gen's thoughts - Disgaea PC? Disgaea PC.

okay i know it's going to be a while before this game gets released and get the funds to play it but shut up let me gush

caught word on my steam activity feed that several of my steammates joined a "Disgaea PC" community group. i initially thought it was just a fanmade pc adaptation of the adorably demonic strategy rpg, but nope. it's an official game group, and it wasn't long until i found the steam page for the game, too. come February of next year, the first game in Nippon Ichi Software's Disgaea series will see release on Steam.

already said some stuff about the Disgaea series last year for the first part of my Disgaea manga review thing, so i'll leave that alone. though, uh... i should at least get back to that readthrough at some point. outside of being a port of the first Disgaea game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea PC will include all content from the Afternoon of Darkness PSP rerelease, as well as enhanced textures, an updated UI, keyboard/mouse and controller support, steam achievements, and cloud saves amongst other features they didn't bother to list on the steam page. there'll also be steam trading cards that players can craft into badges to show off on their profile, as well as get some nifty emoticons and backgrounds out of it alongside coupons that they'll probably never use.

that's pretty much the gist of it from what i can gather off the steam page. though why is this titled with "gen's thoughts" instead of MAKAIPUNK? and maybe it should've been titled STEAMPUNK instead?

well, i kinda got a couple thoughts concerning this rerelease, and really, i kinda keep MAKAIPUNK focused on the more doofy-yet-informational NIS stuff. as for STEAMPUNK, this isn't a review of a steam game. so yeah.

anyhow, more wordy thoughts under the cut.

gen's thoughts (also vlog time) - jack of all trades, master of none

so a while back i was working on an article concerning aesthetic/design trends in video games (as well as their links with particular audiences) after developer Naughty Dog pretty much ruled out ever returning to making any Jak or Crash Bandicoot games and i got pretty sore about it.

well, as far as the whole game design thing goes, George Weidman of Super Bunnyhop worded it a lot better than i could've. while i'm not going to deny that older gaming generations had trends of their own (how many friggin 3d platformers did we get in the late90s-mid00s again?), certain trends seem to be more commonplace in AAA games from the more recent years. hell, even a good fraction of indie games aren't safe from this; just count how zombie/crafting/survival/metroidvania/sandbox games you see on steam's indie section.

a lot of people yell for new IPs all the time, but how do we know said new IP won't just use trends already seen before? new IPs are great, but if you can innovate on new features or streamline existing ones, that's even better. quite a bit of Nintendo series tend to try out new things and improve on existing gameplay stuff: while the Mario and Pokemon series are good example of this, Kirby and Zelda have this as well.

hell, recent Nintendo consoles feature some pretty creative new IPs that put a spin on existing trends and try out new styles of gameplay. the Pikmin games are wonderful, Captain Toad looks pretty fun, and the upcoming Splatoon is a interesting take on the shooter genre with its gameplay and graphical style. a good lot of japanese-developed titles are pretty unique in their gameplay as well, and there's even some pretty creative indie games if you look hard enough. there's also a few western-developed gems that put an interesting spin on usual gameplay conventions: just look at Guild Wars 2.

there's a bit more to fun and memorable game design (and aesthetic, by extension) than just hopping on a trend bandwagon, but not a whole lot of developers are willing to risk innovation over sales. why is there an overabundance of a particular genre/gimmick/graphic style in games? because that's what the vocal audience demands. and they sell. it's a sad truth, but it's a truth.

though even in recent times, there are creative gems that are worth a look at. you just have to look hard enough for them. c:

gen's thoughts - why ya'll should stop giving Starbound flak

i feel like i keep saying i'll get post stuff done at some point, so i'm just going to drop that whole intro line. in the meantime, i need to talk about an issue that's becoming way too goddamn resonant in the Steam early access community.

for those who aren't familiar with Starbound, i'll sum things up quickly. it's a 2d minecraft-style game much similar to Terraria, but what Terraria established in terms of game mechanics, Starbound improves on. you can explore a wide variety of planets, visit dungeons and explore towns, and even decorate your own spaceship.

the game is currently available for purchase for early access on Steam. while it's fairly bare-bones in its current state, it's shaping up to be fairly ambitious. from what the devs have said about coming features, there'll be revamped progression, expansions for your ship, and quests to partake both sidequests from wandering folks and main quests for each race. kinda like a 2d Elder Scrolls in space, but you can build stuff.

however, there's been a lot of people complaining about Starbound's stable build not updating fast enough and the grindy progressing in the current stable build. many of them changed their positive reviews to negative, fearing that Starbound may go the way of Towns and Cube World, two games that have been infamous for having no updates in months with no word from the devs.

well, first off, the game being unfinished is an obvious risk of early access. many of Starbound's progression elements are in the process of being overhauled; what was presented in the current build is just a placeholder until the actual progression system is finished. a lot of ingame systems (such as the tile rendering system and monster generation, for instance) are also getting improvments and such so everything will run smoother. Chucklefish is a rather small studio, and while news on the changes are frequent on the devblog and the nightly build, it'll still be quite a while before things are in working order.

what people don't seem to understand is that at the very least the devs are keeping us posted on updates and systems in the game and how they're coming along, compared to something like Towns which hasn't updated or posted any development info since... september of 2013, apparently. yes, i'm upset at the lack of updates on Starbound as much as everyone else is, but at least Chucklefish is showing us that they are indeed actually working on it, even if it's taking a while.

when you buy early access to a game, that's what you're getting: early access. to the people whining about the current build's grindy progression, Starbound is still well in beta, and what is in beta doesn't necessarily exactly reflect what will be in the actual release. early access is how devs get funding for their projects, and it's also a way for them to get feedback for their games. however, there's a fine line between constructive criticism and callous whining, and complaining about how unfinished the game is and how updates aren't coming out fast enough isn't going to make things easier for the devs.

just my two cents on the whole matter. i'm still hyped for Starbound and heartily recommend it for anyone who liked Terraria, but i have a feeling situations like Cube World and Towns are why people are so leery of updates taking a while.

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.