If you haven’t seen Keanu, you should. It’s pretty funny.
The title refers to Keanu the kitten, whom our heroes must rescue from drug dealers. Highlights include the violent death of Anna Faris (playing herself as a horribly brain-damaged coke addict) and a “vision moment,” in which Keanu the cat imparts wisdom to Keegan-Michael Key. The cat is voiced by . . . yes, Keanu Reeves.
I was amused.
This is a really interesting talk by Josh Mosqueira on how Diablo 3 evolved from a broken-ass Ebay simulator into what it is now. Of special interest is how aware the developers were of the horror show that was D3 in 2012 and how they set about fixing it. Even if you’re not a D3 fan, it’s worth watching to see how Blizzard thinks. (How/why they got rid of the auction houses starts at 42:00.)
ILA has already discussed the Tristram content for patch 2.4.3, so I will talk a bit about some of my class progress. Here is an informative videro about solo Greater Rift clear competition, if you care about that. I don’t, except insofar as I like to steal ideas for making myself more powerful in my little bailiwick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4-1HW1P__4
My main wizard is doing pretty well. She can fairly comfortably farm at Torment 11, but I prefer 10 just because it’s faster and because I can’t detect a huge difference in drop rate. She maintains her melee build but is now using the interesting ring Manald Heal in the Cube. This confers huge lightning damage and has a 15% proc chance. So I have changed Spectral Blade to a lightning rune and have increased the speed dramatically. The damage from Spectral Blade alone is colossal, owing to the insane attack speed, but that 15% procs mighty fast, and that’s the reason for the change. Note how everything SYNERGIZES with everything else:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/simmery-1600/hero/57465722
This is system-building, which is why I love D3.
On another front, I’m working on my demon hunter. Initially, I didn’t care for this class. He was too derpy compared to the wizard with all her spectacle, but I think I can do something with this guy. I’m trying to coax Kadala into giving me a certain belt and quiver so that I can exploit grenades. That will happen. It’s only a matter of time. You can see here that I’m heading toward some kind of workable SYNERGY, though I have a ways to go:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/simmery-1600/hero/41726719
I rather like this chap now. He’s getting faster, and speed is what attracts me to the game. My wiz is so fast (thanks to constant teleport, Spectral Blade attack speed, etc.) that monsters die without knowing what hit them. The DH is going there, but patience is the watchword.
More as things of sufficient interest occur.
RPS has a news item about how Robot Entertainment is making big changes to Orcs Must Die: Unchained.
Sigh.
In a nutshell, they’ve figured out that their silly PvP MOBA model is not what people want, so they’re rejiggering things to behave more like OMD/2. Well, duh.
These guys must have their own Scrooge McDuck / 3D Realms money vault, because I can’t imagine how their microtransactions are paying for the game’s development, which seems to have its version 1.0 clock set to geologic time.
Also, there’s a level design problem. I haven’t read the patch notes, but merely omitting PvP and making tactical/mechanical changes to traps and weapons — yeah, this isn’t going to do it. OMD2 had larger levels than OMD1, but it was still built from the ground up as a two-player co-op game. OMDU (unless they start completely over) is a multiplayer project with sprawling real estate. Just changing player/trap/enemy behaviors isn’t going to fix the strategic and tactical problems you’ll have when trying to play OMD/2 in those giant rooms. A big issue right now is having to run through miles of hallways to get to hotspots (and the portals and speed-up treadmills don’t help much). This is going to conflict with the single-player re-do, because single-player tower defense games must account for every inch of geography.
The only way to manage this without completely starting over is to (a) make the player much faster and much more powerful, and (b) make traps much cheaper, much easier to acquire, and far more effective. Even then, the levels will have to be revised.
Since the game was designed with microtransaction creep bolted in from the get-go, I don’t see how anything less than a complete overhaul will salvage the product or make it profitable.
I’ve tried really hard to like Westworld. I really have. I’m just not getting the allure.
I admire the concept. What could be cooler than to revisit the ideas behind Michael Crichton’s 1970s movie and develop a AAA HBO series using twenty-first century CG tech?
The problem is that Crichton’s movie was rather stupid, just as Jurassic Park and Timeline were rather stupid in their common thesis that money-mad, undisciplined corporate baddies would take a wonderful notion and let it get out of control because, you know, greed and hubris.
Never mind that such theme parks would never be remotely profitable or even possible, even if you could pull off genetically engineered dinosaurs, time travel, or cowboy/saloon girl robots. No one is capable of managing anything like this, and even if they were, any profit would quickly be eaten by operation expenses — even if you managed to find enough “guests” to pay such absurd entry fees.
But that’s not the problem with Westworld.
The series is just dull. No matter how much HBO hypes it, no matter how vigorously people try to make themselves believe in its edginess and originality, the show is a tedious soap opera that suffers from the same plodding development characteristic of all miniseries.
Then there’s the writing. Soap operas are silly, but you expect that. You anticipate absurd plot twists involving improbable identity revelations, incestual pregnancies, alien abductions, and so on. In a multi-million dollar uber-class HBO series, you really should not have to put up with such idiocy, but Westworld is full of last-second plot dumps wherein you discover that someone is X when you thought they were Y, or someone’s apparent escape was not a result of independent thought but part of a grand narrative, etc. The explanations for these silly reversals are on a par with Obi Wan’s rationalization that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are the same person. The dumbness staggers the mind.
Game of Thrones requires patience. Westworld requires the suspension of reason and any expectation of quality writing.
I know that everyone has been anxiously awaiting my impressions of Nuka World, but I didn’t want to start it until I was reasonably sure I had reached a proper end-game point.
The thing about Nuka World is that it forces a choice on you that completely changes the Fallout 4 world you’ve built. Well, “force” is not quite the right word, because you can choose to remain your decent, upstanding Minute Man General self, but if you go this way, you’ll miss out on a raft of new privileges and perks. If you go the other way, you lose all the work you’ve put into crafting your settlements and establishing their happiness.
To say that Nuka World is a game-changer is an understatement. Here’s the deal:
Nuka World is a huge amusement park built by the Nuka Cola Corporation. It borrows heavily from Disney but probably also owes some of its ideas to Universal, Knott’s Berry Farm, Six Flags Over Texas, and other mega-parks. I imagine there are also sneaky references to fictional places like Duff Gardens. The land mass is quite large, with acreage devoted to multiple discrete sub-parks, each with its own theme: Dry Rock Gulch, Kiddie Kingdom, the Galactic Zone, etc. Everything you would expect to see is there: huge rides, museums, restaurants, side-show attractions, etc. Of course, it’s all about 200 years old and overgrown with horrible mutated flora. Parts of it are so radio-active that you need a hazmat suit or power armor. Some of the fauna is new (e.g. bloodworms) and some is reskinned (e.g., gatorclaws). Minigames abound, as do interesting side quests. And, of course, if you want Nuka Cola, this is the place to be. Every flavor is available, along with interesting recipes for crafting.
As you’re probably aware, Nuka World has been partially claimed by raider gangs. If you’ve always wondered what it would be like to talk to raiders and form relationships with them, this is your DLC. The main quest introduces you to three factions: the Pack, the Disciples, and the Operators. Each gang has its own ideology. Pack members base their social structure on those of predatory animals, with an “alpha” in charge. They’re also slave traders. The Disciples are grounded wholly in violence, anarchy, and nihilism. The Operators value caps above all else and therefore are more refined than their competitors. Somewhat reminiscent of the Ventrue faction in Vampire: The Masquerade, the Operators are generally well-spoken, shrewd, and as elegant as raiders can reasonably be. The other gangs sit in the dirt and eat raw meat, but the Operators have place settings and napkins. I suspect that if the Sole Survivor never showed up, the natural evolution of Nuka World would eventually select the Operators as its dominant species.
Mags Black and her brother William lead the Operators. (Credit to Jspoelstra on the Fallout Wiki, which reduced this to postage-stamp size.)
Anyway, about the game-changer part:
If you decide to play out the raider story, you’ll end up co-opting, destroying, and enslaving your present settlements. This is inevitable because the raiders are determined to take over the entire Commonwealth. You end up creating new raider settlements, and since raiders don’t like to farm or perform other menial tasks, your “good” settlers become their chattel. As a result, everything about settlement building changes. You have to start over with the building aspect because your ties to the old ways have been broken. Nothing really functions as it once did, so you have to re-learn settlement crafting.
If you decide to kill all the raider bosses, you miss out on some attractive perks and interesting game functionality, but you keep what you’ve built (and Preston still likes you).
In spite of this dilemma, Nuka World is a much better DLC than Far Harbor. The world is full of things to do, people to meet, and lives to end. The loot is considerably improved, and the general amusement factor is much higher in every way. Beware, though: you should be about level 30 before starting. Even then, you’ll probably get your gluteus maximus handed to you.
No Bethesda DLC is worth the retail asking price, but Nuka World is a good sale acquisition.
8/10 bottlecaps
Now that I’m level 114 in Fallout 4, I’m pretty sure I’ve killed almost everything and visited almost every place. I do still find weird locations, like the Electrician’s Hobby Club, and I have yet to come across muppet’s sentry bot eternally awaiting guests at its tea party. I also have yet to start Nuka-World because I have to make absolutely sure I’m at the very end-end game before committing to it (the changes it makes are catastrophic). So mostly what I do these days is provoke gunfights in the Quincy Ruins and embellish my settlements.
I’m still having a good time with all the DLC stuff, and I have discovered some interesting things about making my settlers happy.
So be sure to coddle your settlers. Really high happiness in Vault 88 results in a population wishing they could give you birthday presents and write songs about you. No joke.
Also, be sure to arm your settlers with all the high-level weapons you collect from enemies. An assault rifle will keep your people alive longer than a pipe pistol.
I’m prepared for greatness. How about you?
I saw this last night. Just keep watching. As in all Jane Austen novels, patience will be rewarded.
The trailers try to make this out to be a zombie movie with strange Regency characters incidentally borrowed from Pride and Prejudice. In truth, it’s one of the best P&P adaptations ever made (no joke) and just happens to be set in a Regency under siege by the undead. Young women are placed on the marriage market, just as they are in Austen, but in addition to music, French, drawing, and dancing, one of their principal accomplishments must be combat.
The intermixing of Austen’s story and the zombie apocalypse is surprisingly skillful and extremely funny. Everything from the book is here — the Darcy/Elizabeth relationship, the Bennet/Collins entailment problem, the Wickham/Lydia elopement — the whole thing. The plot even manages to emphasize the class/money conflict so important to Austen, except that it’s adapted for the zombie problem. The Bennet sisters are in a precarious middle-class economic situation owing to the entailment of their father’s estate. Therefore, their father can only afford to send them to China for combat training as opposed to Japan, where the aristocracy goes. This is partly the basis for Mr. Darcy and Caroline Bingley’s contempt for the Bennet family. Other plot alterations relate to the zombie problem and are so ingeniously blended into the original story that you just go with it.
If you haven’t seen this, prioritize it on your Netflix list. If at all possible, read the novel first.
http://www.janeausten.org/pride-and-prejudice/pride-and-prejudice-online.asp
Recently, Fallout 4 and its DLC were on sale on Steam, so I got the DLCs I didn’t have. (Yes, I should have gotten the Season Pass back when it was $30, but I was silly.)
I may talk later about what you get in the DLCs, but for the nonce, here are some shots of my vault in progress (which is massive — this is only the beginning):
I’m also downloading the Special Edition of Skyrim, which I got free and which I probably won’t touch for ages while I mess with my vault and the other FO4 DLC. I also bought Shadow Warrior 2 and have temporarily abandoned it for the same reason.
