are a host of passive abilities available to unlock, and you can ‘slot’ on your hotbar up to 7 active and 7 passive abilities at a time.

The key is to find combinations that compliment each other.  For example, my favorite is elemental magic combined with pistols.  I can cast a spell that (hopefully) traps a monster in an electric cage for a few seconds, enough time for me to lay down a ring of fire around them.  A passive ability I’ve slotted gives me a brief bonus to my critical damage when the ring of fire is active.  This allows me fire off my dual pistols five times, building enough focus to then unleash a special ‘covering fire’ ability that sprays bullets.  By this time the monster has usually broken free and is charging me.  Time for an icy frost spell that will freeze him in his tracks for a few more moments, enough time for me to do a back flip to get some range again, and start the ring of fire/pistol combo again.  This strategy doesn’t work against all enemies, so I might even have to switch to a sword/elemental magic build I’ve assembled, which keeps the combat fresh and fun.

With no armor, players are free to outfit their character however they want.  Some dress in contemporary clothes, others adopt outfits that make them look more like a superhero, goth, ninja, pirate, or even Roman soldier.  Unlocking abilities and earning achievements also unlocks special outfits that can be combined to a unique look.  My white sport coat with electronic current symbol details (which glow in the dark) is my favorite so far.  I got it by unlocking all of the pistol/elemental magic abilities, and many achievements give outfits.  “Armor” comes from invisible talismans that the player can find or create, and then augment to compliment their playing style.  My only artistic gripe is that the choices for designing a character’s face/hair/etc. are rather limited.  I’ve run into doppelgangers several times because we all chose the same visual combo.

The secret world tries (mostly successfully) to step outside the static and generic MMORPG model, and does so with stunning art direction, engaging and well-written stories (which are also often very funny), impressive gameplay, and a healthy dose of open-ended character creation.

The game does have PvP functionality, but I usually ignore this aspect of MMORPGs.  There are smatterings of interesting gay characters you encounter in your adventures, although my favorite has to be the May/December romance between Oxford archaeologists investigating ancient curses in an Egyptian valley of tombs.

Come find me on the Grim server and join in the conspiracies of The Secret World!

Author Website Redesign

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redesign, website

I’ve overhauled my author site at garydevore.com. I hope the design is cleaner and more attractive, and I love the little black and white icons.

Please note that you might have to refresh each page to see the changes if your browser is holding on to an old version in your cache.

Video Inspiration (1)

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inspiration, pantheon, videos

I’m in the process of making some promotional videos to advertise my novel Pantheon.  I’ve made and edited videos in the past, but I’m experimenting with some new techniques and methods.  This means I’ve been looking around for some inspiration.

While mine will look nowhere as professional and polished (and expensive) as these, here are a few that have sparked my interest and what I like about them.  Maybe they’ll inspire you to play around with some video as well.

Only the Horses by the Scissor Sisters
A fascinating study in the beauty of slow motion that teases out a simple narrative for most of the entire song (“what are they pulling?”).  Literal yet funky in its own way. The use of primary colors is also very effective.

All the Lovers by Kylie Minogue
I know I’ve talked about this video in the past, but I really think it is brilliant.  And not just because she is playing Aphrodite.  The narrative is simple and clear, the visuals are striking, and the special effects are great.  We even get some unsubtle Freudian imagery with the horse.  The use of color is also amazing.

End of the World by Matt Alber
Another video I’ve sung the praises of before many times.  It is just so sublime and romantic.  The art direction has a great use of closeups.  The shift from disheveled to completely made up is subtle, and a nice effect when it is revealed.  The imagery is paired well with the performing in the spotlight with a single mike.

New Pinterest Board- Pantheon Stuff

I’ve created a Pinterest board for my novel Pantheon.  It includes items and locations mentioned in the text.  Hopefully it will help illustrate the novel for you.  You can find it here:  http://pinterest.com/garydevore/pantheon-stuff/

I’ll be adding to it as I find more images.

Hopefully Pinterest will allow us to rearrange the pins on a board, as they aren’t exactly in the correct order at the moment.  Enjoy!

Amazing Old School 3D Map of Hadrian’s Wall

Tags

A Murder of Crows on the Wall, Hadrian's Wall, links

On his website, Dan Becker shows you how to make an awesome handmade 3D map of Hadrian’s Wall and its environs.  All you need is some foam core, some map print outs, and lots of patience!

The illustrated example gives a good illustration of the valley Vindolanda fort sits in and its geographic relationship to the Wall.

Full details here: http://www.danbecker.info/other/HadriansWallMap/HadriansWallMap.html