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May the Fourth Be With You!!

Long time ago, in a blog far, far away…

 

Welcome Back Travelers and Happy Star Wars Day!!

Being a tech/pop culture/gaming blog, Star Wars is obviously very near and dear to us.  I mean we have a sci-fi/space theme!!  So being such a fun day, I thought we would talk some Star Wars today.  Couple topics we are going to hit on, first is the upcoming Solo movie, second the state of Star Wars video games and its future.  So lets dive right in!!

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story

This is the 4 film Disney has brought for us and the second of the Star Wars Anthology films.  The last Anthology film being Rogue One, which I have to say was probably one of my Top 3, if not favorite film of the franchise.  What really did it for me was the binding together of the old and new, and even tying in some links to the current trilogy.  So I have high hopes going into Solo, I think it is going to be very entertaining, and very factual filling us in on a lot of untouched background for many characters.  I’m really hoping to see some of Greedo and Boba Fett, both who seem to have a colorful history with Han Solo.  After watching the trailers, so far I’m getting kind of an Ocean’s 11 vibe from the film, that they are going to put together this kick-ass crew to pull off a once in a lifetime heist.  I could talk Star Wars and Solo all day, but we will save the rest of our talk for a post-movie review!! SO check back at the end of the month for that.

 

Battlefront: How Star Wars Gaming is Losing

As an avid gamer and fan of Star Wars, I was obviously excited for more Star Wars games to be in the works, and at the time I was okay with EA running the show.  Boy, I bet Disney sure regrets giving the rights to EA now.  First Star Wars games I ever played were Shadow of the Empire and Rogue Squadron, and I was hooked.  Star Wars games continued to get better, and then peaked with the release of Battlefront and Battlefront 2.  But after that, LucasArts went silent much to fans disappointment.  Now EA has taken the mantle, and they have turned a beloved franchise into the deformed monster we lock in the basement.  While they did a great job with certain elements, namely audio and visuals, they pretty much ruined everything else.  No I don’t want to turn this into a rant, as we all know the sorry state of Star Wars gaming, but what does the future promise?  Potentially something very exciting as we have talk and small glimpses of an upcoming SINGLEPLAYER RPG.  Developers seem to be under the impression that players don’t enjoy these kind of games, my response is who the fuck are you talking to????  I believe and I think the evidence shows with games like Skyrim, Witcher, God of War, Last of Us, and so many more that players love a deep, rich, story-driven open world rpg game.  Sure lots of people like multiplayer games and your basic shooter, but with that comes the 12 year olds, the salt, the toxicity, bm, lag, server issues and so much more.  And I think EA has made the right decision by having one of their far more qualified subsidiary developers make the game.  But at the end of the day it is still EA and anything is possible.  Hopefully, if EA shits the bed again, Disney will do us all a favor and take Star Wars away from them and put them in timeout.

 

Let me know in the comments below if you enjoyed a more free form post like this, and be sure to check back next week for your regularly scheduled broadcast.

May the Force be with You Travelers!

World Building – Luctus Regenum

Hail there Traveler!

 

Welcome back to another World Building post where I walk you through how I created one of my new factions, the Luctus Regenum.

Step 1:  What is the theme of this place?

For the land mass inhabited by the Luctus Rege, I wanted to have medieval theme, something like out of Game of Thrones but with heavy Roman influences.  I chose this theme because this countries history is derived from Dark Ages Europe, which has a lot of Gothic and Religious elements pulling from Rome.

Step 2:  Who lives here?

Since I am designing this world to be used as part of a Dungeons and Dragons Campaign, I am using their races to populate my world.  This particularly continent is mostly humanoids, with a bias towards non-humans.  I chose humans, gnomes, half-orcs, half-lings, and half-elfs for my races.

Step 3:  What is the geography like?

Usually this is step two, but I swap them depending on my mood and the kind of world I am working on.  For this continent I came up with the name Occidens, which is Latin for West since this is my western most land mass.  I wanted to give the continent geography similar to that of central Europe, Southern France, Northern Italy, Austria, and Germany.  So there would lots of rolling hills, fertile farmland, grasslands, then with some rivers and large/dense forests.

Step 4:  Details, Details, Details

At this point I have created the outline of my drawing, it’s time to start coloring it in.  I start imagining and creating the government, towns, cities, capitals, landmarks, etc…  I think about in this cause, who are the major players, the Noble Houses, who rules this land, what do they look like, etc…  I keep going and going until my drawing(world) is so detailed that it looks and feels real.  That is the kind of world I want to create for my players, the can go anywhere and talk to almost anyone, and those people and places each have their own stories.

Tip:  Leave some blanks!

The most important part of an interactive story like D&D is the players.  if you world is too detailed, your players can fit themselves into it.  However you leave out some details, make some things vague, it draws your players in and allows them to fill in the missing details making them more connected to the story and the world.

 

Thanks again for stopping by, and check back soon for more content.

Farewell Travelers!!

DEV-Talk 2.3 – Loot Boxes

Welcome Back Travelers!!

 

Seems we were caught in a bit of a wormhole there and this post didn’t get sent out yesterday.  This week we are on Part 2 of our three part discussion and today we are focusing on Loot Boxes!

Lately there has been a lot of bad publicity surrounding the concept of loot boxes, and several countries have considered them to be gambling.  While I believe this is an over-exaggeration, they are kind of right.  For those who don’t understand loot boxes function like slot machines, there are X number of prizes with varying degrees of chance you will receive these rewards.  Now, I have no problem with this concept, until you introduce real money to the equation.  To understand the different types of loot boxes, we will look at 3 prime examples, League of Legends, Overwatch, and Counter-Strike Global Offensive (CSGO).

 

Overwatch

We will begin here since Overwatch seems to be garnering the most attention despite there being worse culprits when it comes to loot boxes.  In Overwatch loot boxes contain only cosmetic items, nothing that affects gameplay in anyway which is very important.  If it affected gameplay, it would create the pay to win mechanic we see in too many apps and games.  Next, while you can purchase loot boxes for real money, you do have the ability to earn a significant number just by playing the game.  You get boxes from events/special gamemodes, 3 a week from arcade wins, and a box everytime you level up.  So by just playing a couple hours a week and getting 9 arcade wins, I can usually average about 8-10 boxes a week, and the rarity of loot is distributed pretty well so you get a nice spread of items.  So with all this, I really don’t understand why people and countries are vilifying Overwatch for gambling, as I see no incentive to purchase loot boxes.

 

League of Legends

League loot boxes are similar in nature to Overwatch, they contain cosmetic items, but they also contain playable characters which is were League differs.  In League you unlock only the characters you wish to play, and you can use in game currency to do this, however its slow, which drives people to spend real money to make those purchases.  Now they cut back on the incentive to spend real money with the edition of loot boxes which are earned through skillful gameplay, good sportsmanship, and a couple other methods, but these loot boxes now contain champions and other purchasable cosmetic items that used to require money.  So they have been a nice new feature to the game, of course you can still buy them with real money, but I don’t find it necessary unless I have some extra RP.  The main difference from Overwatch though is keys, no boxes unless you have a key…  Keys are significantly harder to get than loot boxes, increasing the likelihood players will purchase them.  So League gets a mixed review, some good and some bad.

 

CSGO

There isn’t much good to say about CSGO’s loot boxes besides the fact that they are only cosmetic items.  CSGO loot boxes, keys, and skins/stickers actually have real money value and can be bought and sold for a variety of prices in the Steam marketplace.  this has also sparked the creation of CSGO Gambling Websites, yes actual gambling for skins which you can in turn sell for money.  There have even been lawsuits brought against CSGO Gambling Sites, one in particular was run by a prominent YouTuber who promoted one website on his channel and showed videos of him winning big, however never disclosed that he was the owner of the site.  That’s a big no in the eyes of the Federal Government.  Bottom line, stay away from CSGO loot boxes, cause they are actually gambling.

 

Well we covered a lot in this post, ranging from acceptable to completely unacceptable on the verge of being banned and/or sued for gambling.  I would like to here some of your guys thoughts on loot boxes and check back next week for DEV-Talk 2.6 – DLC!!

See you on the dark side of the moon travelers!!

DEV-Talk 2.0 – Micro-Transactions

Welcome back Travelers!!

Welcome to the first of a 3 part series on Micro-Transactions, Loot-Boxes, and DLC!!

 

Today we are talking about micro-transactions, the scum of gaming today.  To understand the concept, we must go back to their beginning.  When smart-phones really took off with the launch of the iPhone back in 2007, there was suddenly a new mark of games and applications we refer to as “Apps”.  Many of these apps were free, but how do you make money on something that is free?  Add extras…  the most common example of this that many games using, is in-game currency, you can pay money for more credits, or boosts and other bonuses.

The problem with this kind of micro-transaction is that it alters gameplay, it gives paid players an unfair advantage over non-paid players.  This purposeful imbalance / game design makes players want to spend money or quit.  The other issue with this is that children don’t understand the concept of money let alone micro-transactions, so without some sort of block or restriction, these companies are making millions off of children buying these items with their parents credit cards.

Some of the better, acceptable types of micro-transactions are those that don’t affect gameplay.  The best example of this is League of Legends.  With their in-game currency, you can only purchase cosmetic items, nothing that remotely affects or changes gameplay.  This allows games to be decided on players and their skill rather than whose wallet is bigger.

 

This is a brief post on Micro-Transactions, something many of us could talk about till we are blue in the face.  Fly by soon for DEV-Talk 2.3 – Loot-Boxes!!

Catch you on the other side Travelers!!

World Building – Factions of the Operanius Galaxy

Welcome back Travelers!!

This week on world building, I am sharing descriptions of the two major factions in my science-fiction universe I created.  I will be posting more in the future about this universe, as it is the largest and most detailed one I have created so far.

 

Coalition

The Coalition was founded about 2,000 years ago in an effort to unite the races, bring peace and expand across the galaxy. The core of the Coalition is made up the 9 main races, Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Teifling, Gnome, Half Elf, Half Orc and Dragonborn. There are a larger variety of races now part of the Coalition. The Coalition government is run by a Council which is made up of representatives from all the races and sub races with the main nine sitting on the High Council.

The Coalition Military is run by Generals/Admirals, each representing the nine main races. The military is divided into two groups, land and naval forces. Land forces comprised of the majority of the Coalition’s strength, with 4 major groups, infantry, armor, mechanized divisions, and special forces. Naval forces are comprised of all ships, transports, supply companies, and galactic marines. Due to the size of the Coalition, they have a massive and powerful military, however they prefer to solve issues with diplomacy before engaging in combat. One of the primary duties of the military is to act as peacekeeping forces in dangerous regions or during negotiations between enemies.

 

The Greenskin Horde

The Green-skin Horde They are a combination of orcs, goblins, trolls, knolls, and several other chaotic evil races. After millennia of being hunted and ostracized, these evil creatures have banded together in an attempt to increase their territory, wealth, and power. They wear crude steel armor, wield crude melee and range weapons such as axes and spike shooters. They are incapable of making their own ships however due to their low intelligence, but have acquired a large number of ships through raiding and war which they have modified to reflect their crude nature. The Coalition and other independent system have been fighting the Green-skins for the last 5000 years with little progress due to their aggressive nature, constant craving for war, blood, spoils, and that they breed like rabbits. The Coalition has recently begun a campaign against the Green-skins to take back the planet Charadin, which was lost 13 years ago giving the Green-skins a base to launch attacks into the heart of the Coalition.

 

Drop a like if your enjoying the content so far, and please leave a comment if you have an recommendations for content you would like to see.

See you on the other side Travelers!!