Planetside 2: A Decade Later
Ok, it hasn’t been exactly a decade, but close enough.
It was an interesting experience coming back to PS2. Some things had changed – apparently people can build little outposts and fly capital ships around – but most of the game was exactly the same. Fighters spam rockets from the sky, except when you’re flying one, in which case you get a personal dog-fighter stuck to your ass. Tanks soak spawn points with fire. No one goes after the enemy Sunderer. Just Planetside things.
And yet… there are the same moments of brilliance. Breaking the back of an attack, and then running across the fields towards the enemy base in a counteroffensive. Actually finding a good spot and doing some work as an Infiltrator. Grabbing an AA rocket launcher and harassing everything in the sky.
The problem now is the same problem then: the fun is inconsistent. When it’s good, it’s good. When it’s bad, it’s awful and l want to uninstall. It doesn’t help that after a decade the remaining population is a congealed mass of bittervets who will waste you in any fair 1v1 situation. Kill screens show you the equipment of your betters, but it’s hard to tell what weapons they actually used and whether it would have made a difference. I’m glad there’s a testing ground where you can fire guns before purchasing, but the stat screens for these things are borderline nonsense.
At the end of the day though, Planetside 2 certainly feels like a better Battlefield game than any I’ve played since BF4. You have the spectacle of outrageously large fights with air support, and an actual ability to pull vehicles yourself. And individual skill can turn the tide if you C4 a key Sunderer.
But I think the days of spending 5 hours a night playing are, well, a decade behind me.
Impressions: Arcanium
Arcanium is a lane-based, multi-character deckbuilding roguelike. You control the actions of three different furry characters with their own distinct card pools, passive abilities, and equipment. There are always three different enemies in the opposing lanes, although you can spend resources to get them to retarget other lanes (Taunt cards) or swap lanes with your own characters to distribute damage and/or fire off attacks. Defeating foes grants you rewards, new cards to add to your deck, and all the sort of things you would expect from a deckbuilding roguelike.
And, uh… that basically sums it all up.
I’ve played a lot of deckbuilding roguelikes over the years and Arcanium is OK. Fine, even. What it reminded me most of was Roguebook, in that you have multiple characters with their own decks, traverse a hex-based map trying to uncover new nodes, and there being incentives to maximize deck size. I also appreciate the new trend (?) for these games to allow banked energy – you start with 3/turn, but can carry up to 5 over to your next turn, if you don’t have a use for it. That part, along with the equipment, reminded me of Across the Obelisk.
I do have some issues with the game, although they are difficult to articulate. For example, a lot of the enemies feel the same: they attack for X amount, deal a debuff, perform an area attack for Y amount, or gain armor. That sort of reductionism can be made for Slay the Spire too, right? Perhaps it feels worse in Arcanium due to the lane-based nature of the game. After all, enemies always target down their lane, and you cannot target things more than one lane away.
Another issue I have is that the sort of highest-difficulty fights reward you with Heirloom Equipment, which are character-specific items that synergize with their passive abilities/cards in various ways. Getting all three characters their Heirlooms is very important… but once that’s done, those hard battles thereafter become mostly pointless, as you’d rather get regular equipment for the other slots. Technically you get an already-upgraded card choice from the rewards and closer to unlocking character upgrades (more energy/cards per turn), but again, it just feels bad doing these fights with the Heirlooms being wasted. I wish there was a way to scrap them or trade for regular equipment.
Overall, Arcanium is a perfectly serviceable deckbuilding roguelike. Unlocking new characters by doing specific things during each run feels rewarding, and cards are similarly unlocked and added to the pool all the time. Each character and their card pools feels unique, and you can be rewarded for discovering synergies between them. Having said that, I have played Arcanium for 15 hours and feel like I’ve seen all that I want to, whereas most deckbuilders taper off after 40 hours for me. Take that for what you will.
Legendary Grind
I continue to play Guild Wars 2.
One of the ancillary goals I have within the game is unlocking a Legendary weapon. These weapons are not actually more powerful than Ascended weapons (stats are the same), but they feature some nice quality of life features. Specifically, their stats can be switched any time outside of combat and they are basically unlocked on all your characters at the same time. Regular Ascended weapons can have their stats switched by sacrificing some items, and they are not soulbound, so technically they can be swapped around on your characters as well. So it’s really about the ultimate convenience.
Legendary weapons in GW2 are part of a monstrously insane grind, however.
I was looking at “Gen-3” Legendary weapons tonight, which are those introduced in the End of Dragons expansion. When you purchase the expansion, you get a free “precursor” weapon, which is the first hit of crack to start you on the downward spiral. I originally chose the Axe, so let’s look at that path. To create the Legendary, you need the following:
- Gift of Aurene’s Rending
- Dragon’s Rending (the precursor)
- Gift of Jade Mastery
- Draconic Tribute
Oh, hey, only three items! That should be easy, right?! No. Not at all.
Starting from the top, Gift of Aurene’s Rending:
Aside from Mystic Runestones, which are purchased at 1g apiece from a vendor, the other three items have, you guessed it, four additional components each. The Poem on Axes requires 10 Tales of Adventure, 10 Lamplighter Badges, and two other minor items of no particular consequence. Completing the expansion storyline gives you 14 Tales of Adventure, so technically that’s not a stretch until you want to make another Gen-3 Legendary. The Lamplighter Badges though, require you to achieve map completion on Cantha maps, e.g. explore the entire map and unlocking all the points of interest, Vistas, and so on. You can get 1 per map, so you technically either have to do complete map exploration on more than one character, or repeat an achievement that has you lighting lamps all over the place. All of this is not technically difficult, especially if you have a Skyscale mount so you can fly around, but it is time-consuming.
The Gift of Research… sorry, did you think we were onto a different step? The Gift of Research is straightforward in that you need 3.75g of vendor mats, 250 Essence of Luck, and 500 Hydrocatalytic Reagents which themselves requires 2500 Research Note currency. The Essence of Luck comes from disenchanting gear which you accumulate in abundance; training one character as an Artificer will allow you to combine lower-level Luck into the needed type pretty easily. Research Notes comes from disenchanting crafted items in a way that doesn’t produce Luck, so this step is really all about destroying stuff. There are websites out there that will give you up-to-date info on the cheapest items to craft/buy and destroy for Notes.
Gift of the Mist. This one is where I start shaking my head a bit. This one requires Gift of Glory, Gift of Battle, Gift of War, and Cube of Stabilized Dark Energy. Glory requires 250 currency from PvP, Battle comes from the very end of a WvW Reward Track, War comes in small amounts from WvW Reward Tracks, and the Cube is crafted from two materials gained from salvaging Ascended gear (most efficiently from Fractal content). So, basically, this is the “go do all the other bits of game” step.
Hey, since we already have the precursor, we’re halfway (?) there!
Gift of Jade Mastery has four components.
The Bloodstone Shard costs 200 Spirit Shards, which is one of those currencies you either have thousands of or are starved for, depending on how long you’ve (passively) played GW2. Suffice it to say, you cannot directly purchase them, and must earn them via gaining XP at max level, doing three daily quests, and so on. Gift of Cantha is no big deal, as it requires four items you get from map completion, which you were doing anyway. Antique Summoning Stones, aka ASS, is a currency you can purchase 5 of each week, and earn from doing meta events. Realistically, you are probably buying 3-4 a week unless you are running Strike Missions.
Gift of the Dragon Empire. Oh boy. First is 100 Jade Runestones, which come from special chests in the expansion maps. There used to be an exploit of sorts that allowed you to get one per character parked at the end of a jumping puzzle, but that was recently nerfed and the price has skyrocketed as a result. I have toons parked around the other easiest chests, and I can get 5/day for about 20 seconds of work. Next is 200 Chunks of Pure Jade, which you are technically time-gated on, but it’s as easy as mining ore nodes in one of the maps over the course of three days. Next is 100 Chunks of Ancient Ambergris and this comes from fishing. You can get 1/day from turning in a specific fish, 5/day from turning in Flawless Fish Fillets, and occasionally get them from the fish themselves. Last is Blessing of the Jade Empress x5, which is an item that costs 500 Imperial Favor apiece, a currency you get from completing Events and such around the expansion. This technically isn’t hard to accumulate, but cannot be fast-tracked and requires time on the ground.
Alright, we’re in the final stretch! Draconic Tribute requires:
For the most part, this is the “random bullshit, go!” step. Mystic Clovers are typically acquired 7 at a time at the end of a 28-day daily login reward cycle. You can gamble for them too, or use some more expense currencies to purchase them in limited quantities each week. Gen-1 and Gen-2 Legendaries require 77 of them instead, so Gen-3 is a bit more forgiving in that. Amalgamated Draconic Lodestone can randomly be acquired from a variety of sources, or crafted from components that are randomly acquired. It can also be purchased directly (3/week) using Super Adventure Box currency, which is a once per year festival currently going on. It takes me about 30ish minutes each day to earn about half the required amount of currency. Finally, you have Condensed Might and Magic, which are themselves made up of four Gifts which correspond to the generic loot you may have been accumulating your entire GW2 career, e.g. Fangs, Totems, Scales, etc.
After all of that grind, throw everything into the Mystic Forge and you get your Legendary!
…
…
…or just straight-up buy the Legendary from the AH. The Axe is currently being sold for 2550g. The price conversion of gems to gold changes daily, but right now it’s approximately 35g per 100 gems. So that’s 7285 gems or roughly… $91. Yep. $91.
Granted, you can also farm 2550g through the course of the game and just buy it that way without even playing the expansion or doing anything special. Or you can purchase the majority of the necessary crafting items and skip certain sections of the grind. Indeed, it is the only way some of those 5/week limited items are at all reasonable. Plus, this site is showing how you can technically make almost 802g profit by crafting the Legendary Axe with materials you purchased from the AH. Options!
Nevertheless, I find it difficult to get over the $91 thing. Guild Wars 2 is about finding your own goals, as the Exotic Gear you got 10 years ago is still good enough for raiding today. Crafting Legendaries certainly feels like one of those things you can steadily chip away at as a form of content that gets you out in the world playing with other people.
Or you can just open your wallet.
Impressions: Across the Obelisk
Across the Obelisk is a chunky deck-building roguelike that has a lot of overlapping mechanics that… mostly work together.
You control four characters each with their own decks. By default, these characters are a warrior, ranger, mage, and cleric, and all have their own unique card pools. Additionally, each character has four equipment slots (and one pet slot) that can be filled with a wide assortment of gear. Additionally additionally, each character can level up five times, getting a binary choice of abilities unique to that specific character (e.g. the four warriors each have different choices). Additionally additionally additionally, you earn Perk points across all characters that allows you more customization options in the form of +1 bonuses to various stats.
Oh, and you accumulate “Supplies” that let’s you upgrade the towns at the beginning of each map. And maps have various lanes and encounters and character unlocks and secrets and general themes.
Like I said, there’s a lot going on.
The problem, 25 hours in, is an understanding that a lot of the game just doesn’t matter. In Slay the Spire, you always go first and can see what the enemy is going to do. In this game, enemy actions are hidden by default – you have to debuff them with certain cards to temporarily see – and turns are based on the speed stat… which can be buffed or debuffed. So sometimes the enemy will just do things to your team without you knowing what’s going on. Like all deck-building games though, sometimes you can’t do anything even if you do know what’s coming due to the cards drawn.
Another issue I have is how often what the card says doesn’t matter. Characters have resistances to the various damage types in the game, and it’s often a fact that enemies get 60% resistance or higher. When I first unlocked a high-cost card that said “Deal 60 damage” I was excited… only to find that it actually deals like 20. The game calculates it for you so there’s no surprises, but nevertheless this funnels all successful strategies towards stacking debuffs (which typically lower resistances as a bonus). Which is whatever I guess… until you face enemies immune to that debuff, or can self-dispel, or can transfer (!!) the debuffs back your way. Most of the time, whether a given enemy can do this will be a complete surprise. Fun times.
Ultimately, I’m finding the game plenty compelling in an almost unhealthy way. Each run makes the next one that much easier, which is good, but this also means you are set up to fail the first dozen or so runs. I like how you can end up crafting a lot of your favorite cards right at the beginning of the game and thinning your deck out so there is less ramp-up. Figuring out synergies between the classes feels satisfying, and unlocking characters can lead to new ways of playing based on their unique talents.
But if you aren’t into deck-builders, this certainly isn’t going to get you onboard. Not only is there a lot of RNG – moreso than normal deck-builders – each run takes several hours between having to coordinate four different decks and equipment and upgrades and so on.
Impressions: Sun Haven
I’m currently at around 30 hours played with Sun Haven. I bought it six days ago.
‘Nuff said, yeah?
Sun Haven is a pixel fantasy farming/life sim game in the same vein as Stardew Valley. Like, literally in the same vein. Protagonist arrives in a town, meets a bunch of people, can choose a life of toil via farming, crafting, ranching, fishing, mining, and so on. There is a daily community quest board, a calendar of birthdays and festivals, a pile of romance options. Deja vu, yeah?
The thing is, Sun Haven has a lot of very interesting innovations even within the farm/life sim genre.
For example, Sun Haven has no energy meter. That’s right, you can perform actions for as many minutes there are in the day (and you can make those longer too in the Options menu). It almost feels like cheating, for veterans of this genre. And guess what other sacred cow got slaughtered? The game auto-saves constantly, which means you can safely stop playing at any time, e.g. not just when going to sleep. What the what?! If you thought “one more day” was addicting, wait until you play this.
As mentioned before, the setting is fantasy. Your main character can be human… or elf, or angel, devil, and so on. You can also select a starting background, which affects if you arrive in town with some seeds or a fruit tree or farm animals. Magic also features somewhat prominently, with you learning a fireball spell very early on to assist with combat. As you gain XP in Farming, you can eventually get spells that will automatically till a big square via an earthquake, or summon a rain cloud to water your crops in an area.
Another thing that keeps things fresh is the fact that there is a surprisingly large number of Skills you can pick across the Exploration, Farming, Combat, Mining, and Fishing trees. Each one accumulates XP separately, and while the Skills offered generally affects the specific category, sometimes there is synergistic overlap. Also, these are Skill “trees” only insofar as you need to assign 5 Skill points to unlock the next tier of Skills – you are not actually forced to go down one set path.
There is a plot within the game that is unveiled over time via fairly simple questing. I cannot comment much about it at this point, as I have not really seen enough of it to tell what’s going on. What I can say is that additional towns are unlocked (including different farms!) as you progress. I just got to the Elf town and none of the traditional plants you are used to grow there. Indeed, the Elf town doesn’t even use gold as currency, so you can’t just make bank in Sun Haven and waddle your way over to clear out the vendors. I’m guessing that maintaining two or more farms simultaneously will not go over well, but it will be interesting to see if you can effectively abandon your old life and simply start over elsewhere.
One last piece that I thought was insanely clever was the fact that most foods grant permanent bonuses when eaten, subject to a cap. This encourages you to plant a large variety of crops even after you used Excel to determine the most profitable ones, since each point of extra Mana will save you X amount of seconds by summoning rain clouds instead of using a watering can like a pleb. The bonuses are typically small, like +1 HP and then go down to +0.75 HP for the second serving, but across the dozens or so recipes it all adds up. This can affect HP, MP, Attack, and even movement speed.
My only real criticism so far is that the game is so well-made that I started expecting more out of it. For example, combat is extremely simplistic. Enemy will aggro and try to melee you. You can unlock a Fireball spell early, or you can rely on Crossbows or Sword swings to defeat them. None of this is all that different from other games in the genre. And yet I kept thinking that Sun Haven needed more spells, or enemies with a more interesting attack pattern or something. Exploration feels really good, with a whole pile of useful things to collect off the ground, and yet enemies being so simplistic sort of diminished that somehow. I will say though, that I encountered one boss out in the world that made me flee, and that made things exciting again. Just wish there were more of that in normal enemies.
Overall? Sun Haven gets top marks from me. The genre innovations – mostly in the form of sacred cow slaughters – is a breath of fresh air, and the sense of progression is top-notch. I’m excited to see what the rest of the game has in store for me, even though I’ve already clocked in more than my money’s worth just in the first third of the game.
Amazon Coins
As a further sign of these inflationary gilded age times, Amazon is altering the discounts associated with Amazon Coins, e.g. their virtual currency for apps sorta within the Amazon ecosystem.
We are writing to inform you of changes coming to Amazon Appstore Coin packs. On April 3, 2023 we will be consolidating the variety of packs offered and lowering the discounts associated with pack purchases. We will continue to offer the option on mobile to purchase a custom amount of Amazon Coins between 300 – 200,000 Coins (new discounts will apply).
The updated available packs and discounts are:
• 1,000 – $9.70 (3% discount)
• 2,500 – $23.75 (5% discount)
• 10,000 – $92.00 (8% discount)
• 50,000 – $450.00 (10% discount)These changes will contribute to supporting the costs of both operating and consistently improving our app store.
In case you were wondering, right now the discounts are:
- 1000 – $9.00 (10%)
- 2500 – $21.75 (13%)
- 5000 – $42.50 (15%)
- 10,000 – $82.00 (18%)
- 50,000 – $400 (20%)
It is a fair question to ask “who even uses these things?” The answer is: me. Specifically and exclusively to purchase things within Hearthstone. The whole thing is quite convoluted, but if you download the Hearthstone app on your phone from the Amazon store (and NOT through Google Play or iPhone equivalent), then you have the option of paying for expansions (etc) using Amazon Coins.
As a real example, there is a new expansion coming out for Hearthstone next month. Blizzard is selling a pre-release bundle that features 60 card packs and two random Legendary cards for $49.99. It’s not a bad deal if you are committed to playing the new expansion, as getting packs for less than $1 apiece is “good” (technically $1.50 each normally), with the Legendary cards being bonus on top.
But an even better deal is paying Amazon $42.50 for 5000 coins instead, and buying the expansion that way instead. Technically you need a smidge more Coins because of tax – that’s always how they get you – but the overall discount adds up. Plus, if you already have a Amazon credit card, you get 5% cash back on top of everything else. There were even better deals way back in the day, when Amazon would give you 30% coins back, which allowed for some extremely cheap Hearthstone’ing.
After April 3rd though, that same deal will save you… $2.50. Which will probably be a wash considering the need for miscellaneous coins for tax. Not sure who bothers with Amazon Coins after this.
The Waiting Space
I have been playing a number of games since completing Dark Souls, but none of them are the games I really want to play. Because those games aren’t done yet. And it’s driving me mad.
Coral Island
This is a farming/life-sim game set in a more tropical area. It is currently in Early Access and available via Game Pass. According to the Roadmap it looks like there are updates planned all the way out until Winter of 2023 and then some additional big updates prior to the 1.0 release. One of those updates? The traditional marriage and/or kids additions. I don’t require life-sims to have these features, but if it’s already planned to be available, I also don’t want to miss out and/or have to replay for that content.
My Time at Sandrock
Quasi-sequel to My Time at Portia, which I played for 108 hours and enjoyed quite a bit. A lot of content already out there, but according to the Roadmap, it will be late March/early April before they add the marriage system in. Then late May/early June before they add three additional NPCs into the romance pool. I don’t know any of these NPCs or if I would care about them at all, but… what if I did?
Valheim
The Mistlands biome has finally came out, but apparently there are more on the way. I have waited almost exactly two years already, so I may as well continue to wait until this one gets done.
Sun Haven
Farming/Life-sim game that is a more fantasy-based Stardew Valley. And it even got a v1.0 release! After checking the patch notes though, I noticed the “Coming Soon!” section which includes, among other things:
- – More Pets
- – More Race Specific Dialogue
- – Having children with your spouse
- – Farm Buildings (Sheds / Greenhouses)
- – Proximity Animations
- – Minor DLCs
- – Main Story Epilogue
Sigh.
The Planet Crafter | Craftopia | Len’s Island | Sons of the Forest | Traveler’s Rest
All Early Access and none of them discounted. Pass for now.
[Edit] Just kidding, Steam Spring Sale is going on.
Green Hell
Technically on sale and… technically released? Doesn’t have the Early Access tag any more, but most info points to this being in a more Beta state. Green Hell is one that has been on my radar for a while from a survival standpoint. What I have heard is that it is a bit more grindy insofar as you have to take care of your macronutrients rather than just regular Hunger, and you are much more likely to die of random snake or spider bites than other games. Those sort of things are whatever. The biggest damnation though has been talk about how base-building is not really encouraged based on the narrative of the game, which requires you to venture out all across the map. That sort of thing really hampers things, if true.
V Rising | Kynseed
Released but no sale, so… no sale.
[Edit] Just kidding, Steam Spring Sale is going on.
Voidtrain | One Lonely Outpost | Palworld | I Am Future | Under A Rock | Lightyear Frontier | Rooted
None of these are available, even in Early Access. :(
All of this is mostly pointless belly-aching because of course I have a million and a half other games bought and paid for to play. But I want to play these games at the moment. #1stWorldProblems.
[Dark Souls] Final Day
I beat the final boss of Dark Souls on Saturday.
I’m so, so glad it’s all over.
According to my save file, I spent just shy of 58 hours playing Dark Souls. At no point during that duration did I ever really feel “comfortable.” That is presumably by design. Each new area has new enemies to encounter, bullshit traps to get Gotcha!’d, and just a general sense of subtle malice. If you make it far in exploration but then die, you respawn at a Bonfire and all enemies between you and your corpse respawn. If you make it far and find a new Bonfire, you have to make the choice to sit at it and respawn all enemies or continue onward but risk respawning much further away. None of the bosses had Bonfires near them, so you either had to run like crazy past guardian mobs or hack your way back and hope you could retrieve your corpse to make the otherwise lost souls worth it.
Oh and many Bonfires are just straight-up hidden, because fuck you.
Another fun aspect of the game was the simple fact that I never really found a weapon I liked, and this led me into wasting hours and hours farming for shit I never really ended up using. I used the Uchigatana for a large portion of the game, but it continued to get weaker to enemies over time. Eventually I got lucky with a Black Knight Sword (BKS) drop, which immediately became my go-to weapon for the mid-game. Unfortunately, I hated it the entire time. The Uchigatana moveset allowed for a quick strike to interrupt/kill charging enemies, and the power attack was a longish-range poke. Meanwhile the BKS had a slow regular swing, and a power poke attack that triggered after like 5 seconds of vulnerability. But, what the BKS offered was raw damage, and killing enemies in 1-2 attacks was much more useful overall than 4-5 attacks.
My final weapon ended up being the Gargoyle’s Halberd. It has good range, a relatively quick attack, and its attacks in general don’t cost much Stamina. The unfortunate aspect was the fact that I ended up leveling Strength all the way to 40 in an attempt to give all the dozens of other weapons – including the super heavy ones – a fair shake. Unfortunately, there is a point at which an unupgraded weapon is useless no matter how much baseline attack it brings, and thus you can fall into the trap (as I did) of farming and farming to upgrade weapons that you end up saying No Thanks to.
The combat system in general and most bosses specifically are full of outrageous jank, IMO. Having a shield up 24/7 is how I approached most of the game as I found dodge-rolling to almost be entirely useless. Everything I have read indicates you get i-frames by rolling, but those only seem to exist insofar as your character is at half-height during the roll and the attack may be directed higher. For example, if you dodge-roll backwards but the enemy is doing a poke, you get hit. If you dodge-roll right but the enemy is doing a side-swipe, you get hit. Sometimes you can dodge-roll between an enemy’s legs, but sometimes they shuffle two pixels to the left and you just roll into their feet. Sometimes you can just strafe out of the way of attacks, and other times the attacks will auto-swivel your way.
Perhaps this is all a “Git Gud” scenario. I mean, I beat the game, so… maybe not. In any case, I’m not sure “Git Gud” slaps as hard when we’re talking about QWOP-levels of jank.
Having said all of that, the world of Dark Souls was incredible. More specifically, the level design. You don’t get the sense of how interconnected each area is to one another at first, but by about midgame everything starts fitting together in extremely clever ways. You have probably seen a cave loop around back to its entrance a thousand times in other games, but Dark Souls has a degree of coherence that feels wholly unique. The game is also full of shortcuts that allows you to acquire powerful items much earlier in the game if you have the knowledge to do so. The average player is never going to be able to take advantage of that, but I appreciate the willingness of the developers to not throw up arbitrary barriers in a lot of places.
Overall, I am glad that I played Dark Souls even if it was not the most enjoyable experience. Seeing where things began (Demon Souls notwithstanding) gives you a greater appreciation for where things have gone in the meantime. Plus, it is an extremely boldly-designed game that took risks to stay true to the designers’ intentions, and I respect the moxie.
I do already own Dark Souls 2, but I think I’m going to take a break from the tension and play other things for a while. Perhaps something in which I don’t have to worry about instantly dying all the time.
Momentum
Momentum is more keenly felt in its absence. The more aware of it you are, the less of it you have.
It has been difficult to play much of anything these past two weeks, as I contracted acute bronchitis with a dash of viral pneumonia. Only today, day 12, would I say that things have downgraded to tropical depression bad seasonal cold. My physical condition has made it difficult, as you may imagine, to make any meaningful progression in Dark Souls. And it is this progression that I fear may grind to a halt if I coast too much further or take an off-ramp to other titles.
The dilemma is not always present – I have juggled several games before. But it is arguable as to whether any said jugglees had momentum behind them. Or perhaps needed any. Some games just slip in and curl into your lap. Others require you to lean forward in your chair a bit. It is easier to keep leaning than to start again, though. Posture and all that.
Maybe some Youtube and going to bed early, again.
Enjoy your health, when you have it.
In An Age 
Nothing is Forever
Apr 12
Posted by Azuriel
ARK is no stranger to controversy, but the latest debacle is especially cruel.
ARK 2, which stars Vin Diesel for some reason, is set to radically change the formula from 1st-person survival game to 3rd-person Soulslike, presumably with you dodge-rolling away from a T. Rex’s jaws. So there’s already some angst from longtime fans (including myself). Like most of Wildcard’s products though, ARK 2 is getting delayed… this time all the way into late 2024.
Enter a tweet from the devs that they are working on a UE5 engine upgrade to the original game, to be released to everyone for free!
…oops, just kidding. The UE5 upgrade will cost you $50, but hey, you’ll get ARK 2 for free. For whenever that gets released. In the meantime, enjoy the original game upgrade… until they release UE5 versions of the expansions, at which point you’ll have to buy them again.
Also, the official servers for the “old” ARK are shutting down.
Wildcard is doing some damage control, with them acknowledging the general shittiness of the situation. The new deal is that, yeah, the ARK UE5 upgrade is going to cost $60, but it’ll come with the upgraded expansions too. But now ARK 2 will be a separate purchase. Which is sort of what you’d expect for this situation, although it still seems like something is getting taken away.
Which, in terms of official servers, it is.
Now, everything I have ever heard of in regards to the official servers is that they’re a shitshow. Alpha clans raiding noob shacks for fun, murdering dino tames that take people literal, concurrent hours to achieve for no reason, and trolls building posts everywhere on PvE servers to prevent others from building a base anywhere useful. This is the same game where you could literally be drugged, kidnapped and held indefinitely in a cage.
In my few hundred hours of playing, I never joined an official server for more than a few minutes. My escapades were safely sequestered on a private server, where I effectively eliminated the time it takes to tame a dino, because fuck that. However. Wildcard got famous and (presumably) made a lot of money on the backs of players using their established rulesets on official servers. And now that will be over in a few months. Not because the server is shutting down per se, but because they want more money for an upgrade that is probably being done to save the sequel with a cash infusion. Sort of like how Wildcard sold paid DLC of the original game while it was still in Early Access to pay for the lawsuit threatening to bankrupt the company.
As MMO players, I think we all understand that none of our digital lives are forever. Granted, EverQuest seems to still be going strong, and WoW Classic is more profitable than Blizzard certainly ever expected. Nevertheless, I still sympathize with ARK players who are seeing their digital lives evaporate. The servers are apparently able to be exported to private servers, but that is cold comfort to the
psychopathsplayers whoroleplayedmurder-hobosARK socially.Posted in Commentary
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Tags: Ark, ARK 2, Controversy, Damage Control, UE5, Wildcard