Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 01:46PM Today a friend enlisted me into Hawken. For those of you that are like me and not aware this game even existed it seems to be a FPS but instead of a guy running around you are a guy in a battle mech running around.
Video after the jump
gaming Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 04:10PM With the weird New England weather this year winter seems to be flying by. Normally January drags on endlessly and February is the icy force choke of winter. However this year January zipped by nearly unnoticed and we are all one month closer to PAX East.
I have never been to the event but that isn't for a lack of interest more of a lack of planning. This year I grabbed two days worth of registration mostly because the three day passes disappeared in a freeze-dried instant. I don't know quite what to expect but I am very much looking forward to seeing it all unfold.
If your headed out to my stomping ground for this event let me know. We should get a coffee or some caramels. (extra points if you know the Boston specific reference)
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 01:58PM Not too long ago I was playing Boarderlands. Cool game overall. What made the game exceptionally cool? The weapons were procedurally generated. Lots of visual appearances, lots of stat mixes and lots of possible "OMG!! how cool is this!!" moments when you found the item you really really didn't expect with all the bells and whistles you had hoped would come together.
Why is this important to Dan?
I play games nightly and specifically MMOs and I assume all the trash items that drop from regular every day mobs is crap. Its 99.99% vendor trash. Meaning as soon as it drops its really just an extra step of selling the thing. I barely look at the item. I know its worse then all of the crafted stuff and certainly worse then all of the Raid gear.
So why on earth are developers still making these damn things? Honestly? I have no idea. Has anyone even equipped one?
Example....LOTRO
I have been playing for over 4 years (alpha + Beta + live) and i can tell you that endless amounts of yellow mob dropped armor and weapons have ended up in my loot. After about 20 items dropped into my hands I stopped looking. That may have been all of 4 hours into what became a 4 year habit.
In about year 3 I noticed that some of this gear was cosmetically useful. Having sometimes a far better visual appearance then gear that had 2-10 times the stats benefits. Why were these weapon and armor models not reused in better gear? I would be willing to bet no one has ever looked at them.
And it made me think back to Boarderlands. Sure...lots of junk was just junk but some of it had redeeming qualities. One stat was really high or 2 stats together made for a great secondary item or special purpose item.
So why procedural? Procedural generation of items would stop me from simply turning mob dropped items into copper/silver/gold. I might actually read each item description. I might equip it or find a use for it. I certainly would no longer just trash everything that dropped. And maybe just maybe.....i would find something epic once a year off a normal everyday mob. Something useful.
Honestly...the first MMO that comes out that really commits t procedural generation of loot....has my 10-25 bucks a month. Coincidentally if your game is dropping worthless dreck that just makes users vendor trash it. Remove the items and just up the cash drops. at the very least you would reduce the inventory space we all need.
gaming, lotro, mmo, procedural generation