City Siege on the right track

Over the weekend, Mythic held a PTS event to test out the revamped city siege. I was able to log on for a bit and test it out. The map consists of 3 capturable objectives which must be guarded or they will drift back to neutral. The controlling side will slowly receive points from them. Points are also generated by player kills.

It is actually really fun, as it is all about fighting the other players. Surprisingly, most of the forum feedback has been pretty good too. A lot of people say it is just like a huge Nordenwatch. Can't go wrong with that.

Stage 2 is Stage 1 + the Heroes from the old system. You can win the stage by killing the Hero OR completing Stage 1 again. This I'm not so sure about. The Hero still goes around hitting people for 30k. During the testing, nearly everyone just tried to ignore him. Sometimes you can't though, as he'll wander to an objective.

On one hand, is the Hero even necessary? I think a lot of people would prefer just to have another PvP focused stage. On the other hand, the Hero provides a goal for those in an unopposed instance. I would be for a PvP focused Stage 2, as long as it was different than Stage 1.

The engineers at Mythic have been quite busy working on performance issues and it shows. The 48 vs 48 city instances ran very smooth. Most of the forum feedback concurs. Hopefully, what they did can scale to larger battles in the open world.

And on a final note, I got a Royal Crest... on the PTS. I tried to smuggle it out (you don't want to know where) but was met by Mythic security. They are not very gentle and have cold hands.

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Victory and Changes

The War with Ethiopia was over by May. Superior Italian forces captured Addis Abba without too much trouble. On the southern front the Ethiopians did manage to make some advances. In the end though, they surrendered once we reached the capital.

I had a screenshot, but it was lost in my move to a new OS. However, here is what Italian East Africa looks like now.


The next big task facing my is to re-organize the army. I have quite a large force in Ethiopia, which is probably not needed. I have the game re-calculate the theaters and it comes up with 4. 2 in Italy, 1 in Libya and 1 in Ethiopia. You can see the setup here:


Now I can tell any of these commands to do stuff without all of the micromanagement. However, I do need to transfer a large chunk of the EAC to the NAC. The bulk of my African forces should be in the North. That is where most of the action will come in the future.

I give orders for the NAC to defend points in its theater and for the EAC to defend several key provinces in Ethiopia. The are still a large amount of NAC forces in Ethiopia, so the AI takes care of loading them onto ships and getting them where they are needed.


Now back to production. The Theater commanders tell you what they need (or rather want) to get their job done. Of course there isn't enough to go around, so i have to makes some tough decisions.


One thing I did not do, is assign the EAC some transports and air support. I move over some units. All I have to do is assign them a unit in Italy, and they will send that transport out to get him.

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War with Ethiopia

As we ended last time, Italy is currently at war with Ethiopia. We have made some inroads into their territory, but much remains to be done. Here is how the conflict looks now.


The East African Army (EAA) is currently resposible for our war effort there. General Grazioli currently commands the army (leaders have bonuses). He reports to African Command. I should note, that this hierarchy is all customizable. You can build them and name them how you want.

This is important because I can give orders at any level and they will filter down. This way you can have the AI deal with things you would rather not.

The EAA is currently comprised of 6 corps and a division. I also have several naval units and air wings for support.


Let's get this war going. I am going to give the orders to the EAA rather than do everything myself. Here I set up the order. I want them to take Addis Abba, the capital.


I also gave orders for my air support. They will be patrolling the blue area for targets.


And as we can see, the AI has started to take care of business. I could easily do this myself, but I thought it'd be fun to delegate.

It is a shame that my air cover cannot reach too far into Ethiopia. I think I will research plane fuel tanks next. Next time, we will see how the war went.

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WoW PvP leveling

My curiosity got the best of me and I re-subscribed to WoW. It will just be for the month though. My main goal was to check out how feasible it would be to level primarily by Battlegrounds. The answer is: not very.

I had a Level 12 mage sitting around and figured he would be a perfect test subject. Warsong Gulch was queued up and in a short time I was in.

XP is low. For each flag capture my team got, I received ~225 XP. For a win I received about ~225 xp. I'm not sure if I would have gotten more if I had personally captured the flag but in any case, XP is pretty low as you don't get XP from killing players.

I estimate it would take 10 - 15 WSG matched for me to get to Level 13. You know those are rarely quick, so we are talking a significant amount of hours to get to Level 20.

Variety. WoW doles out the battlegrounds in small doses. So starting at level 10 you get WSG, at 20 you get Arathi basin, at 50 you get Alterac Valley and so on. You will be doing a huge amount of WSG or AB, which will get old quick.

Rogues. I hate them in WoW PvP. That is all.

No Bolster. In WoW, you do not get a boost in stats to help level the playing field. This can make most of the early levels pertty hard. I know at level 12 I was being 2-3 shotted by level 19's. They could have been twinks who have yet to level out though. Still, you'll be a good bit weaker than your high level opponents.

It doesn't seem realistic to think you can level a character mostly by battlegrounds. The low XP and lack of variety will make it a grind of epic proportions. Especially considering how easy most of the PvE is. It is a shame, if they added XP from player kills it may actually be fun. Then again, maybe not.

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Rebuilding the Roman Empire

Yesterday Hearts of Iron 3 arrived. I had long decided that my first campaign would be as Italy in 1936. Italy, for me, is a nice starting point. It is not as big as Germany, USSR and the other major players, but still matters. It also gets to participate in all facets of the war: air, land and sea.

My long term goals for Italy are to conquer much of what was the Roman Empire. Below you can see what Italy looks like in 1936.


My first order of business is to set our research priorities. There are a lot of ways to go so they should match my goals. My current budget allows me to research 3 projects. First up is:

Electronics and Mechanical Engineering. This will lead to Radar, improved communications and better industry.

Small Arms. As Italy makes wide use of infantry, they should be better equipped.

Light Tank Gun. Who doesn't like tanks? In the coming years, we are going to need better ones.

Air Frame. Air power is the future, so let's improve how our fighters are built.


Next up is production. We already have a submarine being built and a Light Cruiser. This is taking up a sizable portion of the money set aside to build. With what is left, I order 2 new infantry brigades to be created.


Intelligence is an important part of any strategy. As I have plans for Yugoslavia, I have made them a priority for my agencies. I want to know the strength and whereabouts of their military.


That was pretty much my first 30 minutes in the game. Next time we will address Italy's current war with Ethiopia.

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Hello Everquest 2

In a post last week, I said farewell to Eve Online. As I mentioned, that left me with an open MMO spot (in addition to WAR). I decided to give Everquest 2 a try.

Why EQ2? For one, I had never really played it. It has always looked interesting, but I have to be in the mood for PvE.

Another reason is that it is a very mature game, but doesn't look it. It has been out for years and has several expansions. Yet the graphics still look good. There are plenty of old/mature games out there but they also feel old. Turns out, I need my MMO to look somewhat current.

EQ2 offers activities like housing, collections and better than average crafting. I like all three so it gives me more to do than just quest. The amount of PvE content is just crazy though, much more than I thought there would be. They also have an appearance tab, so my character can look how I want it to without worrying about gear.

I also didn't realize how many character customization options there were. With normal leveling choices they added Achievement Points. This is like WoW talent points, but on steroids. It is almost overwhelming.

EQ2 should fill my #2 MMO spot well enough for now. I'm not saying I will stick with it for years or even months. For the time being it is an enjoyable experience. That is partially due to the nice people in the guild I joined.

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WoW and TOR

I was reading a post and it really got me thinking. Rivs mentions that the new WoW 5 man is great for getting tokens (badges) so why would you want to raid? My response was, what is the gear for, if not to kill a boss. But WoW is not about killing bosses really, it is about progression. So if you are not a raider, what good does the latest 5 man dungeon do you? Other than the first time of course.

That got me thinking about TOR, as they say they are about the story. If that is true, I really do not want to see any large raids. If part of my story is to kill a Sith Lord, I do not want to be barred by the need for a raid. Also, having to run things multiple times to get the gear so I can advance in the story would end up killing the story.

In single player rpg's, do you have to farm bosses? No, you just have to kill them once and the story advances. I expect the same in TOR.

I do want large group activities though. They need to be dynamic and creative. Maybe a PvE battleground where there are no Bosses, just waves of enemies (NPC). They could easily make this dynamic. It would also fit, as this is Star WARS. They should be fun and fast paced. I would expect tokens from them as a reward.

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Hearts of Iron III

The fine folks at Paradox Interactive released a demo for their upcoming World War 2 strategy game, Hearts of Iron 3. If you have not played previous iterations, it is a grand strategy game that focuses on the entire world at the time. The fighting is abstracted so there are no Total War 3d battles.

The strength of the series has always been it's scope. You can play any country at the time, although some might be pretty boring (i.e. Cuba). Politics, Military, Production, Logistics are all under your control. The latest entry in the series build upon it even more. Dare I say this could be the most comprehensive WW2 game ever?

For the demo I chose to play Poland. The demo starts on the first day of the war in 1939. In the full version I will start at 1936. We don't really stand a chance at this point, as Germany is about to steamroll us.


The zoomed out looks uses counters, if we zoom in close we get a different view. If you are a fan of using counters all the time, you can do that too.


There is also a full weather system in the game which effects all sorts of things like movement, logistics and combat. It has it's own map overlay. As we can see, there are some heavy storms in Italy.


The technology (research) in HoI 3 is pretty extensive and customizable. You don't research new units, you research components, like a tank gun. Then you pretty much just build your new unit so there is a lot of customization.


And lastly, a picture of combat. It may not look like much but there is a lot of detail. The terrain, technology, leadership, doctrines (strategies), weather and time of day all go into deciding the battle. When I get the full game, I will cover more of that in depth.


HoI 3 should be available in stores/online anytime now. Hopefully my copy will arrive soon. When it does you can expect a campaign report as I take control of Italy.

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I am a stingy gamer

It's true, when it comes to stuff in games I am stingy. Take limited use items as an example. I never use them. Instead I stuff them in the closet to be used 'someday.' In WAR I have yet to use those neat Axe siege weapons. They've been in my inventory for months, but the time has never been right. Same goes for the items I got from the Collectors Edition, never used them.

It isn't just items, the same goes for long cooldown skills. Anything more than a minute and I rarely use it. I remember in WoW, my warrior had a bunch of long cooldown skills. They were rarely ever used. It isn't like they cost me anything, I just always felt I may need them more later on.

Am I the only one suffering from this condition in games? I just hate the idea of being without these items and skills, even though I never actually use them. They say a weapon unused is a useless weapon... which sounds right. For some reason, I can't bring myself to use them.

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August Gaming

August is here already. This month is really the calm before the MMO storm of September. There is plenty to look forward to though.

• Hearts of Iron 3 storms the front on September 7th. If you like World War 2 grand strategy games, this will be for you.
• World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 is likely due out this month as well. A new raid, battleground, PvP experience and more are apart of the patch.
• Champions Online's open beta will start on August 17th. The NDA will be down then too, so expect plenty of chatter.
• Warhammer Online will be having a live event, the Wild Hunt, starting on August 31st. Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see the huge bug patch, 1.3.1, be released soon too.
• Star Wars Galaxies will be releasing a new Cybernetics system along with many new craftable droids.
• Blizzard will be holding BlizzCon on August 21st. The expected big news is WoW's next expansion.
• Crimecraft is due to launch on August 25th.
• Aion is having some more beta events too.
  

That's what is on tap for August, I miss anything?

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