What I'm Looking Forward to in 2016

2015 is gone, 2016 has arrived.

Here is a quick list of a few things I am looking forward to:

1. Green Bay Packers play off games.  The packers are in the play offs once again and I am hoping for another magical run.  This year's team has been in  funk to end the season, but I truly believe in "any given Sunday".

2. Progress on Kickstarter projects I've backed.

Camelot Unchained (CU) is progressing; slowly.  I am looking forward to the work that Mark and team get done this year and hoping for my beta access by year's end.

Crowfall feels like it is moving along faster than CU, but that may just be the "making of" documentary style of communication that Crowfall is using to keep us up to date.  I am looking forward to many of the concepts behind Crowfall.  Another hopeful beta by years end.

Secret Hitler is, by all accounts, an impressive party board game that solves many of the faults of games such as The Resistance.  This is pretty much a guaranteed 2016 delivery and I look forward to playing it with friends alongside rounds of Good Cop/Bad Cop and Batman Love Letter.

3. Back into Minecraft.

"We found a giant cave in Minecraft!" The quote, from my six year old son, warms this gamer's heart (pun intended).  I am back into Minecraft as my son begins his journey into a game that is as magical for him as it was for me when I first picked it up.  Minecraft is one of the best games I've ever played and I am stoked to be sharing it with my son.

4. Guild Wars 2 wealth building

I tipped over 4,000 gold in Guild Wars 2 (GW2) in 2015 and thats just liquid gold.  If I counted total account value of what I've dumped into ascended gear, gem purchases, and general non-frugal spending I am sure its in the tens of thousands of gold.  Maybe in 2016 I will get back to actually playing through content (I've only done a single zone of the expansion and still have yet to complete my personal story and have not unlocked any of the full spec lines).

I hear that there is a huge World vs World (WvW aka wuvwuv) update coming.  As WvW was my first passion in Guild Wars 2 (and my first heartbreak) I am interested in what Arenanet pulls off.  From some of the leaked information (sorry no links to the leaks) the approach using Guild Alliances instead of arbitrary servers that no longer exist (due to the megaserver tech used now) is interesting and exactly what I've recommended for over a year to bring the "Guild Wars" back to Guild Wars 2.

I am also interested to follow the PvP leagues.  I am not dedicated enough to make any decent progress in the leagues myself, but I do pride myself in so far having a > 50% win ratio in the lowest bracket.  The PvP balance of GW2 is interesting and best equated to watching the pro Magic: The Gathering (MtG) scene.  There is overpowered team comps currently just as there is overpowered decks from time to time in MtG.  Casually observing the developers as they fix these situations has always fascinated me even if I am not "in the meta" myself.

5. Maybe blogging?

I may blog a bit again in 2016.  Anything is possible in a new year!

No Man's Sky with Colbert

Easily the best video game preview on a late show ever. Love the idea of this game; hate the name.

Town of Salem is fun

Hidden role games; I love 'em.  But mostly for the social aspect at the gaming table; not inside my PC over the magical tubes that make the internet.  The main draw is a randomly assigned team that has "perfect information" playing against the uneducated masses.  In Town of Salem that means its the mafia out to get the town.  It works surprisingly well considering the limitations of what is essentially a chat room with rules.

Games set up quickly with three players being assigned roles as mafia and being identified to each other mafia member.  The rest of the players are divided amongst various town or neutral roles (including a serial killer who is out against everyone).  At that point the premise is simple: mafia kill townies, townies figure out who the mafia is and lynch them.  The fact the mafia know each other and the townies don't know anything other than their own role opens the doors for all kinds of social shennagins.  Is that guy saying he is the jailor really the jailor or is he the godfather laying waste to townies at night?  Throw in a handful of neutral roles such as the jester (who wants the town just to lynch him) to the aforementioned serial killer who is out to kill everyone and you have a very unique game of "who's who" and "who dun it?".

The game is available via Steam or their website.

10 years, 2 days

Wow, I've had this blog for 10 years (+2 days due to my procrastination).

I suppose this warrants something bigger than just an obligatory "one post a month", but I'm tired and am still treading water in the gaming world due to real life.  So it is what it is and ten years of doing anything is still impressive IMHO.

Raph Koster bleeds

This is an amazing read: Raph Koster revisits the fabled time of game development that lead up to the launch of Star Wars Galaxies(SWG) and it's initial game systems for attaining Jedi status.

I've never really gotten over SWG, what it could have been after launch, and its eventual collapse.  Reading this article from Raph I get the sense that he was as heartbroken as we were as initial forum goers and beat testers. Raph's words bleed a passion and intelligence that is absent in today's game design.  They are what hooked us then and what I think will let us close the book on the SWG chapter in our MMO careers.

Battlefield Heroes to close

Sad news; Battlefield Heroes is set to shut it's doors this July.

This is unfortunate news alongside EA's other announcements about shuttering the rest of their Pay 2 Win ... err... Free 2 Play titles.

Personally I felt that Heroes was one of the better games of the Battlefield line up right behind Battlefield 2 and the original Battlefield 1942.  Heroes was easy to get into and offered an amazing amount of game play for free.  Unfortunately that is likely what has done it in over the long run.

At it's peak Heroes had reported player numbers of 10 million (geez, remember when we thought 250,000 was A LOT when talking about online games), but I suspect many of those millions were non-paying entities.  Eventually more and more "pay 2 win" aspects crept into the game.  Before long and about the time I stopped playing players had to pay up or go home.

In my opinion I don't think free 2 play has much to do with this closure at all.  EA is well known for closing down old games and shutting off the servers.  Heroes will just be another on the pile of games long abandoned by EA.  The real question for us to be asking is what, if anything, EA will change in the future to mitigate their constant disappointments with maintaining games with online components.  As a regular player of free 2 play titles and other online games these moves certainly don't give me any confidence in EA's ability to provide any decent long term investment.

EA is basically death for most of what it touches.

Obligatory Feb post

It is the last day of February 2015.

Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns

Via the Twitters: Guild Wars 2 expansion, Heart of Thorns, announced.

To which I say:

Acceptable to be unacceptable?

As a Packers fan I just don't know what to say.  First, it is acceptable to lose in the NFC Championship game.

However, the way in which the Packers just lost the NFC Championship game is unacceptable.  It is unacceptable to lose when you have a 12 point lead with less than 5 minutes remaining.  It is unacceptable to botch special teams plays.  It is unacceptable to play an entire half of football in the National Football League like you are trying not to lose.  Go out; win the game.  Don't turtle in and mutter "how the fuck did that just happen" when the other team plays to win and does in fact win.

I have never been physically ill after a game.  I can't eat dinner right now.  I can't even determine if this is real.  Someone pinch me.

Thank you Green Bay and Seattle for an amazing game.

Merry Christmas 2014

Yadda, yadda.