Path of Exile: FOR THE LOVE OF ODIN PLAY THIS!

You know, do not even ask me about the "Forsaken Masters" part as I do not really know.  But Path of Exile, I do not think I have ever sunk this much time into a free-to-play game.  Even the previously mentioned Clash of Clans or Plants vs. Zombies 2.  No, not even Mafia Wars, which was way back in the day, as far as I am concerned.

At the moment I have put 35 hours into this game, although that number seems to be growing week-by-week.  But let us talk about the game.

Bloody hell this game is beautiful, just take a look at this dank and infested dungeon!

and a spectral-esque-type forrest.

Now if I only played good looking games, there would be room for an argument here, but I am also playing a lot of The Elder Scrolls: The Arena which looks a lot like Doom with a sword and heal potions.  PoE plays remarkably well too.  Think Diablo, with bits of Torchlight II thrown in (stationary waypoints) as well as MMORPG action hot key type actions as well.   There are even some improvements such as removable gem socketing in weapons and armor without damaging either the equipment or the gems.  I think that is one of the things that helped to sell the game.  

There are even little individual animations that the enemies do.  For instance, an enemy archer will run towards you, stop, pull an arrow from their quiver, lick the fletching, knock the arrow then fire towards you.  That is, if you haven't already shot them yet.  If you zoom in as close as you can, you can see the corpses of fallen enemies twitching a couple of times before they lie permanently prone.  At first I thought it was either a glitch or my eyes playing tricks, but no, you can see hands and feet twitching a few times.  Sometimes monsters will also roar at you before or during attacks, you know, because their wild animals that just happen to want you very dead.

Oddly enough, one of the best things about this games is all the ways Grinding Gear Games does not charge you to play and there are a lot of aspects to this game that I feel that could have been used to create options to pay real world money.  You want to enchant that sword to a +1 to damage, pay 50 gold (translates to $0.50).  You want to recover that life sapping gem from your armor that you no longer want, that will be 200 gold.  You want to create more than one character, pay us 500 gold to create extra character slots beyond your first character.  Of everything that I have seen that the game charges money for, everything appears to be cosmetic.  Sure you have your swag stashed in a chest that has four pages of a 12x12 grid and you can pay for a fifth page, but I do not foresee needing that much space considering I am currently only playing one character.

Basically, there was one time when I left the game for the sole purpose of finding out how I could give Grinding Gear Games money using real money.  Maybe buy a package thing via Steam using my Steam Wallet.  I could not.  There was nothing I could do but use their in-game market.  That was not was I was looking for, so I have yet to give them currency validation towards their great game.

Similar to Diablo and Torchlight, I do have a problem with hoarding.  When I found gems, I saved them until I could create the next higher quality gem, then I saved that gem until I could create the next. . .so on and so on.  I was always paranoid that I would find a better weapon or suit of armor and that gem that I had soldered into my equipment would then be lost forever.  Thankfully in PoE, this is not the case as I can take out and remove gems as frequently as I want (unless otherwise noted in the description of the gem).  Grinding Gear is making this game too easy to like and doing things that I had wanted earlier Diablo-esque games to do.

There are a handful of other features from the game that surprised me.  At first, I was annoyed that the maps were a lot smaller than what I was used to on Torchlight II, but I quickly realized that they were more like the Diablo maps and one of the sidequest goals is to kill every monster on the map.  That would be quite the feat in Torchlight II.  Another is that your health and mana potions autofill as you kill enemies and whenever you return to town, which makes healing spells almost obsolete.  It can become difficult however when you have to go up against a boss that does not want to summon creatures to help fight against you, which would then refill your potion bottles.

To date, I have only played cooperatively once with Chreekat a month or two back.  And while the game could be played with friends, you don't have to and I feel that playing locally would be a lot more fun than playing across the country.  That being said, I am usually up for playing cooperatively if people are interested.  That then brings me to the online-ness of the game.  Unless you are intentionally playing with anyones else, all the areas, with the exception of the towns/villages are instanced.  You do not have to worry about other people running around in the same area stealing your kills and loot.

The only negative statement I have to make about this game is that it takes a while to load.  The first couple of times I tried playing, I gave up because I thought the game was stuck on the loading screen.  It turned out that I just had to wait a minute or two, then everything was as I expected it to be.  There was no noticeable lag in the game and the only times the game had to load was moving between areas.

I am going to stop now so I can get this out there.  Path of Exile has been out there in the world for 13 months now and honestly, it is never too late to pick up this game and start playing.  So, you should go and start playing as it is just too much fun to not play.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Great Warriors of Doom and Wind

Web CHESS

Please note: My esteemed colleague and co-blogger, life-partner J.Conian has been out for a bit, while his computer rehabs from its drinking problem.  In the meantime, I'm going to talk about chess and count the days until he returns to regular posting.

So, there's this chess website:  www.gameknot.com that I play a lot, and have been playing for several years.  My sister tykedyke turned me on to it.  It's pretty fun, and I've been playing chess a lot these days.  I'm sure there are a million and one online chess websites, but this is the one I use.   

The way it works is that players have anywhere from 2 to 14 days to make a move.  A player may participate in many different games simultaneously.  There are enough other users so that I usually have about five or so active games. I like this system, in part because I am compelled to view games in terms of 'one move at a time.'  Very often when it is my turn, I've forgotten what is happening in a given game, so I have to analyze the board and make my move all over again.  I feel like this is improving my chess playing skills.  But with a handful of games running at once, I usually don't have to wait long to take my turn on one of them.

Gameknot.com is a membership based site, and you will need to create a profile to play. Membership is free, but they've got two pay-membership levels: gold and silver. Basic 'free' memberships allow you to run a bunch of games, but only by joining other games already proposed by other players.  When a game is proposed it appears in a queue, and is marked 'looking for a challenger.' A player may join any number of these. With free membership, you are only able to submit one game at a time of your own.  I never find this to be a problem, as there are always a bunch of players waiting for opponents. Silver and Gold memberships allow you to propose as many games as you like, and perhaps some other perks that I don't know about yet.  I briefly had a silver membership, when I was feeling generous, but that didn't last long, and budget cuts set me back to the free membership.  

Another element of the player profile is that there is a point system that evaluates your ranking within the community. Everyone starts with a rating of 1200, and you gain and lose points as you win and lose games.  The points lost or gained are adjusted based on the difference between your total points and your opponents total points.  My current point count is 1065, and if I beat a player with 1300 points, I'm sure to get a big bonus.  But if I lose to that same player, I shouldn't lose too many points.  However, if I play an opponent with 935 points, the point ratio will be reversed, and I'll stand to lose more, and gain less.  I started with 1200 at first like everyone else, and was quickly knocked way down.  I think I bottomed out somewhere in the 700s, at which point I began my slow climb back up. 

My one concern about using video-chess is that I am becoming spoiled with the overhead view and flat pieces.  It is much clearer to me than playing on an actual board with actual pieces.  I find my brain gets more scrambled when I play real chess, and I am much more likely to overlook pieces.  That said, I still overlook plenty when playing chess on gameknot. 

Final notes:  There are tournaments and other special events, but I've never participated in these.  There are also daily chess puzzles, if that's your thing. Also, there is a sort of instant messenger client attached to every game, allowing you to talk to your opponent.  I rarely use this.  You can also create a friends list; I haven't done that either.  But it's never too late to start!  I just now requested friendship from my sister, tykedyke, after probably five years of using gameknot.

if you ever want to play a game of chess, my screenname is: drpottsiv


-D

Currently Playing 2: Realm of the Mad God

This game is great.  It's free, simple, original, quick to pick up, and it has some depth.  The learning curve is not too harsh, the reward system is steady and it expands the game.  This game is a "hardcore" game, by Diablo standards - which means that when your character dies - he's dead.  No resurrection, no saving, just dead as a doornail.  I think that's actually pretty cool, and rare in games.  In addition, when you start a new class, you start over from level 1, so the player is regularly going through the learning curve, and the game becomes easier to progress through, easier to set goals and achieve them.

The game is basically a non-stop level and loot fix.  In addition to the loot fix, the goal system is a big part of the appeal.  There are about a dozen different classes, and each one is opened by playing an existing class.  It goes: wizard, priest, archer, thief, knight... and so on (that's as far as I've gotten).  These classes are opened up when you get to level 10 on the previous class in the order, so level 10 priest gets you archer, level 10 archer gets you thief, and so on.  And while you are playing through as one class, you will encounter equipment drops for other classes that you have yet to play as. This is encouraging:  I want to know what a sorcerer plays like, or an assassin.  I believe he gets to carry a skull, which is cool.

The game is also co operative.  I haven't had much experience with this element, but I'm getting the drift that it may be the way to go.  Possibly the next step on the learning curve.  Because this is how it works:  You don't party up in any formal sense, but player share experience for enemies killed in the same vicinity.  So it is in everyone's best interest to work together.  I think it may be the key to the higher levels (I've capped out at level 12).  

So, cooperation is a level of depth I haven't yet reached in this game, and I am eager to see how it contributes to gameplay.  Human beings are always an interesting addition to any game dynamic.  There are rules about loot acquisition, and I've witnessed some real tantrums about loot theft.  On the other hand, I've also had a level 15 guy stop my little level 1 character and just hand him a bunch of great equipment.  That was totally rad- refreshed my faith in humanity.  You are able to save up to 8 items in a vault from one game to the next, and thus share your with your other classes, or, if you want, other players.  

Realm of the Mad God.  Came out of nowhere, free to play, mouse and keyboard and you can play it in your browser.  Rating:  Highly Recommended.