Evan Sims

A Look at Warhammer’s Preview Weekend

Last weekend Mythic Entertainment opened it’s doors to everyone who preordered the forthcoming Warhammer Online, an MMORPG based on — what else? — the long standing Warhammer franchise. I’d been playing WAR in closed beta for a few weeks prior to this, so I figured knew what to expect more or less. What I didn’t expect was just how much the influx of people would change the game’s world, and my perspective of it.

Much of WAR revolves around Realm vs Realm combat; that is, PvP campaigns that pit armies of good nd evil against one another for the glory and honor of their homelands. These campaigns take place in either instance scenarios or, my personal favorite, in open world battlefields. Each battlefield has a different landscape, and different objectives, but the rules remain the same: kill enemies, capture objectives, defend your captured objectives, siege keeps, lock a region for your realm. I had played RvR before Preview Weekend, of course, but the new flood of people took the battles from fun to truly epic.

So, besides RvR, what else went really well? I was impressed with the overall server and client performance. The servers have never been hit with near this many people, and they managed to stay up and responsive the vast majority of the time. The client, likewise, ran very well, even in the intense battles that took place in RvR. I’ve been super impressed with the amount of polish the game receives each patch.

What went wrong? Not a lot, but a few big problems arose. Pathfinding was borked, which was unfortunate. They had fixed the pathfinding issue in a previous patch, but the issue was regressed into the Preview Weekend patch somehow. Well, that’s Mythic’s story anyway. I got stuck on sharp edges and weird objects a whole lot more than I previous had as well… my guess is Mythic disabled some CPU intensive checking on character collision detection to ensure the servers performed well. Nothing wrong with that… in fact I’d applaud them for having the foresight to do it… but whatever the cause, this needs to be fixed before launch.

There were also quite a few crash to desktops (CTDs), far more than I remember there being in previous builds. Those issues aside, I couldn’t have been happier with the way WAR handled the Preview Weekend masses, and I have to applaud Mythic for doing such a fantastic job in preparing for it.

I’ll be giving Warhammer Online a full, overall review after Open Beta closes. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a great group of buys to play with, give my guild a look. We’ve love to have you.

My Top 10 PC Games of All Time

I know, I know; I’ll well known for my hatred of top 10 lists on blogs, but I was personally asked to do this one so I couldn’t refuse. My pal Ryan recently his list in response to a PC Gamer special. I can’t miss a web meme, so here we go.

1. Ultima Online — This should be a no brainer for anyone that knows me personally. The first true MMO I played, and it really changed my life. I met so many great friends, and it really focused me on what I wanted to do with my career.

2. Monkey Island — The classic, and the first game I ever bought myself. Grog Grog Grog!

3. Loom — Intrinsically linked with Monkey Island, I bought and played Loom at the same time as MI. It’s lesser known I think, but it used the same version of the SCUMM engine that MI did. So original, so much fun. I wish they’d do a reboot/sequel with a modern engine.

4. Myst — Another no brainer for me. I’m a huge fan of Cyan’s Myst series, but the original is still my favorite. I don’t even want to know how many hours I spent on it, let alone the sequels.

5. WorldsAway — The first online “game” I played, WorldsAway was 2D virtual world where hundreds (if not thousands) of CompuServe customers gathered using customizable avatars, talked, traded items with oen another and played games together. So far ahead of it’s time. It’s a pity what’s become of it.

6. EverQuest 2 — A relatively recent addition, I wasn’t so hot on EQ2 when it first launched. It took several years and some urging by the guys to get me to try it, but I ended up really loving it. One of the few MMOs that held my attention long enough for me to reach end game.

7. Final Fantasy XI — I played FFXI solid for a few years, and it was definitely one of the best MMO experiences I’ve had- mainly thanks to the great group of people our guild managed to put together. It’s a pity things broke down as they did, but it was a blast while it lasted. I still revisit FFXI every once and awhile, and it’s still loads of fun, but it’ll never be the same.

8. Battlefield 2142 — I’m not a huge FPS fan, and I really kind of hated Battlefield 2 (though I did love 1942.) Battlefield 2142 is a masterpiece, quite honestly; it’s one of those games just never gets old to me. Playing with close friends makes it all the better, as strategy and team work pay off in the field.

9. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst — Admittedly I think the idea of building an MMO around the Myst world was misguided, but I’ve loved every second of Uru. I managed to score an alpha account in the early days, and played on through beta and it’s retail incarnations (Ubisoft, GameTap, and in between on Cyan’s own servers.) A massively multiplayer 3D puzzle game is a difficult concept to pull off, but Cyan did a masterful job of it, and I don’t think there’s an online title out there that has a stronger community.

10. Team Fortress 2 — Like 2142, it’s one of those games that doesn’t get old. We end up playing a couple times a week, but I try to sneak an hour in everyday. Pyro, engineer and medic are my favorite classes, though I’m admittedly a pretty awful healer. :)

So, there you haven’t. Not so different from Ryan’s list I guess. No surprise there. So, what are you favorite games of all time?

Ziff-Davis files for bankruptcy

Wow, this is pretty crazy. So apparently media power house Ziff-Davis is somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion dollars in debt, so they’ve decided to throw in the towel and file for bankruptcy. Ziff-Davis is the parent company to popular magazines and web portals like 1UP, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Games for Windows and PC Magazine, among others. Of course, ZD has been responsible for a lot of other really cool things too. It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes things up.

Image provided by Nicole Lee.

Gary Gygax passes away

It’s a sad day for gaming; Gary Gygax, legendary designer of Dungeons & Dragons (among many others) passed away today at the ripe old age of 69. He did a lot for gaming, not just in designing classics that are still widely played and loved to this day, but also in getting those games out there among people. He worked hard- especially in his later years- on shifting the image of table top games like D&D towards the mainstream with books, films and tournaments.

“Games give you a chance to excel, and if you’re playing in good company you don’t even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.”

Though I’ve never been a huge fan of table top games, as a gamer and aspiring game designer myself, you cannot deny his influence on the realm of video games, nor the truth in his words. You’ll be missed, Gary.

A Quick Review of Orange Box

Here’s a quick and dirty review of Valve’s “Orange Box”, containing Half Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal (along with the original Half Life 2 and Episode One, both of which I’ve already taken a look at in previous blog entries.)

Half Life 2: Episode Two

Short and sweet, would be my best description of it. I got about five hours of gameplay out of the episode. While it’s far shorter than Episode One was, and certainly a fraction of what Half Life 2 was, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how much work Valve had put into the quality of this release.

The expansive new outdoor environments are just stunning to experience. Beautiful, really. The action was pretty intense too, especially the second to last chapter in which you’re faced with using the gravity gun to toss explosives onto Striders and blow them up. The Strider sequence was the most challenging for me, and certainly one of the more intense experiences I’ve had in a game in recent memory.

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