Biggs' Zone

A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Category: Gaming Page 38 of 44

Thoughts and ponderings about PC and consoling gaming.

What’s Your First Contact?

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On April 5, 2012

In Gaming

I want to start off by saying Happy First Contact Day gamers, trekkies and sci-fi geeks! The second thing I want to say is that this post is not asking when you had a close encounter (sorry Fran Drescher). Instead, since this blog is predominately a gamer blog, I thought I would ask what your first gaming experience was. You can choose any platform (i.e. console, PC, MMO, etc). I just thought it would be fun to do something to commemorate this truly nerdy day.

Obviously I will start. The original Nintendo was my debut into gaming. Super Mario Brothers, FTW! I also played a lot of Blades of Steel with my dad, which was often entertaining because he didn’t like to lose. NES became Sega (which was the first gaming system I bought myself) where I played a lot of Mortal Kombat and Sonic, then Super NES and pretty much every iteration of Nintendo after that. I never bought a Playstation. I didn’t play XBox until I met my wife, she had the original XBox and we still have the XBox 360. We never got the Kinect and probably never will.

PC gaming didn’t really start until freshmen year in high school and it started off slow. It was my parents first computer and it was Windows 3.1 on an IBM Aptiva, it had a 4 MB hard drive, which was HUGE back then. I mostly played things like Descent and Sim-City. It wasn’t until college, when I got my own PC, that I really got into PC gaming. First Person Shooters were my primary gaming medium of choice. I think I played Half-Life my entire college career.

It wasn’t until a “Fuzzy” friend of mine convinced me to check out World of Warcraft that I tried out MMORPGs. The rest, as they say, is history.

The MMO Times: The Panda’s Are Coming!!

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On March 29, 2012

In Gaming, MMORPG

Issue 29

Hello Again, Gamers! Despite the title, there won’t be a lot of Mists of Pandaria information in this issue, mainly because there is so much out there that I didn’t want to flood this post with articles just about the next WoW expansion. If you really want to check out all the upcoming features for MoP I would head over to MMO-Champion, they have quite a comprehensive collection of information.

Instead I tried to keep things more about other games because, despite Blizzard’s best efforts, there are other games out there to play then just WoW and after nearly eight years, the other games are just more interesting. I did include a couple of WoW-related posts but I think people might enjoy some new information about upcoming (new) MMOs like Pathfinder Online and World of Darkness.

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WoW: Why I’m Not Going to Beta MoP

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On March 21, 2012

In Gaming, MMORPG, World of Warcraft

I suppose it wouldn’t be completely accurate to say that I won’t opt-in for the Mists of Pandaria beta, I probably will. In fact I may even log in to check it out, but I probably won’t do any long term testing of the expansion. In fact I probably won’t participate in any beta for a game (or expansion) that I intend to play when it goes live. I have decided this after playing the beta for SWTOR.

I discovered, after participating in the SWTOR for nearly 8 months, that once the game goes live, it starts to feel stale pretty quick. Granted there are some subtle changes and sometimes that is good and sometimes, not so good. For example, in SWTOR there was a preference in the Social options that I used all the time while I was in the beta, but when the game went live, they took it out. I never found out why but I was pretty disappointed to find it missing.

Eventually SWTOR became exciting again after I leveled past all the quests that I had already done repeatedly (because of data resets) in the beta. Be that as it may, I would still like to avoid that kind of repetition especially in an expansion where the level cap is only increased by five (which means there will already be some repetition, relatively quickly, when I start leveling the alts). I hope that I don’t discourage anyone else from participating in a beta. The beta test is an extremely important part of software development and the more people that participate the better the user experience will be (in theory) when the product goes live. It is also kind of fun to say that you had participated in the beta of a popular game.

Cheers!

The MMO Times: Mechs and Dragons and Lightsabers, OH MY!!!

By

On March 16, 2012

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Issue 28

Greetings Fellow Gamers! I am trying to remain on top of all the latest MMO news that I believe most of you will find interesting. The GDC was going on this week so there have been quite a few of announcements. This issue has some new information about MechWarrior Online, the latest SWTOR patch trailer as well as more news on upcoming patches and updates for other popular games. There are also details about the Diablo III release date, Guild Wars 2 pre-order information and more.

I may have another issue next week as Blizzard has indicated that a wealth of expansion information will be unveiled by the media sometime next week. I would expect that the next issue of MMO Times will be dominated by World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria news.

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WoW: Wrath Still the Favorite

By

On March 13, 2012

In Gaming, World of Warcraft

I haven’t written too many blog posts about World of Warcraft. Most of my ramblings have been about gaming in general or SWTOR (when I was in the beta), so its kind of fun to blog about the game that really started it all (for me).

I have now played vanilla (though I did not reach max level before the expansion), Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King and now Cataclysm. I have watched the game change tremendously and I have tried to follow the lore throughout each expansion. I have been following along as more information about Mists of Pandaria is unveiled. I think, among all of the expansions (past and future), Wrath of the Lich King is still my favorite.

I played Warcraft III several times before and during college so I think that is why I enjoyed the lore so much in Wrath of the Lich King. The addition of the Death Knight as a playable class added an ironic twist to the story and the quest to defeat Arthas. I loved doing the quests specifically to follow the story and the lore and the homages it payed to Warcraft III. Every time you left Eastern Kingdoms (or Kalimdor) it felt like an expedition to Northrend, just as Arthas did (before he went totally nutz). Dalaran was, and still is, my favorite capital city. I still have my hearth set there for several of my toons. Sometimes its depressing to be there and see it so empty. I think that Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel are still the best raid instances in the game.

As WoW is declining in popularity, I think the timing of its decline is somewhat fitting. Despite the fact that Cataclysm brought many features players were clamoring for (ex: flight on the original continents), from a lore perspective I kind of feel like Wrath of the Lich King was the final chapter. It ended one of the biggest story lines in Warcraft lore. I would go so far as to say that any expansion that follows Wrath of the Lich King is just an appendix because its hard to imagine that any expansion could be better … unless there is an expansion dedicated to the Emerald Dream/Nightmare.

Or, maybe one day we will have to return to Northred … after all there always must be a Lich King 🙂

Cheers!

MMO Times: Sorry for the Delay

By

On March 6, 2012

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Issue 27

Hello Gamers! Sorry for the delay in bringing you the MMO News. As you may be able to guess life got a little busy. Enough about my excuses, here is the latest headlines. Enjoy!

SWTOR Patch 1.2 Coming in April

Posted 3/6/12 – The masters behind SWTOR (EA, Bioware and LucasArts) announced that the next big content patch (1.2) will be hitting PCs next month. This patch has some long awaited features including Guild Banks, legacy benefits, new flashpoints, ranked warzones and more. Follow the link to Game Guru to read more.
GameGuru post

Rumored Diablo III Release Date

Posted 3/5/12 – According to an Italian source there are rumors that the possible release date for Diablo III is April 17th. The evidence for this rumor is that stores in Italy have been clearing space for a new title after retailers received a tip from Activision Italy. Blizzard didn’t comment but a twitter post simply said “9” – perhaps this Friday we will all know for sure. In my opinion, it would make sense which may also explain why Bioware plans to release its next big content patch (1.2) for SWTOR around the same time. Follow the link to Massively to read more.
Massively post

SWTOR Guild Summit Summary

Posted 3/5/12 – Unless you have been living under a rock (while playing SWTOR) then I’m sure you knew that this past weekend Bioware/EA/LucasArts held their SWTOR Guild Summit. This was an opportunity for SWTOR developers to host panels (with Q&A) to dicuss the future of SWTOR. The panels covered everything from crafting, to PvP, guilds and the legacy system. Darth Hater (a pretty renown Star Wars fan site) has a pretty good summary of the summit. There is quite a bit of good stuff to check it out.
Darth Hater article

SWTOR March 2 Community News

Posted 3/2/12 – The link to the latest Dev Q&A is also on the RSS feed on the right. This week the developers talk more about what to expect in patch 1.1.5, 1.2 and future features. They seem to be really building up the benefits of the legacy system. Follow the link to read the blog post on the SWTOR community news site.
Community News Blog Post

DCUO Expansion Announced

Posted 3/2/12 – Players will have the chance to face off against Brainiac in the upcoming DC Universe Online expansion. The interesting thing about this expansion is that if you were previously a paying subscriber you will get the expansion for free, but those playing for free will have to buy it. No pricing has been announced. Follow the link to read about it at GameSpy.
GameSpy article

More Character Customization in GW2

Posted 2/28/12 – The developers for Guild Wars 2 have released details about how players will be have more character customization. Based on what I read this is more than just how the characters look, but you will also be able to customize how the character plays. Players will be able to tweak their characters through traits and attributes. Follow the link to read more at Massively.
Massively article

MechWarrior Online Teaser Trailer!

Posted 2/28/12 – Piranha Games gave the gaming community a treat when they unveiled a teaser trailer first look at MechWarrior Online. The video does not show in-game footage, it is a cinematic but it is 1 min and 30 sec of drooling yumminess. I also found the URL for the official website.
Massively post | MWO website

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