PC against Consoles War

Now when I think of it I am going to play only the last 2 good games that are not on consoles – Entropia Universe and Star Citizen. Entropia has too many controls for console (but I guess you can play with keyboard on the consoles, not to mention its complexity. And Star Citizen is too much detailed for consoles too. Chris Roberts declared war on consoles from the beginning of Star Citizen Kickstarter campaign.

I understand why Microsoft, Sony and big game developers want people to play on consoles, but they are stopping the progress of games by making Gameplay easy enough for 5 year old and lower down the graphic (for reference see WatchDogs or other console game that looks awesome before release and after release graphic is castrated) of new games so they are playable on consoles. Even Diablo 3 was simplified so you can play it with just 1-2 buttons without even thinking.

And if you have the money of Microsoft and Sony you can order the music. Game developers will make games for your consoles when they smell the money. And PC will get only small budged indie games. And here comes the last 2 defenders of the PC – Star Citizen and Entropia Universe. And every responsible gamer should play them and show the console a$holes that we want realistic graphic and gameplay that actually makes you think a little more than a chicken wondering where to poo.

Blizzard veteran joins Star Citizen team

I like probably most of you spent my time as a kid playing WarCraft 2, StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War and Diablo 2. And I bought StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, but they are not on the same quality level as the old games. Even today I prefer to replay StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War campaigns instead of StarCraft 2 campaign. I even didn’t finish the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm campaign. Blizzard was my favorite game company but I fear I will never buy game from them again. No wonder they are now making some card game and other stupid games. And for years fans expected some mysterious project named “Titan” may be the next gen MMO. But no one is expecting it now.

And now the news is that lead producer of Diablo 3 Alex Mayberry will join Star Citizen team. He will work as an executive producer at the studio. Mayberry will oversee all development on Star Citizen. He will also be responsible for managing the company's development studios across the world. For some this may be great news, but I think we can expect just more ways to delay content in order to get more of bakers’ money. Star Citizen may be the only game other than Entropia Universe that I will play, but I see when they use Jedy tricks to get more of my money and that piss me of. Remember the release of Dog Fighting Module in December last year. For me it was clear to them that it won’t happen then. But people spent more for holidays in December then they do in March or May or whenever that DFM comes out. That move made them more money, but I wanted to buy Hornet for 140 $ and now I will stick t my pledge of 40$ for Aurora and alpha access.

Let’s see what that Blizzard geek does for the game. And let’s hope it is not too bad for the community.

Playing games AFK

For people that never played MMO this will probably be huge shock to learn that millions of people are playing games every day away from the PC and doing something else while they achieve something in the game. You know that you can sweat AFK in Entropia Universe. Make some peds sweating and at the same time do something else. You can even hunt AFK sometimes.

I was surprised to see that in EVE online mining is done mostly AFK. At least that is how far I am into the game so far. When I was watching videos on YouTube how people put different modules on their ships and go drill with some laser beams I thought it was cool. And before I start I decided to be miner. Got my mining ship and went mining. Just to realize that after I start my miner I have to wait and watch the monitor for the next 15 minutes. Sometimes this is not so bad because I can check my email, eat my dinner or even play Entropia Universe. But the thing got even worst. I was mining in Eve Online, collecting sweat in Entropia Universe and actually playing Might & Magic Duel of Champions, a very cool free to play card game. I recommend it to everyone.

This situation is bringing me on another topic. A lot of people want space mining in Entropia Universe, including myself. But now I see that this will be huge disappointment. At least if it is done the same way. While mining in Entropia Universe is boring now, it is 10 times more boring to mine in EVE Online. And if MindArk developers spent 3 months to implement something that people will get bored after 1 day it’s not good way to make business. And this lead to the logical conclusion that not everything players want is good for the game, or for any game.

This topic actually brings me to few more topics, but they are not so related to AFK playing games so I will leave them for another post. The main topic of this post was that millions of players play a lot of games daily, not only the ones I mentioned here, away from the keyboards or at least doing something else on their computer. And I am still thinking what this means.

EVE Online going free to play

Since I am considering starting career in EVE Online I did some reading on EVE Online blogs and forums and things are not looking good for CCP Games (Developer of the game). Last few ‘free’ expansions didn’t bring much new stuff. And why the hell are they calling it free expansion when they tax players 15$ a month. You are paying every month and then they want you to pay for some update of MMO. In case they stop updating the game it will be dead in few months. But now players are bored as last few updates didn’t give them much new things. Just big talks from the devs where the game is going.

But if only that was the problem I think EVE can survive. There are some more complicated problems. A lot of players are angry at the devs. They may love the game, but don’t like what devs are doing. They are giving some third party site free ships so they can sell tickets to the players to won the ships like lottery. This is wrong on so many levels. They are promoting gambling activities on some ‘fansite’. From all the fansites they choose one to ‘sponsor’. The tickets cost more than the ship you win. You can read more on EVE forums, but it is something that ruins the thrust in the developers.

Another big problems are bots. Just like in Diablo 3 where bots were farming gold 24 hours a day and until you manage to collect 100k gold someone have 100kk gold. For Diablo it s not such big deal because you can play single player and never worry how much gold other players have. But in multiplayer MMO where other players can kill you on every corner the difference between your gold and theirs is important. Also Eve is running for more than 10 years now and the gap between poor and rich is multiplying every day. And I don’t see how they can fix that. They can’t just reset the game and everyone to start from the beginning.

And lastly Star Citizen coming in 2015. While they are different games. In Eve Online you don’t control the ship directly and you have skills to train. While in Star Citizen you control your ship directly and there are no skills to train in game, just your own real life skills. In short the games are different on many levels, but the activities you can perform are kind of the same. In both games you can buy ships, trade, fight, PVP or NPC, mine, explore and so on. With the small difference that for Star Citizen you have to pay once. Let say you want to play with your wife and 2 kids. For 120$ you can play for life (or until servers are running, which is probably 10 years time). And for EVE Online you have to pay 720 $ per year.

Now even after all downs of the game I still consider playing it. It’s just in human nature to try to reach for the stars and so far only one game is coming close to fulfilling that desire. Star Citizen will also fill that niche and may replace EVE. Not to mention its graphic will be kick ass and now some players are playing EVE for the good graphics. And once SC is out many of EVE players will change games. New players will prefer SC cheapness. And CCP Games will be in hard spot. Probably changing the payment model from subscription based to free to play with purchases of ingame currency for real life currency. Not sure if this is going to help them. It will help them to gain more accounts, but will it help them get more cash? Probably not.

So expect EVE Online free to play in 2015.

It is all about the LOOT

May be you have read comments from people claiming that Entropia Universe has no gameplay. Everything is about the loot. Everyone plays to make profit, have good loot, get global, score a HOF or receive ATH. If there weren’t the loot and the dream that you can get rich playing no one will play the game. May be even you think the same. And maybe you are right. In the end this is real cash economy game and everything you loot can be sold for real world money.

But something (that was before my eyes for years actually) strike me lately while watching EVE Online videos. Actually while reading the comments bellow the videos. Big portion of the post are actually how many ISK (Inter-Steller Kredits, the in game currency of the Eve-Online universe) per hour everyone is making. The satiation is actually way worst than in Entropia Universe. Soon you will stop caring about the fun and all you care will be how much ISK you are making per hour. You won’t play how you like it, but how you read in the internet someone was making butload of ISK. When you don’t play EVE you will calculate every hour as lost ISKs. And that why a lot of hardcore EVE players seem to overheat and quit. It becomes like real life job in china factory. You are forced to be as productive as possible. Every month you must make more ISK than before. Maybe someday you will be able to buy PLEX (a 30 Day Pilot License Extension, an alternative to paying for your account with cash), but then the price of the PLEX will go up and you must work even harder to make even more ISK. Some are making second and third characters; some are paying for second and third accounts just to make more and more ISK, where is the fun in that? And while this is what can make old player quit this also can make new player don’t start the game at all. You are thinking “OMG this dude is making 1 billion and I can make only pennies, I’m never gonna have a chance.”

But let’s not look only at EVE Online. If you look at Diablo it was always about the loot. Even before the RMAH (Real Money Auction House). Even in Diablo 2 people were replaying the same thing over and over again just for the chance of good loot. Diablo 3 was the same. Grinding 8-10 hours per day just so you can loot little better item. And people are doing it no matter if they are playing online, offline, solo or coop. They grind for hours just for that split second of good feeling getting good loot.

I’m sure it will be the same for Star Citizen. Everyone will try to make as much UEC (United Earth Credits) as he can. There will be tons of guides and videos how to do it. And the person with the most UEC will be proud of himself for achieving that.

So in Entropia the loot is very important, because it is actually real money, but it is actually not as important as in other games. A lot of people actually don't care about the loot. Or the return %. Or how ‘eco’ are they playing. There are 13 000 000 results in Google for “how to make isk in eve” and 47 000 results for “how to make PED in entropia”.

I’m not sure what was the point of this post, but just something to think about next time discussing THE LOOT. And play as you like it for ISK, PED, GOLD, UEC or just for fun. You are the master of your game time.

PS: Sorry for the overuse of “actually”. Sorry for other bad writhing too actually.

Diablo Style Itemization Coming to Armor Shops Near You

May be one big change in Entropia Universe that most of you probably missed is the new armors with "Equip Effect". There was no announcement from game developers, but it is significant change that will probably change most game tutorial, advises how to play eco(nomicaly), calculation and uber armor prices.
It is not known how many and what type of "bonuses" will be introduced, but so far there was discovery for Deathbringer's Crown from one of the biggest miners inside Entropia Universe made ironically while hunting mob inside the new Calypso Cyclops Depths instance.

Equip effect type: Focused Blow.
Strength: 1 percentage point.
Or with normal words this helmet improves critical hit with 1%.

Also there are some helmets that give you more speed for most things you do - like shooting, mining, sweating. They are limited so far, but we can expect even more and new Equip effects and items.

Thorifoid Berserker's Helm (L)
Flimsy Thorifoid Berserker's Helm (L)
Superior Thorifoid Berserker's Helm

For everyone who did not hear about them yet - they add permanent buff effect when equiped:
+3% reload time and -50% hp regeneration for Flimsy version and
+5% reload time and -100% hp regeneration for normal and superior (unlimited) version

May be we will see items like in Diablo armor that gives you more HP or more strength, intelligence or other skill or attribute. Probably even 10% chance to do some Mindforce attack on the mobs around you when you are hit. 5% running speed increase. 15% less damage from robots. 20% more damage to undead. 30% more loot. Ok, this one was a joke, but you got my point. Possibilities are endless and may be the new items are already in the loot you just have to go out there (in here) and take the chance of looting them.

Diablo 3 hacked again

Blizzard got hacked again so I am reposting their message in case they delete it soon. Soon by Blizzard :)

"Players and Friends,

Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.

At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.

Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.

We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.

In the coming days, we'll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we'll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.

We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime"

Paying for Entropia Universe by playing Diablo 3

At the moment I am trying to find out if it is possible to play Diablo III, sell your good items on the Real Money Auction House (RMAH), transfer the real money into PayPal, then withdraw the money from PayPal into my bank account and then deposit into Entropia Universe with my debit card. This is easy to do for someone that can play all day Diablo 3 and many people already made more than 1000 dollars selling their loot from Diablo 3. But for someone like me, playing just for few hours it looks like almost impossible to do. The game is out for 50 days now and I just got to Act 1 on Inferno difficulty. And the really good items starts to drop on Act 1 Inferno and drop more on Act 2,3 and 4 inferno. But the people that play all day were farming Inferno for more than a month and made some good real money selling virtual items.

Here is new chart stats from Xfire show that there's a massive dropoff in players for Blizzard's Diablo III. The stats also show that over the course of late May to late June, the amount of hours players invested into the game has significantly dwindled by almost half for Xfire users.

Just when I was thinking there is no way in hell (inferno) for someone coming so late to inferno to sell some gear for real money because soon no one will actually need better armor and people will even stop playing Diablo 3 for the lack of end game content when yesterday some one with the nickname Slicktorine asked on the Diablo 3 forum:

"Can you please give any info about the possibility of adding some end game content, or at least fixing the problems that exist with the current end game content.
I understand people weren't supposed to get so far/so fast, but we have (350 hours played, YIKES).

Act 4 is currently pointless due to the small number of elites and the the drop rates being identical to ACT 3. Act 3 is superior in every way to Act 4, which seems nonsensical to me.....

Maybe you could up the difficulty in Act 4, increase the drop rates, add some elites or allow VALOR to transfer over from ACT 3."

And the answer from Bashiok from Blizzard was:

"We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now.We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it's a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out."

Now while some people say RMAH is the worst thing for Diablo 3 if Blizzard see that they are making tons of cash they will try to keep that. And for people to continue to use the RMAH (where Blizzard are making money from) Blizzard must make the game better than it is now so people will want to play more and buy more items for real money. This is great for Blizzard - they are making a lot of money. But it is also great for poor players. First they can make some cash by playing the game and second for 50-60 euro they get a game that is constantly improved like MMO, but they don't have to pay every month like in MMOs.

Error 37 Rage, Error 3006 Rage, Diablo 3 Rage!

Diablo 3 Guest Pass

Bellow you will find 4 Guest Passes for Diablo 3 and 2 Guest Passes for World of Warcraft. Be quick to use them or other will get them before you. One pass can be used only one time.

Diablo III Starter Edition provides players the ability to try out a limited version of Diablo III. Guest Pass keys allow a player to give friends the opportunity to play the Starter Edition of Diablo III. Guest Pass keys are included in all box copies of Diablo III.

Players on Starter Edition game licenses have the following restrictions:

• Act I up to the Skeleton King is available
• Level 13 cap
• Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
• No Real Money Auction House access
• How do I get the Diablo III Starter Edition?

Log into your Battle.net Account Management page and navigate to the Download Game Clients section. The Diablo III Starter Edition will be available for download there.

Players without a Battle.net account can create one, and then download the Starter Edition.

Note: The Diablo III Starter Edition will not be available without a Guest Pass until further notice.
How do I download the Diablo III Starter Edition?

Navigate to the Download Game Clients section of your Battle.net Account Management page and click the icon for your operating system under the Diablo III heading.
How do I upgrade from Starter Edition to the full version of Diablo III?

Log into Battle.net Account Management and select your copy of Diablo III Starter Edition on the Game Account list. On your Diablo III Starter Edition Game Management page, you will see your upgrade options on the right-hand side.

Here are my Diablo 3 Guest Passes:

 And here are the guest Passes for World of Warcraft:

Diablo III: The Economy - Predictions Video

2012 - Too Many Games to Play

I didn't believe that I will ever say this, but at the moment I am feeling like there are too many games to play and not enough time. Everything started with Mass Effect 3 when it was released on 6 of March 2012. I decided to play again Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 to import my character in Mass Effect 3. I also installed some additional DLCs making my game time even longer. In the moment I am in the middle of Mass Effect 2 and to finish Mass Effect 3 I will need 2-3 more weeks if I don't quit my job and play all day. Although reading about the bad ending of Mass Effect 3 I am not sure I will play to the end. And the grand reason for everything that happened in all 3 Mass Effect games is this: "Yo dawg i heard you don't wanna be killed by synthetics, so i made some synthetics to kill you every 50k years, so you won't be killed by synthetics "
SPOILER:

But of course not everything about ME 3 is bad. There are some good moments too:

Robot with cameltoe - priceless.

The other game that is coming "soon" (soon by Blizzard) is Diablo 3. It is supposed to be released on 15 of May 2012. No gamer that played Diablo 2 will miss to play Diablo 3. The expectations are high and I hope it won't be disappointment like Mass Effect 3. Diablo 2 was game that people played for 10 years, but the competition in game world now is way bigger then when Diablo 2 was released. And I am not sure D3 will have the same success, but even if it doesn't it will be great game to play when you don't want to think too much and just click and kill.
Here are all 2-16 tiers for armors for all classes:

And on top of all that Planet Cyrene is coming on 1 of May 2012. And I am planning to go there and play really hard. The developers promised that there will be no missions just for the sake of having missions and that all the missions will lead to an area with something special going on. When you arrive on Planet Cyrene you'll be given an introduction on how and why you came to be on the planet and then will be thrown into the action pretty quickly, but in a guided way.

When you finish the starter area and are ready to move on to the real challenging parts of the planet there will be multiple paths you can choose, each with a unique experience. The choices you make will have an impact, most importantly the allegiance to different factions within the game. Who you choose to fight and whom you choose to befriend will define your avatar in distinct ways, it will dictate what storyline you receive and who you receive it from. This is little strange because Entropia Universe supposed to be designed so everyone can do everything, skill in every profession and can take any mission. It will be interesting to see how Planet Cyrene implements that. Besides missions there will be World events. World events will be special events that only happen during a certain time or in a certain area.

Make Real Money Playing Diablo 3

Blizzard just announced that you can sell legally your items in Diablo 3 for real life money using PayPal. With other words Diablo 3 will have a new auction house feature that will let player buy and sell items for real money. PayPal will be used as payment-service partner for the Diablo III auction house, allowing players who trade with real-world currency the ability to cash out the spoils of their battle-torn adventures via a PayPal account.

This is great because you can sell items and withdraw your money for minutes instead of months as it now takes in Entropia Universe. And this is probably the worst feature of Entropia Universe - The Withdrawal Process.
Blizzard also revealed that the game will require a constant online connection to be played. Something like StarCraft 2. But this is probably to be expected so they can protect the game from hacking and selling items for millions of dollars.
From all beta movies I saw it seems Diablo 3 will feel as Diablo 2 with change in the skill system. Which may be bad thing, because you cannot customize your character as much as in Diablo 2. (Game is still in beta! Changes will be.) But don't make mistake! Diablo 3 WILL be the best game in its class for 2012 and the following 10 years.

Speaking of release date - Blizzard was aiming for the end of 2011, but now it is moved to early 2012. This is no surprise for anyone that knows something abouth Blizzard. The make games slow until every bid is perfectly polished. And even after that they continue to make it better.
If you can't wait and want to play Diablo 3 sooner, register for beta account on battle.net and hope Blizzard will send you beta key so you can play up to the first boss for free. To be eligible to participate in the Diablo III beta test, you need an active Battle.net account with any Blizzard game title attached to it.