jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2755 Posts

Game Pricing in The Download Age
One of the coolest parts of being in gaming is how many awesome games we have access to. Steam, GoG, Origin, iOS and Android stores all let you buy a ton of awesome games for much less than the traditional $60 console price point. That said, many triple A games that come out sell digitally and physically for the same price. YouTube gaming sensation Boggie2988 made a video recently that caught my attention I linked above. He asks Microsoft and Sony to change the pricing model for digital content because the digital versions of games don't allow trading and loaning yet are cheaper to distribute.

This is something that's bugged me for quite a long time that doesn't stop at certain kinds of games. Digital movies, music and books are often priced similarly to the physical versions. When you cut out the cost of shipping and retail costs, why can't the pricing of digital content go down too?

Recently I picked up the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Collectors Edition. All told I love it and the extras it comes with are great and I plan to write more about it soon. That said, it comes with a traditional game install DVD that I decided to check out on a lark. The fact that all the disc contains is a 4 meg install file that simply starts the download process lets me know the digital only direction we are headed. That said, I don't the new digital only world, but I do mind it's strange pricing model alongside it's physical counterparts.

FTL: Advanced Edition Will Release April 3rd
"As a reminder, FTL: Advanced Edition is a free content expansion for FTL. All current (and future) customers will receive this update regardless of where they purchased it. Prior to release, we will post detailed instructions on how to get the update from whatever digital vendor you originally purchased FTL.

The iPad version of FTL will require an iPad version 2 or higher (iPad 1 is not supported) and will cost the same as the PC version, $10. It will be the complete game, including the new Advanced Edition content, and will not have any in-app purchases. We are proud to say that the iPad version is a true equivalent to the PC in the experience it provides, which is why we are price matching to the PC version."

A free FTL update with more music, ships, events, systems and the Lanuis race? Hell yeah. Can't wait to head back into the galaxy and be destroyed by the rebel flagship again!

In another piece of amazing news, Ben Prunty will not only make the new FTL: Advanced Edition music tracks available for download but the whole score will be free forever.

Ben Prunty: "The FTL Advanced Edition soundtrack is all ready to go. You'll be able to get it on Bandcamp on April 3rd. It will be FREE FOREVER."

If you haven't tried FTL or want a great reason to head back to the game, April 3rd is the day. Curious how many Ghosters will be playing FTL on iPad?

https://twitter.com/benprunty/status/449640404762124289
http://www.ftlgame.com/?p=688

WowCraft Episode 1: The Creation
WoWCraft is a fun new cartoon from the creator of the amazing Starcrafts series. The opening episode of WowCraft is pretty spot on with how hard it can be to start a new character in an MMO.

Prison Architecht Alpha 19 Cash Horde
"After a long playthrough of the game, we concluded that the Finance system was most in need of some development love this month. It has become common practice to cheat your way to $1,000,000 in the bank because there is simply no other way to raise that kind of capital, and the game becomes boring when you have to wait for it to roll in. There are many mods that filled the gap by adding more grants to the game. Furthermore, if you use all the official grants up (all four of them) and still have a negative cashflow, you have literally no way to recover other than cheating, because your bank balance will be decreasing every day and you won’t be able to afford to build new facilities. It was clear that Finance needed looking at. Urgently.

We’ve added a ton of new official grants, and added new requirements to them as well. You can now only have two grants running at once, although your accountant to expand that to three - so be careful which ones you choose. Grants can have “Pre-requisites” before they become available to you - eg you must have completed a previous grant, or have a certain number of prisoners on site. Some grants are hidden and will only reveal themselves when the conditions are right. There is a new special “Government Bailout” grant that acts as a second life - if you run out of money and have a negative cashflow, the government will put together a rescue package and bail you out of trouble. But only once."

Great to hear that money is now a bit easier to come by. I remember a few early playthroughs where I wanted to improve my prison, but couldn't because of cash flow problems. I did result to cheating while I was building up a good game strategy and then afterward knew the right build order to keep the money flowing.

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=47811

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Now Available
"I do hope you have been making the best of your time, nephalem, because the sands in your hourglass have run out. The time has come for my master to sweep clean the streets of Westmarch, and your feeble efforts will mean little against our inevitable tide."

After spending the last few hours playing Diablo III: Reaper of Souls I can say that it is a very worthy upgrade to Diablo III. I started the new Crusader class and so far am loving it.

What are your spoiler free thoughts of Reaper of Souls? How did you start and where did you end off after your first day playing?

http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/13370216

Link's Style Over The Ages
http://i.imgur.com/uxnKE8P.png
How Nintendo has drawn Link has changed from game to game. This image references the different stages of his design and sort of shows off how his style varies from consoles to handhelds releases. It seems that the console versions feature a much more adult Link as the consoles have him at a younger age.

I imagine when we get a Zelda game supported by the Oculus Rift Link will be well into his late 30's.

Mozilla and Unity3D To Bring Native Games To the Web
"Mozilla and Unity are announcing new deployment tools bringing Unity-authored games to the Web without the need for plugins, made possible thanks to Mozilla-pioneered technologies including WebGL, a Web graphics library and asm.js, a supercharged subset of JavaScript. Unity’s WebGL add-on will be made available with the release of Unity 5.0 later this year."

Using open web technology such as WebGL and asm.js it should be pretty easy for developers to port their games to the web using the upcoming version of Unity. Currently Unity web games require a browser plugin and after the new version is out developers can start building native browser games.

Now that Internet Explorer is supporting WebGL if things works well enough, native Unity games "should" work everywhere.

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/18/mozilla-and-unity-bring-unity-game-engine-to-webgl/

Reaper of Souls Drops Next Week. Death Gets Nervous.
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls drops next week adding a whole bunch of content to the game world of Sanctuary. In the new Act V Diablo III story, Malthael the Angel of Death steals the soulstone and as such you must put a stop to it. It's fun seeing what maguffins the Diablo III writers come up with after the destruction of Diablo at the end of the game. On one hand, I love coming back to Diablo and having fun but on the other hand, haven't we killed ultimate evil a few times before? Well, apparently not because we need to take a swing at the Angel of Death. Still, the game looks great and I can't wait to play as the Crusader.

nod to the happenings of act V

The video linked above is a recent interview with some people involved with the voice acting at Blizzard including the voice actors of the new Crusader class. It's a really great roundtable style interview but I found one point interesting as it may shed some light to the particulars of Act V. In the interview, Gideon Emery lets slip that as he was reading lines for Reaper of Souls that you are "Visited by another character and had to reign in the emotion…." Whereas this could mean many things I am wondering if this is a possible hint at the return of some main characters we lost in Diablo III(to avoid spoilers I am being a bit hazy here).

more reaper newsy bits

If you are wondering how you might allocate skills to the new Crusader class, you should check out the new skill calculator. It allows you to read all the new skills and runes you can use to make your perfect build.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/crusader

If you want to know more about the design process for the Crusader, Blizzard has a nice post about it with some design sketches and videos.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/13299171

In other Diablo III news, the auction house is now closed bringing it's reign of terror to an end.

Diablo III drops March 25th on Mac and Windows. Also, if we kill death in Act V does that mean people stop dying in Sanctuary? I guess we'll know on March 25th.

Mighty No. 9 GDC Gameplay Video
Keiji Inafune's Mighty No. 9 is deep in development after a very successful Kickstarter but they took some time during GDC to release a new gameplay video. From the creator of Mega Man, the game seems very similar but give the game a modern edge. I really love the idea of a new fresh take at Mega Man but wasn't in love with all the art choices they showcased. After seeing Mighty No. 9 in action I am convinced the game will be good.

Mighty No. 9 will launch April of 2015 on Linux, Mac, Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, Vita and 3DS.

New Hyper Light Drifter Gameplay Trailer Surfaces
"In Hyper Light Drifter you'll travel a ruined land with a twisted past, delving deep to collect lost technologies and unveil secrets long buried. Hyper Light is comprised of various elements: combat that's lightning quick, brutal, never unfair and always satisfying; a highly stylized, lush and varied world to explore with an intense atmosphere; a strong narrative and character interactions expressed through visual design."

The more I see the gameplay and hear Disasterpeace score I want to play this. Heart Machine is planning on releasing Hyper Light Drifter in mid 2014 for the PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 and Vita.