Blizzard is legitimately one of the largest gaming companies out there, if not THE very largest in the industry. Its money cow, World of Warcraft, has consumed millions of hours from millions of players' lives, and its several other series - Warcraft, Starcraft, and the Diablo games, have reaped thousands upon thousands more. Why does Blizzard have such a great formula? What is it that keeps players going back? In this blog, I'll be analyzing what I see as the reasons for Blizzard's success.
Let's first inspect their main MMO, World of Warcraft. Known in shorthand as WoW, this game is truly epic in scope. You are one of millions of players total, in a server of perhaps thousands, playing in an absolutely enormous world torn by intricate conflicts and incredibly large story arcs. You can pick from any number of races and become any class available to those races, and begin your adventure as you wish, either down the early path they've set for you, or one you can define yourself (though this is much more challenging unless you truly know how to work it). As time progresses and you gain levels, you begin to see how huge the world truly is, hopping continents and even magical planes of existence. Your path becomes even more and more defined as your own, as you customize your character's gear set, skill specialization, and appearance. Eventually, you can join a clan - either serious or otherwise - that can guide you in many ways, assisting you along your journey, and providing you with allies around your level (or far greater than it) to help you as you wish. Quests and dungeon raids get more and more intense as you progress, and eventually, huge boss battles that require a group of 10 to 25 truly tests your skill.
The reason this game is so obscenely addicting is a combination of all of these factors that all culminate into one great sense of accomplishment. As you level up, your character becomes obviously more powerful: creatures that might've felled you quickly early on become toys at higher levels. The social aspect also ties in to this sense. When you raid with a
group, you come to know their play styles, and you work together to get
each individual person the very best gear available to them. Yours and their gear becomes more and more potent, as enchantments grow greatly in strength and number, and your non-combat skills that supplement your equipment or your wealth increase as well. Together, you dive deeper and deeper into more intricate dungeons that require intense levels of concentration and teamwork to sustain the group's lives, and monsters become both visibly and statistically more intimidating - only increasing the level of satisfaction when they fall.
In my opinion, World of Warcraft is a wonderful game for the people who have the time to dedicate hours to gameplay. I often found myself falling behind my friends in-game, though - I can't play as often as many others can due to my scholastic schedule. Still, casually, it's incredibly fun, though the 15$ monthly fee might be a little steep.
Warcraft and Starcraft are definitely not down my alley, at all - I'm horrid at RTS games. I've heard hordes of people say great things about them, though, which must mean that they're decent enough to play. They're challenging and require strategic prowess (OR A ZERG RUSH ASKFJSEL) that I certainly don't have.
The Diablo series...
*shudder of pleasure*
They're the epitome of an RPG. The singleplayer storyline is compelling, and while quests aren't abundant, they're fun enough to keep you hooked throughout the entire game. A huge array of items are at your disposal to destroy enemies with, and bosses are amazingly satisfying kills. Skills provide a wonderful sense of achievement as you progress, and the entirety of everything is just ADDICTING. *frothing*
Overall, I love the series, and I'm psyched for the release of Diablo III.
Have fun, good gaming, and remember - don't feed the trolls.
-Toast
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Random Tangent! 02: Why I'm a PC Gamer
I know I'm going to receive tons of hate mail from all the console fanatics out there, but yes, I much prefer the PC to any other system of gaming. Sure, sometimes you've got to sink a little money into upgrades to keep up with the graphical trends in new games, and communities tend to be a little bit smaller, but the variety of games available only on PCs (HA, games on a Mac) and the graphical quality of the picture available most definitely trump the cons, at least for me.
Take Skyrim for example. On console, its visual interface is actually relatively flawed - it's probable that if you're playing on a television, you won't be able to see your compass or your inventory updates very well at all. To me, missing out on both of these parts of the game definitely removes some of the fun. But that isn't all - graphics are definitely sub-par when compared to PCs. Textures are reduced, polygon count is lowered, view distance is much smaller, and everything looks muddier in general. This detracts a lot from the game when I think of the experience I know I could be having (albeit the fact it would be on a smaller screen).
Another problem with console games is the lack of extreme variety. Practically nothing is free, and all the 'big games' that 'everyone plays' don't interest me. I prefer smaller, free games - League of Legends, for example! - and I love investigating individual developers' games, like the works from Studio Pixel. Team Fortress 2 and many other Steam games aren't supported nearly as well on consoles as they are on the computer, and individually developed mods aren't even a thought on the console, unless you're willing to crack it illegally - and even then, they're challenging to use. I never need to worry about stupid patches breaking any of my games - I can always revert to the previous state.
Gaming is a lot more rigid on consoles, as well, and I have fewer options available to me at once - I can only be doing one thing at a time .I can actually personalize my control layout on the PC - so maybe it is weird if I want to map movement to Y, I, O, and X, but who cares? At least I have the ability to. While I'm gaming, I'll often have youTube, iTunes, and sometimes even facebook (for really, really stacked games of LoL) open in good old Mozilla Firefox, easily accessible via Alt + Tab. Speaking of Mozilla - webgames! Everything available to you on the internet, right at your fingertips, rather than on two different systems. Websites like Kongregate and Addictinggames have brought me through hours upon hours of boredom.
At the same time, I absolutely love knowing my PC so well. I'm anchored to it - it isn't easily transported as consoles are, but I've got much more processing capability, and I can literally look straight inside it if I move my eyes 20 degrees to the right from my screen. I know where my GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card is, I can see my 4gigs of RAM chilling on the motherboard, and my ((relatively) weak little) i5 Processor spins happily along in my view. The hard drive is anchored securely within my case, and I can download any files or move them about with USB drives if I really want to transfer files - but why would I? I'm always at my computer desk, ready to play. :D
Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls.
-Toast
Take Skyrim for example. On console, its visual interface is actually relatively flawed - it's probable that if you're playing on a television, you won't be able to see your compass or your inventory updates very well at all. To me, missing out on both of these parts of the game definitely removes some of the fun. But that isn't all - graphics are definitely sub-par when compared to PCs. Textures are reduced, polygon count is lowered, view distance is much smaller, and everything looks muddier in general. This detracts a lot from the game when I think of the experience I know I could be having (albeit the fact it would be on a smaller screen).
Another problem with console games is the lack of extreme variety. Practically nothing is free, and all the 'big games' that 'everyone plays' don't interest me. I prefer smaller, free games - League of Legends, for example! - and I love investigating individual developers' games, like the works from Studio Pixel. Team Fortress 2 and many other Steam games aren't supported nearly as well on consoles as they are on the computer, and individually developed mods aren't even a thought on the console, unless you're willing to crack it illegally - and even then, they're challenging to use. I never need to worry about stupid patches breaking any of my games - I can always revert to the previous state.
Gaming is a lot more rigid on consoles, as well, and I have fewer options available to me at once - I can only be doing one thing at a time .I can actually personalize my control layout on the PC - so maybe it is weird if I want to map movement to Y, I, O, and X, but who cares? At least I have the ability to. While I'm gaming, I'll often have youTube, iTunes, and sometimes even facebook (for really, really stacked games of LoL) open in good old Mozilla Firefox, easily accessible via Alt + Tab. Speaking of Mozilla - webgames! Everything available to you on the internet, right at your fingertips, rather than on two different systems. Websites like Kongregate and Addictinggames have brought me through hours upon hours of boredom.
At the same time, I absolutely love knowing my PC so well. I'm anchored to it - it isn't easily transported as consoles are, but I've got much more processing capability, and I can literally look straight inside it if I move my eyes 20 degrees to the right from my screen. I know where my GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card is, I can see my 4gigs of RAM chilling on the motherboard, and my ((relatively) weak little) i5 Processor spins happily along in my view. The hard drive is anchored securely within my case, and I can download any files or move them about with USB drives if I really want to transfer files - but why would I? I'm always at my computer desk, ready to play. :D
Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls.
-Toast
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Random Tangent!: League of Legends
In lieu of my recent detachment from Skyrim, I've found myself returning to League of Legends quite often. Its forty-minute, action-packed, committed sessions of gameplay always pull me back for another round - I might be addicted. Personally, my favorite characters are the only ones I can play - 'Mage' classes. The mage classes focus more upon the ability power statistic - they use their abilities, which cost mana, to inflict damage upon their enemies or heal their allies. I find myself attached to these characters - they're incredibly fun for me to play, as they deal out massive damage relatively quickly, and have the most powerful stuns and slows in the game. The only downside is their tendency towards slower movement speeds and a 'squishier' nature.
My two favorite characters to play are Veigar and Morgana. They have two of the best stuns in the game, and can deal enough damage quickly enough to down many other champions, with the right item build. Veigar's area-of-effect stun sets up a fence around the area you cast it upon that stuns any enemies that touch it for two or three seconds - quite a long time in combat. Skilled Veigar players then drop his AoE bomb spell, which scales almost directly with ability power, leaving many opponents at two-thirds health or less. Follow this up with Veigar's ultimate and his main spell, and champions are dead or dying, easy enough to finish off with a few auto-attacks or an Ignite spell. Morgana has similar abilities - her skill-shot stun lasts for 4 seconds and deals out quite a bit of damage (300 + a percentage of ability power at level 5), her AoE deals damage every second, and lowers enemy magic resist. She has a spellshield that can deflect some damage, and her ultimate attaches chains to every enemy champion around her, dealing damage at first, and inflicting the same amount after a few seconds, subsequently stunning every champion still chained for 4 seconds. In combat, this ultimate can disable the entirety of the enemy team quickly - if she survives. Both Morgana and Veigar have very little health, even at level 18. As mages, they must stay behind their damage tanks to avoid a quick and painful death.
Another champion I've recently been attempting to learn is named Ezrael. Throughout the League of Legends gaming community, Ezrael's name is a joke - he's seen as a useless champion that almost ensures defeat for any team. For some strange reason, this is exactly what draws me to him. His skills focus around both ability power and attack damage, and his two primary skills are both medium-range skill shots. The other two - his third ability and his ultimate - are a ranged teleportation attack and a wall of sparkles that can fly across the map, dealing damage to all enemies in its path. This skill set makes him a true challenge to master - each ability use must be timed perfectly, as Ezrael is a squishy character, and lacks a large mana pool. Though this may be true, his ultimate is perfect at taking champions at low health down from almost across the map - the range is somewhere between one quarter and one half of the length of a lane. Every enemy it passes through removes 8% of the damage from its effect, but still, it deals a relatively large amount (500 + ability power and attack damage, if I remember correctly).
The fields of Runeterra have called to me so often recently that I've not been able to put this game down, and if you haven't already checked it out, I'd strongly suggest it.
Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls (or the enemy team!)
-Toast
My two favorite characters to play are Veigar and Morgana. They have two of the best stuns in the game, and can deal enough damage quickly enough to down many other champions, with the right item build. Veigar's area-of-effect stun sets up a fence around the area you cast it upon that stuns any enemies that touch it for two or three seconds - quite a long time in combat. Skilled Veigar players then drop his AoE bomb spell, which scales almost directly with ability power, leaving many opponents at two-thirds health or less. Follow this up with Veigar's ultimate and his main spell, and champions are dead or dying, easy enough to finish off with a few auto-attacks or an Ignite spell. Morgana has similar abilities - her skill-shot stun lasts for 4 seconds and deals out quite a bit of damage (300 + a percentage of ability power at level 5), her AoE deals damage every second, and lowers enemy magic resist. She has a spellshield that can deflect some damage, and her ultimate attaches chains to every enemy champion around her, dealing damage at first, and inflicting the same amount after a few seconds, subsequently stunning every champion still chained for 4 seconds. In combat, this ultimate can disable the entirety of the enemy team quickly - if she survives. Both Morgana and Veigar have very little health, even at level 18. As mages, they must stay behind their damage tanks to avoid a quick and painful death.
Another champion I've recently been attempting to learn is named Ezrael. Throughout the League of Legends gaming community, Ezrael's name is a joke - he's seen as a useless champion that almost ensures defeat for any team. For some strange reason, this is exactly what draws me to him. His skills focus around both ability power and attack damage, and his two primary skills are both medium-range skill shots. The other two - his third ability and his ultimate - are a ranged teleportation attack and a wall of sparkles that can fly across the map, dealing damage to all enemies in its path. This skill set makes him a true challenge to master - each ability use must be timed perfectly, as Ezrael is a squishy character, and lacks a large mana pool. Though this may be true, his ultimate is perfect at taking champions at low health down from almost across the map - the range is somewhere between one quarter and one half of the length of a lane. Every enemy it passes through removes 8% of the damage from its effect, but still, it deals a relatively large amount (500 + ability power and attack damage, if I remember correctly).
The fields of Runeterra have called to me so often recently that I've not been able to put this game down, and if you haven't already checked it out, I'd strongly suggest it.
Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls (or the enemy team!)
-Toast
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Elder Scrolls Explorer: Skyrim: Beginnings
Continuing from my previous Elder Scrolls Explorer, I'm now going to delve into the world of Skyrim. :D
My first steps in this mountain wilderness were purposefully very slow: I had to stop and take a moment to breathe everything in. There was so much artistic detail in front of me that I was absolutely overwhelmed.
Aesthetically, Skyrim is gorgeous. The snowy mountains captivated me, and I was compelled to simply wander the countryside, indulging in my obnoxious habit of picking every alchemical ingredient I could find (sidenote: I'll go into detail about the alchemical system later). After exploring a few paths, I noticed a town off in the distance, and decided to head towards it.
About this time, I decided to pull up my inventory. I hit [Tab], and was presented with this:
I wondered how easy it would be to navigate between each menu, so I played around for a while, and found that navigation is actually relatively fluid.
The item menu has been completely revamped: now, different classes of items with different purposes have been given their own section (i.e. scrolls have a scrolls section), everything is arranged alphabetically, and selection is much easier. On PC, the menus were a bit buggy - clicking, scrolling, and using WASD all interchangeably makes things a little confusing, and sometimes I use the wrong potion, but it's relatively easy to compensate for, and I'm sure it will be patched soon enough.
The magic menu is actually divided conveniently now: individual schools have been given their own tabs. Spells are easy to select, and their effects are defined clearly in the description provided.
Following the main path into town, I was notified: 'You have discovered Riverwood'. The first things I noticed about the village was the huge sawmill operating on river power, and the forge located outside the blacksmith's shop. I was startled when I could actually use the forge myself, and from the blacksmith, I received a few smithing tasks and became more familiar with that particular skill. Being a mage, I quickly became uninterested, and wandered aimlessly about (distracted by a few local chickens) until I found the general store. There, a quest was presented to me immediately: the store had recently been burgled, and the brother and sister running the store were arguing over whether the sister should go out to fight the bandits they suspected had committed the crime. Conveniently enough, I barged in at the end of this argument, and offered to take care of the job for them.
I then turned to the shopkeep to ask if he sold spells, and the new nature of NPC interaction caught me off guard. Rather than zooming in awkwardly on his face, the conversation proceeded naturally, and I was even allowed to look around while I was talking to him. After I asked what he sold, the bartering interface popped up, and I was impressed.
As is clear, the previous method of dividing items has been preserved in trading, which makes item exchange much more convenient. With the new dynamic economy, merchants can actually run out of gold (just like Morrowind!), and will go on cycles of prosperity and near-poverty.
After purchasing my fill of spell tomes and selling the random junk I had collected throughout the tutorial, I decided to venture off into the wilderness and complete the task I'd been assigned by the brother and sister in the general store. Conveniently enough, my quest log had already selected that as my active quest, and I was guided by an arrow on the compass to the barrow in which the item was burgled was supposedly located. The sheer size of the dungeon took me off guard: it actually took about an hour to fully explore (I'm easily distracted), and I found it rather satisfying discovering all of its secrets. The ambient lighting in the dungeon took me off guard as well: just another gorgeous aspect of this game. I found myself using more magic than I ever conceived was possible in an Elder Scrolls game - it actually works now! - and so I'll be reviewing that system in my next blog.
Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls.
-Toast
My first steps in this mountain wilderness were purposefully very slow: I had to stop and take a moment to breathe everything in. There was so much artistic detail in front of me that I was absolutely overwhelmed.
Aesthetically, Skyrim is gorgeous. The snowy mountains captivated me, and I was compelled to simply wander the countryside, indulging in my obnoxious habit of picking every alchemical ingredient I could find (sidenote: I'll go into detail about the alchemical system later). After exploring a few paths, I noticed a town off in the distance, and decided to head towards it.
About this time, I decided to pull up my inventory. I hit [Tab], and was presented with this:
I wondered how easy it would be to navigate between each menu, so I played around for a while, and found that navigation is actually relatively fluid.
The item menu has been completely revamped: now, different classes of items with different purposes have been given their own section (i.e. scrolls have a scrolls section), everything is arranged alphabetically, and selection is much easier. On PC, the menus were a bit buggy - clicking, scrolling, and using WASD all interchangeably makes things a little confusing, and sometimes I use the wrong potion, but it's relatively easy to compensate for, and I'm sure it will be patched soon enough.
The magic menu is actually divided conveniently now: individual schools have been given their own tabs. Spells are easy to select, and their effects are defined clearly in the description provided.
Following the main path into town, I was notified: 'You have discovered Riverwood'. The first things I noticed about the village was the huge sawmill operating on river power, and the forge located outside the blacksmith's shop. I was startled when I could actually use the forge myself, and from the blacksmith, I received a few smithing tasks and became more familiar with that particular skill. Being a mage, I quickly became uninterested, and wandered aimlessly about (distracted by a few local chickens) until I found the general store. There, a quest was presented to me immediately: the store had recently been burgled, and the brother and sister running the store were arguing over whether the sister should go out to fight the bandits they suspected had committed the crime. Conveniently enough, I barged in at the end of this argument, and offered to take care of the job for them.
I then turned to the shopkeep to ask if he sold spells, and the new nature of NPC interaction caught me off guard. Rather than zooming in awkwardly on his face, the conversation proceeded naturally, and I was even allowed to look around while I was talking to him. After I asked what he sold, the bartering interface popped up, and I was impressed.
 |
| Yes, this character's name is Flub. He's an Orc. ^-^ |
As is clear, the previous method of dividing items has been preserved in trading, which makes item exchange much more convenient. With the new dynamic economy, merchants can actually run out of gold (just like Morrowind!), and will go on cycles of prosperity and near-poverty.
After purchasing my fill of spell tomes and selling the random junk I had collected throughout the tutorial, I decided to venture off into the wilderness and complete the task I'd been assigned by the brother and sister in the general store. Conveniently enough, my quest log had already selected that as my active quest, and I was guided by an arrow on the compass to the barrow in which the item was burgled was supposedly located. The sheer size of the dungeon took me off guard: it actually took about an hour to fully explore (I'm easily distracted), and I found it rather satisfying discovering all of its secrets. The ambient lighting in the dungeon took me off guard as well: just another gorgeous aspect of this game. I found myself using more magic than I ever conceived was possible in an Elder Scrolls game - it actually works now! - and so I'll be reviewing that system in my next blog.
Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls.
-Toast
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Elder Scrolls Explorer: Skyrim: Intro
I went to my local Gamestop and waited from nine until midnight to finally get Skyrim...I was one of the first 20 out of over 200 to get it at that single outlet.
I dropped my friends off and rushed home, chugged the 32-oz Monster I left in my fridge, and tumbled down the stairs to my gaming rig. The blue light was already glowing in the darkness, and my internet was ready. I inserted the disk, my entirety quivering in anticipation. The installation screen came up...
And said I had to wait nine hours for it to download.
I was beyond furious.
After staring at the progress bar until about 1:45 in the morning, my eyes stopped glowing blood crimson and instead faded to a calmer red. I googled "why the hell isn't skyrim letting me install it pc" and quickly found hundreds of others with problems similar to my own: the Steam servers were glitching, and forced those who purchased the physical copy of Skyrim to download it even though all the data was sitting, raw and ready on the disk. I quickly found the local god in the thread, who posted an easy solution to this problem. Within minutes, I had fixed the issue, installed the game, and began playing.
I have to say: it was well worth all the wait, and all the trouble.
The instant I began my new game, I was blown away by both audial and graphical quality (see screenshots!), when compared to the previous Elder Scrolls installments. On my decent PC rig, people actually looked like people, outlines were smooth, and textures were gorgeous. Varied voice acting was actually present in Skyrim (unlike Morrowind or Oblivion) - over a hundred different actors contributed - and it, coupled with the wonderful visuals I was getting, allowed me to completely immerse myself until 4 in the morning, when I passed out in my chair at my desk.
Within those two hours, however, I discovered many things about this new Elder Scrolls game. I won't spoil the introductory sequence (it's AWESOME), but something I do want to cover in depth is the character creator.
Races in Skyrim Compared to Those in Oblivion
As is plainly visible, characters have changed drastically in many ways. Differences between each race have become more distinct: size and frame tendencies vary more obviously, and all characters are rougher in appearance (fitting, for the land of Skyrim is not a forgiving place). Argonians, Khajit, and Orcs have undergone a complete overhaul, and don't look nearly as silly as they did in Oblivion (Orcs can actually be considered intimidating now!). Also, during race selection, a general overview of each race is provided, along with their origins. There are just as many customization sliders to play around with as in Oblivion (which means there are quite a few), so individual players' characters will never look exactly the same.
After playing around with my Breton's appearance for about twenty minutes, I continued on with the tutorial. I finished it rather quickly, and left well-equipped, which satisfied me immensely (especially when I compared this beginning to Oblivion's, which left you empty-handed and alone in the world q_q ). I took my first steps into the world of Skyrim, and boy, did I love it.
To be continued in the next Elder Scrolls Explorer.
Have fun, good gaming, and remember: don't feed the trolls.
-Toast
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