gen's thoughts (and also recs) - a Legacy in the making

been a bit since i last posted something here. this was going to be a post on my thoughts about this server, but i figured it might as well double as a recommendation post since it's p rad as well.

ah, private servers. quite a bit of a polarizing topic amongst many, especially amongst World of Warcraft players. for some people, it's a way to experience past versions of Azeroth. for others, it's a way to experience the joys of questing, player-vs-player combat, and raiding without having to pay a subscription fee. and sometimes there's others who think private servers are gimmicky buggy distortions of blizzard's milestone MMO that don't deliver a legitimate experience like retail.

whatever your opinion, there's no denying that WoW private servers are interesting in concept as well as development. while a lot of servers mostly seem to lean towards PvP and raiding with custom content, some other servers seek to emulate older versions of WoW without any fancy bells or whistles. some other ambitious people heavily modify Azeroth's terrain and add new races and quests, creating an entirely new experience that sets it apart from the crowd.

and oh boy, is Legacy quite the experience in those parts and more.

as someone who's been a WoW player since the Burning Crusade era and a roleplayer from the days of when MSN Messenger was still a thing, roleplaying in World of Warcraft is still a learning experience for me. i'm savvy with most of the lore, but making and roleplaying a character in the game has been a bit awkward for me, especially with how things in retail are handled as far as ingame events go which makes roleplay events a bit tricky despite the inclusion of roleplay servers.

another factor is that zones in the world have a certain level range, so a lv10 player might have quite a way to go before venturing to the lv60-70 Outland area. certain areas of the world would be more populated than others, and from my observations, outside of ingame guilds there didn't seem to be a cohesive forum to keep up to date on events that would happen, though considering there's a site for retail's Wyrmrest Accord server, i guess it's my fault for not poking around long enough for it. game mechanics and progression also put a hamper on things as far as roleplay is concerned.

Legacy is one of the few WoW private servers exclusively dedicated to roleplaying in the Warcraft setting. in 2009, the project was initially conceived under the name of Epilogue by a dude named S, who was upset at "the almost non-existent role playing support from Blizzard". what started as a small community eventually boomed in popularity, but real-life commitments and other pressures would eventually spell the end of the server. luckily, popular demand soon revived the project, now under the name of Prologue. Legacy eventually came to be after the loss of Prologue's game and forum data, as well as a meeting with S.

while i could go on with the history of the server, i still don't know much considering i've only recently heard of this server, and i've only been a part of the Legacy community for around two weeks as of the time of this writing.

so from the perspective of a Warcraft fan, longtime RPer, gamedev lover, and Legacy newbie, what makes Legacy so great for its concept, and what sort of experience can someone expect?

gen's thoughts - Orcs Must Die! (but not absolutely NEED to pay)

... or "gen goes on a tirade about freetoplay games and microtransaction crap".

okay, before anyone goes nuts, i do understand why microtransactions and DLC exist. game companies need money to keep thriving, as money is used to pay people for their work on a game, as well as to fund other projects said game company may do in the future, or to add additional stuff to existing games. mind, i am mostly talking about the PC gaming market in this case, as DLC and IAPs (in-app-purchases) are common in this industry.

however, there are right and wrong ways to go about DLC and IAPs, but we're mainly focusing on IAPs and their involvement in the free-to-play (F2P) model of gaming. as well as a recent game currently in development, but will be rolling with the freetoplay model.

anyone not familiar with the Orcs Must Die series, let me sum up the basics. basically it's a shooter/towerdefense hybrid game where you have to stop hordes of orcs (and other fantasy critters) from reaching the rift located in the level. the usual way of stopping these blokes is by way of weapons and traps, as well as spells and guardians. the second game in the series added more traps and monsters and such to deal with, as well as online co-op. no clue if i'll so a detailed review in the future, but i highly recommend the series for anyone interested.

sometime around friday (though i'm pretty sure a build was playable at PAX as well), a new installment to the series was introduced: Orcs Must Die Unchained. from what i can tell of the game's announcement and some articles about said announcement, Unchained is a MOBA-type free-to-play game with the OMD flair and gameplay; five players go up against five players, and each team must send hordes of minions to invade the enemy's rift, as well as construct traps to defend their rift from the enemy's horde.

while the series has been a favorite of many gamers, reactions to Unchained have been... rather split. fans were outraged that the ever-dreaded F2P/MOBA bug was starting to affect the orc-killing craze, fearing that Robot Entertainment's greed and bandwagoning would be the downfall of the franchise. now, i'm not too worried about the MOBA elements, but then again i do enjoy DOTA2 and Dethroned, so i guess that's why i don't mind it too much. even if the MOBA-ness wasn't mentioned, the game still looks like it'd be a blast to play.

however, i am concerned with how Unchained is going to handle the F2P.

curiousities - Tsubame the Ninja

apologies for the delay on this. been a busy bloke this while, but at least i've been meaning to get something substantial on here.

okay, bit of background history first, since the company behind this is kind of a niche thing.

Nippon Ichi Software is a Japan-based game company known for developing and publishing strategy RPGs, most notably the Disgaea series. while they didn't revolutionize the strategy RPG scene and were rather unknown during the early and middle periods of the PS2 (arguably their most well-known era), NIS did put some interesting spins in their SRPG titles, both in gameplay and worldbuilding. i can't think of another game where i can be a lv9999 13-year-old demon overlord with an army of exploding penguins and spend more of my time in the randomized dungeon in my sword than progressing through the story.

erm, it makes more sense if i explain the context, but that's not the point right now.

despite being a Japan-based company, NIS does have a branch in the US, known as NIS America. as you'd guess, NIS America handles the localization and overseas publishing of NIS's titles, as well as non-NIS games like Dangan Ronpa and Hyperdimension Neptunia. the less i say about the latter series, the better.

some years ago, NIS America also handled the publishing of various anime in US like Toradora and Anohana, as well as... children's books?

soooo... seems i've got a bit of explaining to do.