Its getting better all the time. (Global Agenda thoughts)

As I go about my daily routine Eurogamer Expo keeps popping into my head. Well, not the whole Expo, but Global Agenda to be precise.

As a jaded and seasoned blogger I tend to hate everything from the start, then occasionally my hatred will be misplaced and a game can impress me.

In the case of global agenda it was the opposite, I loved it. I really loved every little detail.

Character models.

The character models in this game are superb, they are crisp looking and the attention to detail is wonderful to see. The camera is a 3rd person one so you get to look at your characters back allot, so knowing this they have gone the extra mile and made the armour pretty, its bold and heavy looking but best of all there is no graphical glitches.

If you move the camera from side to side you don’t get a figure spinning around on the spot as you do with most games, you get a living person, he moves his head from side to side as the camera spins, then as you turn our of his field of vide he moves, his large heavy armour gets hauled around and it really looks heavy. great, they nailed it, the thing you look at most in the game looks great.

Game Play.

Now, honestly I did not get to play allot, but what I did play was fantastic, it has the team elements of Team Fortress 2 with the Sci-Fi dystopia that reminded me of a military infused Tekwar world with a massive infusion of Mass Effect (I know, I am explaining that badly)

remember being one of the new breed of MMO’s this game is not as pure and clean cut in its methodology, its split, there are arena’s, PvP and PvE, there are areas but those areas also seam to be battlegrounds, all those conventions that make us feel safe (and bored) are smudged away.

you do level up but that level means far less, you can be effective from the moment you touch the mouse assuming you are skilled.

those skills you earn now effect your play style tailoring it more and more for your exact style rather than your power going up. yes all of those things are there but they are hidden so much better.

Pricing.

The game will be sold in a box, that box then gives you access to the games core PvP and PvE, you can play for forever without ever putting another penny into it.

If you want however you can subscribe (we are hinted that its going to be a little cheaper than we are used to but that's not confirmed) this is when the game really opens up giving you more areas to visit, more combat (PvP and PvE) and more specialised items and experiences.

How exactly this will be marketed we are not sure but one thing we know is that this is no free to play imported game that will slap us with adverts every few seconds, the free to play content will be a game in its own right.

We also know at this point that the game will be updated with regular content (for subscriber area’s) they have said that at this point there are no plans to add paid updated later in its life cycle, this means the community will never be split by wallet size and income.

Final thoughts.

will this game be perfect? no, there will be problems, every game has problems and the twitchiness of the combat may make it very much not the game for many players but for me?

for me this is going to take a vast portion of my time, it caters fantastically to pretty much all my gaming tastes.

i am sorry if i am coming across like a bit of a fan-boy for this game but i am really excited for it and its been a long time since i have been truly excited for a game.

Hi-Rez studio’s, you guys are going great, thanks.

Euro Gamer Expo. Video’s and Pictures

Okay, so, I spent the day at Eurogamer Expo in Leeds (that’s in the UK you know) I had a fantastic day meeting up with people, chatting to game developers including some nice people from Introversion, Cryptic and Hi-Rez Studios.

I have uploaded some video I took on my phone and some pictures,Ii hope people enjoy them and don't flame me too much for the quality but my little camera phone could not quite manage presentation quality. Its good for general sense of the game mechanics and animation though.

Bellow are three of the games I saw that impressed me the most, some pictures and video of each.

Star Trek Online

STO was really fluid looking, the game is really solid looking, it was no secret though that we where seeing a polished but early beta. the demo was 3 areas, one space area and 2 away missions, I am really sorry about the low quality video but unfortunately its the best i could get at the time.

if that above video does not play (upload issues) then here is the link to a version that will work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkDiNwe_iyo

The above image is the Loading Screen, how awesome is that? those professional bloggers never show you loading screens lol.

One of the first things stat struck me about the space area is how its not black and cold looking, this zone is rich and interesting but still feels vast and epic.

Again, interesting and inventive space based eye candy. better than cold black space with little stars. there is a place for that kind of thing but it is nice to break it up a little.

Combat is inspired by naval battles with each monolithic ship ‘standing off’ against the other. We where assured that smaller ships take on a more fighter like feel but this slow and powerful combat works well for the larger ones.

the pop—up comes after you have completed your space based mission and gives you the ability to beam down to the planet for your first away mission.

Home Page: http://www.startrekonline.com/

Global Agenda.

Global agenda is a fantastic looking game with an interesting pricing plan in the works, apparently you buy the box and have free access to the standard PvP/PvE arena content then there is a optional subscription for advanced PvP and the PvE Story.

The video is really bad on this one but you can get a general vibe for the game, its got some of the best attention to detail i have ever seen in an action game, the movement is superb and the armour is fantastically well animated with no clipping or popping at all. i was really very impressed with this game.

Home Page: http://www.globalagendagame.com/

Cletus Clay.

This is an odd game its been created using stop motion animation, that means that they did not use 3D models but instead they had clay models that they animated to create the game motion. its really very fun and looks much better than my camera makes it look.

It is one of those smaller titles that really gets your attention. i found watching it in motion fascinating.

Some Stills from this game

All game models where crafted in clay to give the game an interesting look that is natural.

The images taken from the Clay models are used as textures for the 3D replica's, this seams to give the game this unusually solid look, the models look and feel heavy and very solid. its really very interesting to play and watch.

All images can be clicked on for larger views

Home Page: http://www.cletusclay.com/

Thanks for reading/looking/watching.

Eurogamer Expo

Well, its morning. I have my voice recorder and camera packed and off I go to Eurogamer expo, its in Leeds just 107 miles up the motorway. I should be there for about half 11 (if anyone else is going please do twitter me, I’ll let you buy me a coffee, I’m good like that)

I will be twittering from the event all day and writing a proper post upon my return.

looking forwards to Star Trek Online, Global Agenda and some Indie game goodness.

My twitter is http://twitter.com/HexDSL 

Te Expo Website is http://expo.eurogamer.net/

404 Radio #33, “Save the interwebs”

with gh0sty MIA for an episode Bad Panda and HexDSL rambled about the terrible condition our MMOs are released in, why The Old Republic wont deliver quite as advertised, why we don’t care about Dust 514 (seriously there have been 513 of them already?) and most of all there was random chatter about TV shows, Grandma's in bikini's and Scary slutty cat people.

Get us over at: http://www.tamworthgamers.co.uk

we are also hanging out at: http://mmovoices.ning.com/page/404-radio

Our RSS is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio

To Listen now: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/404-Radio/~5/AObIyeTk69Q/404radiopodcast-192588-10-18-2009.mp3

FEEBACK WANTED. iTunes reviews welcome so are people visiting the homepage. We know you listen, stand up and be counted.

404 Radio #32, “Best Episode ever”

404 Radio #32, “Best Episode ever”

This week we talk WoW Cataclysm and Siege of Mirkwood, we also chat about Stargate worlds making its first TV appearance, why WoW may become a teenager one day and how FusionFall is still fun to play.

Get us over at: http://www.tamworthgamers.co.uk

we are also hanging out at: http://mmovoices.ning.com/page/404-radio

Our RSS is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio

Listen Directly: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/404-Radio/~5/tVg-dyDxuOM/404radiopodcast-188972-10-08-2009.mp3

FEEDBACK WANTED. iTunes reviews welcome so are people visiting the homepage. We know you listen, stand up and be counted.

Chicken-play

 

for anyone who does not know, THIS is chicken play in Lord of the Rings Online.

 

Tolkien would be proud.

My LotRO break (an attempt to fund my Windows 7 cravings) is over. I have jumped back into Middle Earth with both feet, and a level 57 Lore Master.

It is good to be back. But while I was gone something wonderful happened, I installed the Windows 7 Beta, meaning for the first time I am looking at the game with some DirectX 10 awesome (I skipped Vista).

The reason that this is such an awesome thing is that I loaded from a fresh install of the client straight into where I had last logged out. meaning that my first look at the wonderful DirectX 10 shadows and lighting came was the water works in the Moria Mine.

Loading in for the first time in months, and seeing the view from high up in Moria, looking across a seemingly infinite cave, a cave so large that there are giant statues in the distance. it was in a word, awesome.

It was awesome to see the subtle differences that Dx10 offered, from flickering shadows to dynamic candle light made the experience just that little bit more immersive.

But, I realised quite quickly that I had not before taken the time to just looks, to just look at the wonderfully crafted world that the game offered. Up until this point I had been distracted by levels and monsters and Kinship chat. It was nice to take a moment to experience the awesome scale of Moria, and really take it in.

After an hour or so with the sound turned up high I wanted to see something a little different for a moment so I used my ‘Return to Bree’ skill and within a few seconds I was not standing in a pit, an elegant and beautifully built pit, I was instead standing under a tree in Bree, looking at a stream and watching the shadow of a tree on the grass. It really was a contrast from where i had been I could almost taste the crisp air.

Its not often in a game, that you can get so lost in an experience that you actually take a beep breath and really feel as though you are some place different, a place clean and airy.

I spent the rest of the evening visiting all the different places in middle earth that i had neglected to really look at, i sat inside an inn or two looking at a fire and talking to some Hobbit’s about the quality of the local bacon.

All in all, i don't think it was the extra little details that my DirectX settings shoed me that got my attention, or even the wonderfully crafted world that Turbine built for me, i think in the end it was the way Tolkien had build it, world by world that had made all that possible, and in the end, it all started with an idea.

Real gamers use keys?

As a grown up gamer with a wife and a five year old daughter I was pretty impressed when most of my thoughts on MMO grouping where summed up by one of our own (an MMO-voices user), Chris (Game By Night), wrote the article called ‘So you’ve Decided to be a casual’

That article got me thinking about the other side of the screen a bit more than i usually do.

As i type this I am aware that I am not sure what my point is but I’m sure i have one.

The thing that has been a constant for me and my MMO love has been that it is a lonely one. sure, I have been in some great guilds but for my real life i have never had anyone to indulge my thoughts with.

As some one who never really liked WoW I have always been playing different games to my extremely casual real life friends. So, i come to sites like this one in hopes of reading the thoughts of other like minded MMO loving gamers.

its a strange thing for me when my real life friends don’t think of me as a gamer because i don't play enough Halo, and i never buy new console games, but I think of myself as something of a gaming connoisseur, I buy stacks of indie games on Steam and co-host a podcast about MMO’s.

At This moment in time i have got installed on my machine LotRO, TCoS, DDO, RoM and GW; but because of social trends i am not considered a gamer. its a strange feeling.

is it just my circle of friends or is it a global thing that the console obsession has come to the point where people in the mass cattle market of society think of PC gamers as ‘not really gamers’

Other other side of this crazy coin though I know people who claim they are not gamers but spend 3 hours an evening playing DS. what's with this crazed logic people have?

Anyway semi-pointless rant over… blogging its just like therapy.