PAX Weekend. I guess [Zakn]

If you are reading a Gaming thread, I'm guessing that you know what PAX is, so I'm not going to go into it in depth.

For probably the past fiveish years, I've been wanting to make it out to one of these. Not as much anymore. Maybe 10 years ago I could see standing in a line for two hours to check something coming out in a year, but Man, I just don't have time for that. More and More I think that supporting your local con or cons is the way to go. Less travel involved. I just never think of the local one until I see that it happened on the News.

I have gone to Eve Vegas the last few years, but more and more I don't actually go to any of the Panels. The first year I went to as many panels I could. Like I would download the schedule and see what I could make. Even setting an alarm to wake up (lol!). Now it's meet up with a bunch of friends that have been going to this thing for years too, and we kind of just hit Vegas up. Eve Vegas is just kind of the landscaping or the excuse for everyone to go. Hell next year I might just get a ticket to the Party because 3 hours of open bar with a bunch of nerds is fucking funny.

This makes me wonder about going to Fanfest. Now Iceland is cool as fuck. So I might try to make a return just to go see that place again. It's soo expensive though. I think I spent like 4 grand total on that week including travel and lodging (Food and Drink are incredibly expensive. Spending $50 on dinner was the norm and that was without a bar tab). That just doesn't make sense to me

On to some videos and other shit.

I really liked this TEDx Video. I'm never one to equate Physical Effort with Video Gaming. Like ever. But say in Gaming, You will lose fights. You will make mistakes. You will make poor Decisions. How you move forward after them is up to you.

I wish I could show this to every prospective Fleet Commander (FC) in Eve. You will take losses. You will be humiliated. Keep at it. Keep getting better. Take any and all advice from your fellow FCs (I tried FCing like twice, it went poorly) This is the most complex thing that exists in gaming imo. I was playing enough Eve to really start seeing the "field" well, and even then it was hard as fuck.

Lol Daras. The Cap Channel in Mumble is still named for it's "honor". RIP

PS the fight he's talking about where he lost his title was this one. He spent two weeks in Vegas with Nasal Trumpets in. I spend like 4 days a year in Vegas and imagining having to go through that is a fucking nightmare.

Man that fight was in 2007. We are getting Old.

What's interesting going forward in this with the New Sov changes is that a Coalition can go down and fight and burn an entire region down regardless of Super and Cap support. Regardless if you actually live in your Sov or not. The goals of the Providence Campaign were largely accomplished. Even the Allies within the CFC/Imperium Performed well. I wish I could link killmails, but that's on the CCPlease list. The bar for Fighting Sov Warfare is low now. I can see how and why say Black Legion are leaving a Region. In the current meta there is no way to fuck around with people that stage out of what is called NPC space. You can't incap their stuff or give them any defensive timers. All you get are a ton of timers you have to defend by ships that are inexpensive and hard as fuck to catch (Nullified Interceptors need to go away or not be able to Entose. At least when a T3 Cruiser was Cloaky Nully if you managed to catch and kill the thing not only was it expensive, but there was skill point loss. Not so with "Trollceptors")

Now Zakn, you terrible person, what about people that aren't in a coalition? Does this mean they can actually take Sov Null space without Supers? My answer is probably. Will you be able to hold it? Jury is out on that. I'm watching "Russian" Space. Ultimately if you want to live in Sov Nullsec its because you want to build and sell/have Supers. If people start seeing lots of CSAA's they will probably be coat hangered or ransomed. Apologies for the triggers. Plus it appears that the Imperium/CFC is the only Coalition that is really left anymore. How does that change going forward? I don't know. Eve is a Sandbox and the people that play Eve are rule nerds.

I keep getting lots of cheers for the Eve Content in the Comments Section. Still not sure how to take that. I think you fucking nerds are the vocal minority. There's a whole subreddit devoted to that shit.

Guild Wars 2 is now Free to Play

Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows Trailer

I really liked Shovel Knight. The music was great and the platforming was quite challenging and tight. I still haven't beat it. I should get back on that.

Hit me up on my Twitter thingy

I'm always down to publish your stuff. Write it up and pitch me. Inspector Cussword shot this over to me. You can do the same: aoshqgaming at gmail

PC-MMOgames

Many of the commentators in prior game posts have expressed frustration and confusion about a lot of the terms used. Discussions about games often veer into the heavy underbrush of jargon and that can mask a lot of interesting information.

Also, I've noticed that the focus of these posts tend to be centered around consoles and single player games and rarely touch on the world of PC gaming as a whole. Therefore, I'm going to try my best to introduce a slate of low-cost to free games available on PC with a discussion about their genres and perhaps some history.

First off: I will be recommending Steam as a source from time to time. There are a few who do not like Steam's laid-back DRM - others just have relied on somewhat exaggerated negative reviews of older versions of Steam having issues with some PC builds and/or software.

I've been using Steam (download HERE) since 2003, nearly a year before Half LIfe 2 was released on it. It is robust, free, and has the largest available game catalog for purchase and electronic delivery. It has been bulletproof for my purchases and on my various installations. Any bugs I have encountered have been minor. Steam is a great source of free games and allows groups to organize to play games together - so I will be recommending it primarily for downloads.

The genre I will discuss today is MMO's. MMO is taken from "MMORPG" or "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game", a genre that started with online games called MUD's or "Multi-User Dungeon". These games were wholly- or partially scripted text adventures/chat channels which quickly added side-functionality to keep track of people's statistics, levels, gear, health, and inventory. Today's MMO's range from turn-based strategy games to first-person shooters, to traditional RPGs and strange mixtures of several kinds.

I find them fascinating on several levels - primarily that this is a brand new industry. It has only been around since 1997 or so and no one knows really how to do it right. That's why there are so many failures and weird combos available - it's like the early days of flight when people would strap 18 wings on a bicycle and light a rocket. It might just work.

While the definitive "First MMORPG" is a matter of some argument in the nerd community, the ones that made a lasting impact in the greater market are pretty well known.

Ultima Online (free dl and 14 day trial HERE) was the first "successful" mass-market MMORPG, released in 1997. It was presented as an isometric, 2D sprite-based game -the 3d client wasn't released until 2001 and sucked mightily. The game was known for open PVP (Player Versus Player) combat alongside PVE (Player Versus Environment) until the release of Trammel (an expansion "world" introduced which allowed players to forego non-consensual PVP).

Everquest was the second big mass market success in MMOs. Introduced in 1999, it had a 3d client and presented structure (quests) to the players.

Both of these MMO's are still running. They are the prototypical examples of the primary classes in MMORPGs - themepark (Everquest) and sandbox (Ultima Online).

Themepark MMO's are primarily quest-based. The experience is directed and typically characters are of specific classes such as fighters, mages, clerics, etc. These are progressed by "levels" and the power and abilities increase in set increments. Gear (armor, weapons, etc) is hugely important in these games as it is the way to greatly enhance power and is also the main reward for questing and killing special monsters in "raids"- specific dungeons/areas that cater to large groupings of players.

Sandbox MMO's are reactive. They rely on structure such as land, resources, travel time, etc and expect the players to populate the world and create interactions and "content". Generally they allow the construction of structures/houses/factories.  The conflicts over resources, over land, and in retribution for past attacks fuels the confict today. People make a character to go mine and increase their mining skill, then their smelting skill, etc. UO was a skil-point based system of character progression. One could increase skills by practice and in so doing, make a unique character with specific skills. Someone using magic and polearms and able to tame monkeys is a valid character template, though not the best. Gear is merely functional and is rarely a large factor in power differences. Compared to a class-based progression, skill based is much more free-form. It is also alot harder to balance.

Since UO started with unrestricted PVP, sandboxes are often assumed to require non-consensual PVP. Conversely, themepark games also have servers with non-consensual PVP enabled in certain areas and some servers with no PVP allowed except for duels or "flagged" PVP matches.

PVP is a big sore spot in the MMO world. Since a lot of Themeparks are based on gear, the games carry that over and allow people with more time (children, the mentally deranged, and the unemployed) to get more powerful by acquiring gear. They then "grief" or "seal club" lower-level players since it is a guaranteed kill (and the griefers are mentally deficient or bored as hell).

So-

That takes me to today. I figured I'd suggest some cheap to free MMO's for you all to try out.

World of Warcraft is the king of the MMORPG world with just over 5 million paying subscribers (down from 12 million at the peak).

It is a themepark MMO above all others, with huge amounts of content, quests, and tons of support sites. It still costs $14.95 a month, though you can play for free up to level 20 (out of 100).

There is a Moron guild on the Rexxar server, Alliance side. It has been less than busy lately, but since the first 20 levels are free, I recommend downloading World of Warcraft from their site
HERE and trying it out. Take the time to read the quest text. Listen to the voice overs. And enjoy the music score, one of the best in the business.

Verant Interactive was the original company behind Everquest - it was bought by Sony and just recently purchased by a bunch of Russian Legitimate Businessmen. It is now known as Daybreak Games (as you no pay den daybreak yore legs) (just kidding)(sorta). They have several FTP (Free To Play) titles out - Everquest, Everquest II, DC Universe Online, and Planetside II.

Planetside II is what is known as a MMOFPS, or Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter.

You have guns., aircraft, tanks, and motorcycles. There are 3 sides. You shoot dudes, tanks, and dudes in aircraft. The starter guns are NOT underpowered - you don't have to pay for anything if you don't want to. Three sides so there are always fights over several continents. You can download this from Steam or from Daybreak.com.

Another interesting non-fantasy game is DC Universe Online. It allows you to make your own superhero/villain in the DC comic universe (Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, etc) and fight in a quest-based world. Pretty fun, lots of action, basically is a beat-em up game with combos and finishers. I think one of my characters hits people with a roadsign occasionally. Again, free to play and free to download from Steam or from their website.

If you have kids, you may want to try out TROVE, by Trion Worlds.

They have a launcher for their games called Glyph, so once you install one game it allows you to dl others. (It is also available from Steam, best to run it as a shortcut). It is a block-based adventure game that is suited for families. Allows building, questing, raiding, and has a lot of content. Free to play also.

And finally from Trion, there is DEFIANCE, another MMO shooter. Following trailer is slightly NSFW:

This is primarily PVE and is loosely based on the TV series on Syfy. Guns, Rockets, ATV's, Shooting, Grenades, Explosions, Aliens, and Murder. It is my go-to game for mindless sniping of random mutants. And it's free to play. Again, available on their Glyph launcher or from Steam.

If I can get the time, next week I'll line up MMO Lobby games like War Thunder and World of tanks; or I might go into current and upcoming new games.

Zakn back to close

And as a tribute to @Grummz Your Cosplayer Chick of the week. Firiona Vie of Everquest. That is some Agressive Navel! No PAX FOR YOU!