Day 4 update on our Helene journey. No power at our house so our family relocated to a coworkers house where they have power. Power crews are in our neighborhood but the damage is catastrophic and supplies needed for repairs limited. More and more folks are getting power but in older neighborhoods like ours it is likely a long haul for power... and probably even longer for internet.
Also counting our blessings seeing neighbors with houses like this.
Packers went down 28 to nothin' early against the Vikings but clawed their way back to lose by 2, but it was never really that close.
Valve’s new project, Deadlock, has landed in a surprise invite-only alpha test, and I found it to be a mixed bag. It’s a shooter-MOBA hybrid that, while ambitious, feels like it’s struggling to figure out what it really wants to be. There’s potential here but there’s a long way to go before this one can be called a hit.
Deadlock has you running around as a hero, shooting at enemies while juggling MOBA-style lane control and minion management. Movement’s a big focus—you can dash, double jump, and wall run, which sounds great until you realize that these mechanics are not for your average gamer. It’s fun when it works, but for anyone who hasn’t mastered both the art of twitch shooting and MOBA strategy, good luck. The learning curve is steep, and for players like me, it feels frustrating.
Visually, Deadlock isn’t anything groundbreaking. If you’ve played Fortnite, Overwatch, or any number of other recent Valve games or hero shooters, you’ll know what to expect. What’s more interesting is the setting: prohibition-era New York with occult undertones (forget where I saw this description but I'm stealing it). It’s an unexpected backdrop and what sold me on the game, but it feels like a wasted theme on a MOBA.
The community’s early reactions, which are, unsurprisingly, all over the place. Some players are digging the mashup of genres and are already organizing tournaments which seems a bit crazy considering the game is in early testing and things change every couple of days. The biggest issue though has been the invite system where other testers can invite friends to play. It was (and may still be) plagued with issues. It took me weeks to get access where others got an invite within hours. The invite approach has also clogged most community channels with requests or offers of invites instead of discussion about the game.
In the end, Deadlock is promising, but it didn't grab me. Valve has time to make major changes—it’s still in alpha, after all—but as it stands its just a MOBA skinned in a unique theme. Keep an eye on it if you’re curious, but don’t be surprised if it falls short of expectations if you thought it was something new.
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| Here we go... again... |
With Throne and Liberty early access just two days away (9/26), I’m gearing up to hit the ground running. For those of you who’ve been following along, you already know I’m no stranger to MMORPGs, and the prep before launch can make or break your experience with a game. I’m not about to be that player running around clueless while everyone else is racing ahead. So, here’s the rundown of what I’m doing to make sure I’m ready to dominate from day one in Throne and Liberty.
First up, I’m looking for a guild since my regular group isn’t fully committing to Throne (a few of them are jumping in, but not enough for a real guild push). Since the game is so guild-focused, it’s going to be important to join a solid group if I want to get my hands on the best gear and participate in guild objectives. Being part of a competent guild is going to be important when it comes to progressing gear and making the most of what the game has to offer.
Next up is setting my sights on a build for my character. Throne uses a classless system, so your entire build comes from the items you equip and the upgrades you make to those items. From all accounts and my limited beta experience, the decisions you make in upgrading gear are very important to get right. Items can be changed later, but it gets progressively harder the further you go (or more expensive if you’re swiping your card to buy your gear for builds).
My likely choice for a build will be Sword and Shield/Wand. This is a paladin-style build, and I’ve always been a long-standing fan of the paladin class. It’s also a tank build, and tanks are always in demand for group PvE content, plus they play a key role in the large-scale group PvP content. As for the details of the build—well, that’s still TBD. I need to do some homework, since a lot has changed since the last beta we played.
Another important decision is whether I’m going to play early access or not. I’d love to dive into early access, but I’ve got a weekend trip that will keep me away for most of that time so I'd only benefit from a day or two of early access. There are other benefits to the early access package, so it’s not just about playing earlier (though that’s the main draw). If I wait for the regular launch, I can jump in for free instead of dropping $40+ on an early access package, which is a pretty compelling reason to hold off.
I’m not sure if Throne will be a long-term MMORPG for me, but I definitely want to give it a try. New World Aeternum launches on October 15th, and I know that’s going to pull me back in, which will put some pressure on my time to play Throne. But hey, that’s a good problem to have with so many great games on the horizon!
How are you getting ready for Throne and Liberty?
New World Aeternum is only a couple weeks away (Oct 15th launch) and I ran across this fan made trailer to help get you hyped!
New World : This is Aeternum - Fan Made Trailer
byu/toto77170 innewworldgame
With the highest rated QB in the league over the past two weeks the Green Bay Packers dominated the Tennessee Titans this Sunday! And that was just with our GOAT backup QB Malik Willis.
The Green Bay freaking Packers beat the Colts.... with a backup QB! A backup that joined the team less than a month ago. A backup... that... played well and didn't make mistakes. Granted; the Colts were not the biggest challenge but Malik Willis showed tons of promise with the absence of Jordan Love due to injury.
Go Pack Go!
Throne and Liberty dropped some updated information for the early access and full launch servers here. Some thoughts below but first the important text blurb copied for posterity (and to save you a click):
Early Access & Full Launch Servers
We saw some questions from the community regarding how Early Access Servers and Full Launch Servers are planned to work and interact with each other. Our goal is to design a system that provides non-early access users the same fresh server opportunity as early access players. Please refer to the early access section in the TL Business Model - What to Expect article for more information.
Early Access Servers are the set of servers that open on September 26 at 10AM PST (5PM UTC) before launch on October 1 at 10AM PST (5PM UTC). After the full launch on October 1, all new servers opening will be part of the Full Launch Server group.
We want to provide some additional clarity on how these servers will work. Here’s a quick summary, with more specifics below the following items.
Once both groups of servers are live, players can create new characters on Early Access or Full Launch Servers at any time, subject to population caps. If you begin playing at full launch and want to join your friends on an Early Access Server, you may create a character there on October 1 regardless of whether or not you purchased an Early Access Pack.
Players can transfer from Full Launch Servers to open Early Access Servers at any time.
We will offer limited-time free transfers to all players from September 26 through October 17.
Early Access Servers will eventually have their transfer restriction lifted.
My comments:
This alleviates fears that the Early Access servers were going to be walled off from players joining later or from any player that didn't buy an early access package. This is great news for those of us looking to jump in at regular launch but have friends on early access. Not only can you start characters there but you can also transfer to the early servers. To go with it they are offering free transfers for the first few weeks of the game! At some point in the future players will be able to transfer off of early access to regular (which makes sense, letting players transfer off of early access to regular servers just launching would give them a huge advantage).
I played Deadlock (Valve's new FPS MOBA) a good bit last week and over the weekend. One of the more surprising hero choices I've picked up on is Mo & Krill. While there are two characters you control them as a single unit with a melee brawler style. Specifically a tunnel-under-the-ground brawler style.
I started out hot in my first game playing as Mo & Krill and bombed out in the second. Scoreboards below. Fortunately my team still won both matches.
First a look at Mo & Krill:
Scoreboards:
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| 13-2 K/D! Easily my best game of Deadlock |
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| 1-14 K/D!? Easily one of my worst games of Deadlock... but we still won! |
NFL football on a Friday!? In Brazil! It did not go well for the Green Bay Packers. Failure to turn early Eagles mistakes into more points cost them at the end of the game (sounds familiar... hmmm). Then with mere seconds left the unthinkable happens and Jordan Love goes down with a knee/ankle injury. Thanks a lot Brazil!
August (or should I say Blaugust) 2024 has ended so lets take a look back.
Blogger provided number (last 30 days graph so a bit off a full month): 30,300
This is up about 1,000 from July. I do not know what the big spike was in late August as I could not zero in any posts that had that much traffic.
In other metrics:
Once Human dominated my August playtime as I made it to level 50 and set up my Frost Vortex build. I also built a proper base finally (it looks like an airplane hanger). I posted about none of these accomplishments because I had other ideas for Blaugust posts that took up my blogging time. I have had to take a break from gaming for the past week due to real life stuff (trip, work, kids stuff) so I have yet to transition from my first scenario into a new one (likely moving to a PVE hard mode server with some folks on Sept 8th).
August 2023 brought my introduction to Blaugust (check my Blaugust 2023 tagged posts) and I jammed the month full of posts.
The most notable game launch was Starfield (early access started late Aug) and it's hard for me to believe that was already a year ago. Too bad that game landed like a dud, but they finally added vehicles a year later so I guess I should fix my old post.
Aug 2019 was in the 'no blogging' era and nothing comes to mind.
In
Aug of 2014 I was not blogging regularly but I was thinking about it as evidenced by: Long time, no post. My nonexistent heart was warmed by all the commenters that stopped by though! 6 comments; probably the most of any post in the last 10 years... ha!
August of 2009 was the month I became a father and my life was forever changed. That kid is now 15 and about to start learning to drive. He may, and this is a BIG may, also be better at video games than me now. Speaking of comment counts; this post garnered 40+ which was heartwarming but it also shows how much commenting on blogs has died off over the years. I'd have a crazy smile on my face if a post these days hit 10 comments; let alone 40+!
Technically I have 20 named years on my sidebar, but mathematically 2005 is only 19 years ago.
In Aug of 2005 I was posting on Google Videos (before this thing called YouTube). Sadly I think the video "CS:S video released - Two of the gReatest things eveR" and "Battlefield 2 Video - Lets go!" are lost to history as I am not sure I have copies anywhere and they did not make its way to YouTube when that took over for Google Video. It is crazy to think had I just stuck with videos in that early era I could have been a YouTube content creator instead of annoying my team at work about getting stuff done.
With that said; one video from that Google Videos era did get saved to YouTube. A World of Warcraft video I made while playing with the guild behind the Taverncast podcast: The Pod People invade Westfall.flv
Update: I got an invite. If you need an invite let me know in the comments.
At face value the invite system for Deadlock appears to be a way to limit how many testers are playing the game. This makes sense and is not uncommon in testing phases of games. The difference here is that other play testers have control of the invites and that, along with other issues, is where problems are starting.
The first obvious issue that arises is "pay for invite" and the even more obvious "scammers will scam" that comes with it. While many of the communities across Discord and Reddit for invites are banning anyone trying to pay for invites; inevitably someone was bound to get scammed.
Next comes the behavior of "creating alt / second accounts" in the hope of getting a stuck invite to go through. While I didn't create an alt account I did get my son's account invited and his invite came through in about 45 minutes (I've been waiting 5+ days now with dozens of invite attempts).
With alt/second accounts comes the inevitable "selling account w/ Deadlock" access. This is not my cup of tea and I can wait (or just play on my son's account when he is not playing anything). However, there are some in the community that won't wait and will buy those second accounts which brings in it's own level of scams.
Fear of missing out (aka FOMO) is also a huge part of the equation that drives the above. Playing a game close to it's launch and during it's test period is a one-time affair. If you miss out; you miss out. Some players can't stand missing out so go above and beyond to get access. Thus the situation becomes ripe for scammers.
The question is whether other methods of test invites would avoid these problems? Not exactly. Steam does have "request test access" processes built in that many other games use. At minimum this eliminates the "get scammed asking for an invite" from other players and does reduce how easy it is to get a second account set up to then try and sell. It does not reduce FOMO.
Personally I think Valve would have been better suited going the same way they have other games enter testing on their own platform. At least then players could confirm their invite status by simply going to the store page for the game. End of day I just want to try the game and not miss out on the chance to learn the game while everyone else is learning it.
/signed "a frustrated Valve fanboy"
